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See the main problem then, is not a problem with if websites are obese or paper thin, the question is are websites and our browsers doing a good job of using al

See the main problem then, is not a problem with if websites are obese or paper thin, the question is are websites and our browsers doing a good job of using already existing features for helping users. I think we should be complaining about developers and admins who doesn't enable gzipping, we should be angry with the fact some websites don't even bother setting headers to cache static resources. We should not be throwing out hands up in air screaming crisis because our web is becoming more useful.

exodust 10y ago
"Useful" doesn't need to mean bloated. You seem to miss the point that many websites these days are bloated even basic articles. We don't need a V8 engine and oversize tyres to go buy milk and bread. You're forgetting that mobile devices quickly run out of cache memory. This includes iPads. You might visit a news site once every few days, but quite often the same resources need downloading again and again because your iPad has not kept them in cache memory because it ran out already. Desktop browsers have a lot more capacity to keep web resources cached. Not only that, but RAM memory is also limited on mobile devices. Forget about expecting multiple websites to remain in memory across numerous tabs. My iPad3 can pretty much handle only one tab open. If I switch tabs to another website, then switch back, the whole page loads again. A less bloated web would help this issue. And then there's accessibility for low-speed areas. Did you even read the article?
tracker1 10y ago
Most static servers enable If-Modified-Since header, as well as other detections... Cache sizes, specifically on mobile are very small, and ineffective... it's more often than not, a very small http request to recheck if a cached file is still valid. Optimizing images is a pretty huge thing, as is enabling gz compression on the streams... these two alone add up to far more saving than setting cache headers, not that they can't or shouldn't be set.

exodust 10y ago

"Useful" doesn't need to mean bloated. You seem to miss the point that many websites these days are bloated even basic articles. We don't need a V8 engine and oversize tyres to go buy milk and bread. You're forgetting that mobile devices quickly run out of cache memory. This includes iPads. You might visit a news site once every few days, but quite often the same resources need downloading again and again because your iPad has not kept them in cache memory because it ran out already. Desktop browsers have a lot more capacity to keep web resources cached. Not only that, but RAM memory is also limited on mobile devices. Forget about expecting multiple websites to remain in memory across numerous tabs. My iPad3 can pretty much handle only one tab open. If I switch tabs to another website, then switch back, the whole page loads again. A less bloated web would help this issue. And then there's accessibility for low-speed areas. Did you even read the article?

tracker1 10y ago

Most static servers enable If-Modified-Since header, as well as other detections... Cache sizes, specifically on mobile are very small, and ineffective... it's more often than not, a very small http request to recheck if a cached file is still valid. Optimizing images is a pretty huge thing, as is enabling gz compression on the streams... these two alone add up to far more saving than setting cache headers, not that they can't or shouldn't be set.