Reading articles on a phone in the 2020s is almost impossible—mobile designers seem intent on hiding the article you want to read. First there's the banner at the top of the site, which follows you as you scroll. That's bad enough, but some sites add another banner that follows you at the bottom of the screen, generally with an ad, a newsletter signup form, and a reminder that the app "works better" than the website. Keep scrolling and the text of the article will be interrupted several times between the top and bottom bars. It's a mess. And there's a workaround, of sorts: requesting the desktop version of a site.

Reading articles on a phone in the 2020s is almost impossible—mobile designers seem intent on hiding the article you want to read. First there's the banner at the top of the site, which follows you as you scroll. That's bad enough, but some sites add another banner that follows you at the bottom of the screen, generally with an ad, a newsletter signup form, and a reminder that the app "works better" than the website. Keep scrolling and the text of the article will be interrupted several times between the top and bottom bars. It's a mess. And there's a workaround, of sorts: requesting the desktop version of a site.

DANNY VAN KOOTEN is a Dutch programmer who decided to reduce his carbon output by no longer eating beef or flying. Then, five months ago, he made a change that had an even bigger impact—and it took only a few keystrokes. Van Kooten is the author of a popular WordPress plug-in that helps website owners use the mailing-list service Mailchimp. Install van Kooten's plug-in and visitors can sign up for your Mailchimp list directly via a form embedded on your site. His plug-in also makes the site slightly larger by adding several thousand more lines of code. Every time someone visits your page, a server has to send part of van Kooten's code to their browser. Sending data to a browser uses energy; the less code you send, the less energy you use.