[HN Gopher] Is the web getting slower?
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Is the web getting slower?
Author : oedmarap
Score : 45 points
Date : 2020-09-08 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.debugbear.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.debugbear.com)
| chews wrote:
| Does a bear poop in the woods? Is the earth round?
| hinkley wrote:
| So... "mostly"?
| mjevans wrote:
| Hellish AutoPlay Videos... a plague.
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| No, it's faster. Disable JS and - what continues to work, which
| is quite a bit - is snappy. It's also snappier than it was a
| decade ago, even 3 years ago, very clearly so.
|
| But while people will accept JS and general online abuse, it will
| get worse.
| ErikAugust wrote:
| This is one reason I created Trim [0]. I didn't want to have to
| load 4-7 MB of stuff to read a stupid article. It often reduces
| an article page weight by 99% and uses no JavaScript.
|
| [0]: https://beta.trimread.com
| pmoriarty wrote:
| This is one of the main reasons why I do 90% of my web browsing
| in emacs-w3m, which does not support Javascript.
|
| Avoiding Javascript also not only lets me avoid that bloat and
| slowdown, but also avoid Javascript-based tracking, malware,
| and exposing myself to Javascript vulnerabilities.
|
| I also have the power of the entire Emacs ecosystem at my
| fingertips when I surf the web this way, which can be very
| helpful in many ways.
|
| Unfortunately, some sites I find essential will not work
| without Javascript, and for them I go back to Firefox.
|
| In Firefox, I use uMatrix and uBlock Origin to only allow
| through the minimal amount of stuff that'll let the web page
| work, and filter out ads.
|
| I have a really old, slow laptop, so web browsing is slow for
| me, but not nearly as slow as it would be if consented to
| swallow all the crap that the modern web tries to force down my
| throat.
|
| I yearn for the good old days without Javascript or
| Webassembly. There was Flash back in those days, but
| fortunately not a single serious site I ever visited required
| it, so I could avoid every Flash-using site like the plague.
| But today the Javascript plague is unavoidable.
| darepublic wrote:
| Is this similar to outline?
| ErikAugust wrote:
| Similar, different in design and execution. As far as I know,
| Outline processes the article in browser using JavaScript.
| Trim uses no JavaScript but instead does the processing
| server-side. The response of the form post is the article.
| tcbasche wrote:
| I immediately thought it was the document management system
| bought by IBM in the early 2000s
|
| https://www.ecmconnection.com/doc/tower-software-trim-contex...
| nikanj wrote:
| Yes. Fortunately hardware is getting faster, which mostly
| compensates. But the web has definitely turned into a bloated
| whale
| SigmundA wrote:
| "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away"
| victornomad wrote:
| Yes!
|
| I have the feeling that most of modern websites use too many
| cpu&gpu resources. My computer is just 5 years old and each time
| I visit a modern website my computer really suffers.
|
| Please designers and engineers, I don't own the last macbook pro
| with maxed out specs and my internet connection is quite normal.
|
| Start creating for the rest of us who don't have the resources or
| interest in upgrading the computer every couple of years!
| paxys wrote:
| Also see Downs-Thomson paradox
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox) -
| improvements in a road network will not reduce traffic
| congestion, but rather can make it worse.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| Only applies "to regions in which the vast majority of peak-
| hour commuting is done on rapid transit systems with separate
| rights of way" according to your link. I think that's an
| important qualification.
| wayne_skylar wrote:
| I've always had a question about this. If more people are
| deciding to use the road afterwards surely it means that trips
| are being taken that weren't before? Wouldn't that be a good
| thing, economically speaking?
| zamadatix wrote:
| That description fits Braess's paradox
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox more than the
| Downs-Thomson paradox. The latter is more about public
| transport being the dominating factor in congestion whereas the
| former is about adding roads in itself sometimes causing
| traffic to get worse.
|
| In either case it's often overstated, expanding the road
| network (especially intelligently) usually results in less
| congestion. It's just a poor investment compared to other means
| of transportation investment in large cities.
| Funes- wrote:
| Yes. It's the Jevons' paradox enabled _and_ amplified by the
| corporate web abusing JavaScript (bloat, ads, trackers, and other
| attention-grabbing shenanigans).
| Swizec wrote:
| It's important to make a distinction between webapps and websites
| here. We use the web now like we used desktop in the 90's and
| 00's.
|
| For most users, your browser is your OS. Hell even when it isn't,
| most desktop apps use HTML+CSS for their UI. Hell even many user-
| facing "embedded" apps (like TVs) are running linux with chrome
| and showing a webapp as their UI.
|
| The layout engine is just that good and convenient. And
| downloading fresh app source on every visit solves a lot of
| problems.
|
| This part of the web is getting bloated and slow.
|
| On the other hand are websites. These are fat as heck thanks to
| CDN and broadband and advances in server compute power. They load
| faster than ever.
|
| Remember when downloading memes required eMule? I do.
|
| Now I go to imgur and watch 30MB high def gifs like it's nothing.
| My 13 year old self would shit his pants in awe.
|
| Are ads and trackers bloating websites? Yes. Are most websites
| built like webapps even when there's no need? Yes.
|
| Blame tooling. Go help. What can we as a profession do to make it
| easier for random developers with no skill build faster better
| websites?
|
| Right now we're actively telling everyone they need to build as
| if they're FAANG. Then we complain when a part time dev working
| for a mom&pop shop can't wrangle all this tooling built for teams
| of 1000's into a solid experience.
| TiredGuy wrote:
| >Blame tooling. Go help.
|
| This might be an opportune time to mention my attempt at
| helping. I made barleytea.js [1] as a light framework
| alternative to React that needs no webpack. I also recommend
| much more polished, production-ready things like uce [2] and
| heresy [3].
|
| Anyway I just want people to know that there are lightweight
| alternatives out there, and they're worth at least checking
| out.
|
| https://gitlab.com/andrewfulrich/barleytea
| https://github.com/WebReflection/uce
| https://github.com/WebReflection/heresy
| sreekotay wrote:
| This is an under rated comment - likely due to length :P
|
| TL;DR - the web has gotten WIDER since 2013. A lot.
| qwertygnu wrote:
| It's been three minutes, how could it already be underrated?
| ecmascript wrote:
| Just like most things, the answer is "it depends" since it's
| really not that simple. This is a great article but the answer
| seems obvious to me.
|
| The web today is starting to get divided into apps and sites. HN
| is a site for example. It is small, loads fast etc and works well
| for it's intended use case.
|
| When I listen to music or podcasts in a web site, I want it to
| act like an app and for that to happen more stuff has to happen
| in the client. Thus leading to a longer load time and execution
| time. This is something I can live with though, since I can do
| stuff on the web that was impossible just a few years ago. I am
| also developing apps that was impossible to do on the web a few
| years ago.
|
| I want to use both sites like looking up that store and order
| some stuff and apps like doing design or consuming music and
| video.
|
| I prefer web apps that are done well rather than native apps. I
| don't have to download anything and they are free from the
| shackles of Apple, Google and Microsoft. Also, you don't have to
| make them bloated and big. You don't have to use a framework. You
| can use web components and maybe some small router library and
| you have the most important stuff a front end framework gives
| you.
|
| Just check fastmail, their client is super fast and is a very
| well done SPA app. Then you can look at Reddit, which is a
| horrible mess. Like any app, any language you can make the
| experience shitty and you can make it awesome.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Going to certain webpage is like cold starting jvm.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| You'd be able to boot an x86 emulator in JavaScript to a Groovy
| prompt in just a few seconds, so probably faster than you can
| load any major news site except text.npr.org ;)
| shaabanban wrote:
| Try to use reddit in a browser...
| jcims wrote:
| new.reddit.com - 327 requests, 8mb, 7 seconds -
| https://tools.pingdom.com/#5d1bf3f952400000
|
| news.ycombinator.com - 7 requests, 22kb, .125 seconds -
| https://tools.pingdom.com/#5d1bf4a4f8400000
|
| The hilarous thing is that if you put in https://www.reddit.com
| to pingdom's measurement tool, reddit returns the old site
| layout. https://tools.pingdom.com/#5d1bf3c4e3800000
|
| edit: Just poked around a bit to find best worst examples.
| Unsurprisingly CNN is the worst I could find after a few mins -
| https://tools.pingdom.com/#5d1bf596ffc00000 543(!) requests,
| 9mb, 6 seconds. Just stroll through the list of bullshit it
| sucks into the front page...what a mess.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Try old.reddit.com
|
| Also, it's possible to browser Reddit through non-web-
| browsing applications that use the Reddit API.
| judge2020 wrote:
| CNN Lite on the other hand - https://lite.cnn.com/en
| klerpi wrote:
| Try it with awwwards websites. A spinning wheel is almost a
| requirement.
| allenu wrote:
| It genuinely feels like being on dial-up in the old days. I
| frequently visit reddit using Safari on my iPad and it often
| takes a good 3-5 seconds for the new page to load after I tap
| on a link. If anything, it at least dissuades me from wasting
| time on the site.
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(page generated 2020-09-08 23:00 UTC)