Lite & Text Only News and other Websites

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INDEX

INDEX : PAGE 2

About This Website

Mainly just trying to keep a list of lightweight, News, Sports, Weather, Search Engines, Cooking, Tech News, and Aggregator Websites.There's a bunch of other stuff to explore as well.

The goal is to keep page download sizes around 2 Megabytes or less, for the News, Sports, Weather, Cooking, & Tech News websites.

I test all page sizes using my browsers developer tools with caching disabled.

All news sites where tested and updated between 08-03-2025 & 12-01-2025

Art by Yuuta Toyoi aka 104uuu. Source : nitter

News

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If you can't find a link, it might be in the Dead section

  • (http Only)ABYZ News Links is a directory of links to online news sources from around the world.
    Details

    Not a news site, but an easy way to look up all news papers in my area. Warning : Kind of out of date with an http warning haha.

    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 318 B 487 B
  • NPR Text National Public Radio
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 5.93 kB 2.99 kB
  • News Waffle News Gateway on the Gemini Protocol
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 12.35 kB 12.75 kB
  • The Guardian Partial mirror through Gemini protocol
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 34.34 kB 35.81 kB
  • Magical Fish News News page from Magical Fish
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size Last Checked
    Text 60 kB 62 kB 11-30-2025
  • CNN Lite Cable News Network
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 253.80 kB 41.80 kB
  • CBC Lite Canadian Broadcast Corporation
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size Last Updated
    Images Optional 9.21 kB 3.39 kB 12-01-2025
  • HRW Text Human Rights Watch
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Images Optional 444.39 kB 146.21 kB
  • Skinny Guardian The Guardian
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Main Headline Images Only 16.76 kB 7.19 kB
  • Harvard Law Review  , About Harvard Law Review
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 1.15 MB 495.42 kB
  • Phil Gyford’s Daily Edition of The Guardian
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Minimal Images 1.17 MB 1.05 MB
  • FOSS Phones Free and Open Source Software Phone News
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 9.17 kB 6.75 kB
  • Indie web News Community-curated list of articles relevant to the Indie Web.
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Aggregator 244.15 kB 246.21 kB
  • Yale Environment 360 Online magazine offering opinion, analysis, reporting, and debate on global environmental issues.
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Has Images 2.05 MB 1.10 MB
  • Cambridge News Section
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Has Images 1.66 MB 793.24 kB
  • Science Daily Your source for the latest research news
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Minimal Images 489 kb 132 kb
  • News Minimalist (A.I. Summaries) All news ranked by significance. The full summaries are a paid service but they do link to to Wikipedia articles they are referencing.
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Minimal Images 1.97 MB 421 kb
  • News Minimalist News letter (A.I. Summaries) The only newsletter proven to have only important news. Trusted by 10,000+ readers.
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Minimal Images 1.97 MB 421 KB
  • Anti War Devoted to the cause of non-interventionism
    Details

    .. and is read by libertarians, pacifists, leftists, "greens," and independents alike, as well as many on the Right who agree with our opposition to imperialism.

    Type Page size Download Size
    Minimal Images 289 kB 205 kB
  • gopherpedia.com Gopher interface to Wikipedia
  • Gemipedia
  • wikipedia Wikipedia Main Page
  • LegibleNews Legible News judiciously links off to Wikipedia articles that people can read to get more context behind an issue and learn stuff. (Paywall for extra features)
  • News As FactsNews (from Wikipedia) and market data (from CNBC). Parses the current events deemed important by the open Wikipedia community and present them in the most accessible and readable format we can think of
  • Wikipedia Current Event Summaries Portal
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Minimal Images 1.45 MB 435.21 kB

NOTE: If you have a local NPR public run news site, you can put /text to the end of the domain to view the text only version of the website (if it has one). You can also try putting a text. sub-domain before typing in the Top Level Domain.

Here are some examples : (I can't list all due to it being hundreds of website)

Text Only Websites That aren't lite

These websites are text only, but full of trackers, scripts, etcetera. Only lite with a properly configured adblocker

Some Other News Stuff

These are here either because they aren't exactly lite, i haven't categorized them, or their just oddballs that I find fun to read

  • Collect Space News Space history and artifacts articles
    Details

    Space history and artifacts articles

    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text & Images 158 kB 82 kB 12-01-2025
  • Relief Web Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7
    Details

    ReliefWeb is the leading humanitarian information service provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). We deliver fast, reliable updates from 4,000+ sources, including NGOs, governments and research centers to the humanitarian community.

    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text & Images 5.18 MB 118 kB 12-01-2025
  • Research Buzz News & Info about Search Engines
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text & Images 137 kB 143 kB 12-01-2025
  • SEO Theory attempts to explain how systems and their processes interact
    Details

    Algorithm analysis, Web community relationship analysis, SEO practices and techniques, industry news, etc.

    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text & Images 1.00 MB 987 kB 12-01-2025
  • Soylent News is people
    Details

    We are a volunteer-powered news aggregation site that deliver articles about technology, science, and general interest. We also host public discussion and utilize a powerful comment moderation system. This is an open-source, community-driven project and evolves based on the will of the community.

    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text (Mostly) 42 kB 58 kB 12-01-2025
  • Unredacted National Security Archive Blog
    Details

    An independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States.

    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text & Images 152 kB 155 kB 12-01-2025
  • kidl.at Philiipines News Satire website
    Details

    Kidlat News is a low-bandwidth, text-only news satire website, with a focus on Philippine news and current events. We may use the names and photos of public figures or actual businesses in our articles, but the stories themselves are invented. In all other cases, any similarity to actual persons, businesses or events is purely coincidental and unintentional.

    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text 3.03 kB 3.80 kB 12-01-2025
  • Freedom Press
    Details

    Protecting and defending press freedom when we need it most

    Type Page size Download Size Date Checked
    Text & Images 1.97 MB 1.86 MB 12-01-2025
  • NS Archive Doubled In Size Since The Last Test
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    7.08 MB 3.27 MB
  • Propublica
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    8.62 MB 3.71 MB
  • justice.gov/news
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    Text 2.97 MB 844.32 kB
  • commerce.gov/news
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    4.40 MB 1.81 MB
  • cia.gov/the-world-factbook The CIA World Factbook
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    6.55 MB 2.53 MB
  • straightdope.com People ask questions. Cecil answered them. Homepage is small, but alot stuff runs in the backround after clicking articles
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    UBlock 4.38 MB 1.96 MB
  • wtfhappenedin1971.com Interesting, but biased
    Details
    Type Page size Download Size
    7.91 MB 6.69 MB

Sports

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Weather

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Search

Read, Search Engines With Their Own Indexes, for more info on search engines.

Cooking

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Tech

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News Aggregators

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I define aggregators as websites that link to other websites. Some aggregators will scrape headlines but load a stripped down version of the page on their website and some have a social aspect to them. Those won't be listed under this section.

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