7 ms·

I'm on a pretty fast line, and I am sometimes appalled with how long it takes pages to load, and often it comes down to loading content I have no interest in:

by jerrya 14y ago

I'm on a pretty fast line, and I am sometimes appalled with how long it takes pages to load, and often it comes down to loading content I have no interest in: * comments * ads and images * headers * sidebars * toolbars * menus * social network tools * meebo bars (really google, really?) * javascript to load all of the above crap The amazing thing is how often I can't even begin to read the page for what seems like much of a minute as the page takes so long to render, or various pieces of the page jump, and shift and scroll. I find that tools that localhost various ad servers help, and other tools that load the crap but keep it off the page help like adblock plus, but even more so, adblock plus' filters that let me shitcan all the crap. One of these days I want to write an extension similar to adblock plus that seeks out and removes jquery crap. A lot of the reasons I can't read pages anymore seems to be jquery slideshows, jquery toolbars, jquery popups and the like. I am pretty sure that graphing this out and we find the end of the web occurs sometime in 2018 when page designers and their bosses and engineers and marketing pukes have so larded down pages that the net runs out of available bandwidth and any page takes 4:33 to load.

SquareWheel 14y ago
If using Adblock Plus already, you might consider using fanboy's Annoyances list. It removes a fair bit of web clutter (though I often block unneeded elements on sites I frequent). https://secure.fanboy.co.nz/ https://secure.fanboy.co.nz/
wtallis 14y ago
> "One of these days I want to write an extension similar to adblock plus that seeks out and removes jquery crap. A lot of the reasons I can't read pages anymore seems to be jquery slideshows, jquery toolbars, jquery popups and the like." This might be something that NoScript's Surrogate Script feature could handle - it was originally developed to allow blocking Google Analytics without breaking sites that expected it to be loaded, and now includes surrogates for a lot of other junk.
erso 14y ago
There seems to be an expectation these days that everyone's on a 50Mbit+ connection with an ultra mega blazingly fast computer, and nobody tests their sites on anything but that setup. Example: The Verge. Chrome reports theverge.com as making 118 requests with 2.62MB transferred, taking 11.04s (onload: 6.42s, DOMContentLoaded: 3.32s). Kotaku: 234 requests, 1.35MB transferred, 11.93s (onload: 10.91s, DOMContentLoaded: 4.28s). I tested this on a maxed out 2010 MacBook Air, and that's with AdBlock Plus and ScriptNo. The Verge is basically unusable while it loads and Chrome struggles to render it after it has loaded while scrolling on my machine. This is all-too-common these days.
- Retric 14y ago
  For comparison: I got theverge.com in ~3 seconds from first click Using Chrome on a 40MB FIOS connection i7 2500k @ 3.6ghz w SSD & 16GB RAM on windows 7 without add-block or no script. My PC is over a year old so it's probably the internet connection and then again the CPU is also 2-3+x as fast.
  - oxide 14y ago
    ...its not your connection. its the 10mb pageload.
- emp_ 14y ago
  Not disagreeing on ridiculous amount of requests, but The Verge (specially) and Kotaku audiences should lean towards high-end users.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    What if I'm trying to read their offerings on my phone or tablet? A lot of the things these pages load are not worth the time it takes to load them.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      They have mobile offerings. Theverge, in particular, Loads in about a second on my iPhone5.
lucian1900 14y ago
Ghostery takes care of several of those things.
lincolnbryant 14y ago
Funny blaming jQuery (one of the leanest frameworks, striving to only fix the browser, not provide app architecture). Disable that and not much of the web will work. Remember these same jQuery-ites want to ignore IE6 and 7 which is what the people he describes from around the world are way more likely to be using.
- lubujackson 14y ago
  Just because people have bad net connections doesn't mean they run out-of-date software. Does anyone know how true this is?
  - fauigerzigerk 14y ago
    I don't have a link right now, but I've seen lots of statistics that show much of the remaining IE6 traffic coming from China. Feature phone usage is also most prevalent in developing countries. I believe that out-of-date software and slow connections are highly correlated. New hardware and fast connections are the most expensive part of computing. Old (or very low cost) hardware doesn't run up-to-date software. So there you have the reason for that correlation.
    - mkuhn 14y ago
      AFAIK the IE6 traffic from China is caused by modded IE6 versions that are very popular in China and pirated Windows Versions which do not update the browser because Windows Update is not working / disabled.
  - lincolnbryant 14y ago
    I have heard this of internet cafes, specifically Central and South America. Fellow web developers have returned to describe Facebook Chat using a Java tool, etc.
001sky 14y ago
The amazing thing is how often I can't even begin to read the page... Cannot upvote this comment enough.

by jerrya 14y ago

SquareWheel 14y ago

If using Adblock Plus already, you might consider using fanboy's Annoyances list. It removes a fair bit of web clutter (though I often block unneeded elements on sites I frequent). https://secure.fanboy.co.nz/ https://secure.fanboy.co.nz/

wtallis 14y ago

> "One of these days I want to write an extension similar to adblock plus that seeks out and removes jquery crap. A lot of the reasons I can't read pages anymore seems to be jquery slideshows, jquery toolbars, jquery popups and the like." This might be something that NoScript's Surrogate Script feature could handle - it was originally developed to allow blocking Google Analytics without breaking sites that expected it to be loaded, and now includes surrogates for a lot of other junk.

erso 14y ago

There seems to be an expectation these days that everyone's on a 50Mbit+ connection with an ultra mega blazingly fast computer, and nobody tests their sites on anything but that setup. Example: The Verge. Chrome reports theverge.com as making 118 requests with 2.62MB transferred, taking 11.04s (onload: 6.42s, DOMContentLoaded: 3.32s). Kotaku: 234 requests, 1.35MB transferred, 11.93s (onload: 10.91s, DOMContentLoaded: 4.28s). I tested this on a maxed out 2010 MacBook Air, and that's with AdBlock Plus and ScriptNo. The Verge is basically unusable while it loads and Chrome struggles to render it after it has loaded while scrolling on my machine. This is all-too-common these days.

Retric 14y ago
For comparison: I got theverge.com in ~3 seconds from first click Using Chrome on a 40MB FIOS connection i7 2500k @ 3.6ghz w SSD & 16GB RAM on windows 7 without add-block or no script. My PC is over a year old so it's probably the internet connection and then again the CPU is also 2-3+x as fast.
- oxide 14y ago
  ...its not your connection. its the 10mb pageload.
emp_ 14y ago
Not disagreeing on ridiculous amount of requests, but The Verge (specially) and Kotaku audiences should lean towards high-end users.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  What if I'm trying to read their offerings on my phone or tablet? A lot of the things these pages load are not worth the time it takes to load them.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    They have mobile offerings. Theverge, in particular, Loads in about a second on my iPhone5.

lucian1900 14y ago

Ghostery takes care of several of those things.

lincolnbryant 14y ago

Funny blaming jQuery (one of the leanest frameworks, striving to only fix the browser, not provide app architecture). Disable that and not much of the web will work. Remember these same jQuery-ites want to ignore IE6 and 7 which is what the people he describes from around the world are way more likely to be using.

lubujackson 14y ago
Just because people have bad net connections doesn't mean they run out-of-date software. Does anyone know how true this is?
- fauigerzigerk 14y ago
  I don't have a link right now, but I've seen lots of statistics that show much of the remaining IE6 traffic coming from China. Feature phone usage is also most prevalent in developing countries. I believe that out-of-date software and slow connections are highly correlated. New hardware and fast connections are the most expensive part of computing. Old (or very low cost) hardware doesn't run up-to-date software. So there you have the reason for that correlation.
  - mkuhn 14y ago
    AFAIK the IE6 traffic from China is caused by modded IE6 versions that are very popular in China and pirated Windows Versions which do not update the browser because Windows Update is not working / disabled.
- lincolnbryant 14y ago
  I have heard this of internet cafes, specifically Central and South America. Fellow web developers have returned to describe Facebook Chat using a Java tool, etc.

001sky 14y ago

The amazing thing is how often I can't even begin to read the page... Cannot upvote this comment enough.