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> This is why we’ve been focused on identifying and fixing slow interactions from Chrome users’ field data, which is the authoritative source when it comes to r
by scottlamb 2y ago
> This is why we’ve been focused on identifying and fixing slow interactions from Chrome users’ field data, which is the authoritative source when it comes to real user experiences. We gather this field data by recording anonymized Perfetto traces on Chrome Canary, and report them using a privacy-preserving filter.
This is a great example of the positive value to the user of this kind of telemetry. Of course this doesn't mean people aren't also right to fear it's used in ways that aren't in their best interest. No clear moral here, just a data point.
- csande17 2y agoCouldn't this particular issue have been discovered just as easily by visiting a bunch of websites in a lab, rather than collecting website performance data from end users?
- scottlamb 2y agoSure, but there's always the question of how realistic your test is in terms of websites you choose, the way you use them, your hardware setup, etc. I think their "Chrome users’ field data ... is the authoritative source when it comes to real user experiences" is totally valid.
- eviks 2y agoThere are always questions, like whether your telemetry is measuring things correctly or not introducing more slowdowns, so it's not that authoritative So this isn't a great example because you can indeed see that many requests are redundant and are frequent by visiting a few sites: these facts don't depend on any hardware etc.
- orf 2y agoThey might well depend on available hardware, given the specific nature of the problem (multiple processes and the level of concurrency within). Ultimately the source of truth is actual end-user performance. If you’re not measuring that directly, then you’re hoping what you’re doing is a proxy for end-user performance. Sometimes a suitable proxy is available. Often, it’s not.
- scottlamb 2y agoI strongly disagree. If you just "visit a few sites", you'll almost certainly find something you can optimize, but you have no way of knowing how significant it is in terms of how many sites/user/visits it affects, how its performance impact compares to say decreasing CPU cache pressure, etc. Telemetry can answer this stuff, and it can be both lightweight and accurate. I'm a big fan of looking at actual performance data (though I've mostly worked on the server side where gathering it isn't as controversial). The goal isn't (shouldn't be) to just find a bunch of things to optimize but instead to achieve the best balance between complexity and the experience for the vast majority of users given limited engineering resources.
- eviks 2y agoWhy wound you visit a "few sites" when you can visit thousands? > you have no way of knowing how significant it is in terms of how many sites/user/visits it affects The way of knowing is getting site visiting statistics > I'm a big fan of looking at actual performance data And you'd be looking at exactly that - actual performance data on representative hardware on representative websites, but with more flexibility and more data available given the fact both parts are yours and you can collect anything without any privacy concerns
- scottlamb 2y ago> Why wound you visit a "few sites" when you can visit thousands? A "few sites" was a quote from your earlier comment. [1] You're moving the bar. Perhaps you're seeing it isn't quite as easy as you first thought to do a good job with this. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40570930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40570930