Every byte counts

Overbrowsing is an applied research group focused on advancing sustainable web practices. Established as part of doctoral research at The University of Edinburgh's Institute for Design Informatics, we blend inquiry with action to develop research-driven solutions that reduce the environmental impact of the internet and improve accessibility, aligning technological potential with environmental stewardship.

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Our principal research interest is developing methods to measure the environmental impact of the web across time, making its cumulative carbon footprint visible by grounding the abstract cloud in material, historical data, and enabling more informed approaches to sustainable web design.

Our research

Paper • Wasteback Machine: a method for quantitative measurement of the archived web

Mahoney, D. (2026). Wasteback Machine: a method for quantitative measurement of the archived web. Information Research: An International Electronic Journal, 31 (iConf), 448-464. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31iConf64185

Paper • The growing environmental impact of COP websites: An analysis of UNFCCC COP host country websites (1995-2025)

Mahoney, D., Terras, M., Lee, J., Zeller, F. (2025). The growing environmental impact of COP websites: An analysis of UNFCCC COP host country websites (1995-2025). PLOS Climate, 4(11), e0000767. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000767

Wasteback Machine

Wasteback Machine is a JavaScript library for analysing archived web pages, measuring their size and composition to enable retrospective, quantitative web research.