Well, regardless what tech stack makes it possible, when my phone data is throttled to ~55kbps Piefed is perfectly usable and most sites are not.
Nergon
Some features of the site (like responding to your comment) require JS, but I just tried blocking JS with uBlock and I was able to use most of the site perfectly fine.
I am not sure about strict mode on Tor, but you should totally report back if it works. Give it a shot!
Welcome aboard! Linux Mint was the first distro I daily drove, so it still has a special place in my heart even though I haven't used it in years. One quick tip, check out SaveDesktop It's not a proper backup utility, but it makes it very quick and easy to restore all your apps, settings, and layouts if something ever breaks / you switch distros / you want to experiment with multiple desktop layouts.
Hello from Piefed! I was a regular on Lemmy and Mastodon for years, but I migrated to Piefed because it is much more lightweight.
The features page shows some differences between Piefed and Lemmy - https://join.piefed.social/features/ Mostly, I appreciate that it is written in Python, so more developers in the community may easily understand and contribute to the code base, and that it is so lightweight. When I connect to the internet I always have to consider data caps, so it's a relief when websites make a genuine effort to be efficient. I can reliably browse the fediverse through Piefed even when my access is throttled to 50Kbps download.
It's excellent for learning, though. When I started using Linux I had no idea what the differences between distros were. Having to "translate" or adapt solutions from the ArchWiki to Debian, Fedora, etc. taught me a lot about using Linux and how my computer worked.