Google Data Compression on Chrome helps a lot. At least on HTTP connections. Too bad this does not work for HTTPS sites were the web designers do not test and optimize enough for low bandwidth.
Or Opera Mini, which renders pages server-side and sends a minimal representation to your phone. They even managed to convince Apple they're not a browser, so there's an iOS version.
In my 56K days, the regular Opera was my browser of choice since it had a very useful toggle for loading images or not (or showing only cached ones, or letting you load them in afterwards without a painful page refresh cycle)
You can have a browser, you just can't use your own JS engine for it, only safari's, it also proxies everything through Opera, and delivers a better mobile representation.
Interesting. I tested Opera Mini after your comment and it seems kind of "dangerous" for me. It also saves a lot of bandwidth on HTTPS connections so I assume it intercepts and also server rendering those connections. Saves a lot of bandwidth for sure but this is a privacy nightmare.
