4 ms·
Decades ago they relentlessly optimised that page, shaving it down smaller and smaller. Then suddenly they stopped caring, round about the time they gave peopl
by Twirrim 3y ago
Decades ago they relentlessly optimised that page, shaving it down smaller and smaller. Then suddenly they stopped caring, round about the time they gave people customised landing pages with extra junk littering the page. It must have made a palpable difference to their connectivity and serving costs when they did that. That we're back down to a "paltry" 1.9MB (from a quick test I just did) is remarkable.. and yet so much more than it used to be.
- ppeetteerr 3y agoDo people visit the Google homepage anymore? I feel like the address bar of every browser is now the default means by which to search on Google.
- tlug 3y agoIt's unbelievable. I used too work for Google back in 2005 and they had a custom to welcome all Nooglers (new Googlers) on Friday general meeting, where Larry/Sergey were present an people could ask them any questions. So one guy stood up and asked why our main page is not compliant with W3C guidelines (doesn't pass HTML validator test). L&S answered that they need to shave off any unnecessary byte, so that it loads faster. That's why they didn't care about closing tags etc. How the world and perception has changed since that time... It's just sad that one needs a huge JS framework just to build a simple website these days. Oh and the size of the homepage was in the order of 20 KB then, IIRC.