Modern, bloated websites are causing low-end devices to struggle

[midian182]

A hot potato: Modern websites that are unoptimized and bloated don't just mean slow loading times; they can completely fail to work on some lower-end devices. A recent report found that an entry-level phone, which was able to play PUBG at 40 fps, struggled with at several popular sites.

Danluu.com's 'How web bloat impacts users with slow devices' highlights the problem of how CPU performance for web apps hasn't scaled as quickly as bandwidth over the last few years, meaning more of the web is becoming inaccessible to people with low-end devices even if they have high-end connections.

To test website bloat, the report measured the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) time for several devices. LCP is the time duration between a user initiating a page load and the page rendering its primary content. Also shown is the amount of bandwidth demanded by each site.

The tests include the powerful Apple M3 Max, M3, and M1 Pro, as well as the low-end Intel P32 and Tecno S8C.

How web bloat impacts users with slow devices:https://t.co/O6Cb4u1KoW pic.twitter.com/0eri7AmVdT

– Dan Luu (@danluu) March 16, 2024

The most intensive site tested was Wix, loading 21MB of data for a single page. Patreon and Threads both loaded 13MB, while Twitter loaded 11MB and Discourse loaded 10MB.

As you can see in the results table, the more intensive – and some not-so-intensive – websites either took a long time to load on lower-end devices or failed to load. Tom's Hardware notes the Tecno Spark S8C, a phone common in emerging markets, can run PUBG Mobile at 40 fps but can't load Quora. Even the Apple M3 was slow to load Wix.

The report mentions how sites that use modern techniques like partially loading the page and then dynamically loading the rest of it, such as Discourse, Reddit, and Substack, tend to be less usable than the scores in the table indicate. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, sites that use dynamic loading tend to be complex enough that they are extremely janky on low-end devices.

Masthead: Matheus Bertelli

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/102297-modern-bloated-websites-causing-low-end-devices-struggle.html

 

[Disiw]

Which is part of the reason why adblockers are so popular.

Even on a high-end device it's just wasting power.

 

[winjer]

And this is just another reason with something like Ublock is essential to surf the web.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I see they havent learned from https://thebestmother****ing.website/ . Modern websites are poorly written messes, maintained by B- students only interested in a paycheck, and it is blatantly obvious the more you use the web, which is in the middle of the enshitification process.

You are morally correct to use an ad blocker. You are ethically correct to use an ad blocker. You are saving the environment by using an ad blocker.

 

[Uncle Al]

The industry obviously has no power to regulate itself and needs some kind of intervention ....

 

[FF222]

Which is part of the reason why adblockers are so popular. Even on a high-end device it's just wasting power.

Actually, ad blockers waste at least as much memory as ads, because of the large filter lists. Just google "ad blocker memory usage".

Ad blockers are popular because people love freeloading, and because that's the only way for low-life people to at least pretend they have control over at least some aspects of their lives.

 

[Disiw]

Actually, ad blockers waste at least as much memory as ads, because of the large filter lists. Just google "ad blocker memory usage".

Ad blockers are popular because people love freeloading, and because that's the only way for low-life people to at least pretend they have control over at least some aspects of their lives.

Talking about CPU and GPU usage, tons of ads on a page will make CPU/GPU surge and drain battery on mobile much faster or simply just use more power for desktop devices

Memory usage is easy to keep in check, adblockers use litterally nothing

Not to mention that webpages with ads all over looks like crap

 

[ShadowDeath]

Which is part of the reason why adblockers are so popular.

Even on a high-end device it's just wasting power.

Yep, a lot of these sites slow down because of trackers and ads. The servers that they connect to for ads and trackers are usually overwhelmed by all the ad requests. If not that they're on slower servers because they're trying to get the most money with the bare minimum amount of money spent.

Another issue is some sites load instantly on chromium based browsers but take a minute before they load on Firefox based browsers. A prime example of this is if you open nexus mods on Android.

 

[erickmendes]

Actually, ad blockers waste at least as much memory as ads, because of the large filter lists. Just google "ad blocker memory usage".

Ad blockers are popular because people love freeloading, and because that's the only way for low-life people to at least pretend they have control over at least some aspects of their lives.

I rather spend memory on ad block.

Also, I use ad blocks because I hate invasive ads while I'm reading some article, even on paid sites, I don't think it fits low-life behaviour.

Also going far fetched... ADs servers erh... serving less ads use less power. Lol

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Uhh the study is comparing low end devices common in emerging markets... He means Africa and India.

For instance, the Itel P32 is a 2018 phone (6 years old) with a 2016 MT6580M SoC (8 years old) that is "roughly comparable with the Nvidia Tegra 3" from 2011 (13 years ago). No wonder it can't run so many websites?

I also think Quora can be run on all devices tested except the Itel P32, even though the author's chart denotes otherwise. He makes no comment on the Tecno S8C being unable to run Quora in his blog, but he does comment on the Itel P32 failing to load Quora.

I'd also like to point out that the website conducting this study makes the following note, but doesn't even use any linked stylesheets on its page and it looks like plain HTML. They didn't even change the font... The guy who runs this study is practically a luddite. He could've added 2 or 3 stylesheet rules and made the site look much better at no performance cost, but he wants to make a statement instead. That shows this guy is biased with his "study":

Just as an aside, something I've found funny for a long time is that I get quite a bit of hate mail about the styling on this page (and a similar volume of appreciation mail). By hate mail, I don't mean polite suggestions to change things, I mean the equivalent of road rage, but for web browsing; web rage. I know people who run sites that are complex enough that they're unusable by a significant fraction of people in the world. How come people are so incensed about the styling of this site and, proportionally, basically don't care at all that the web is unusable for so many people?

 

[erickmendes]

He could've added 2 or 3 stylesheet rules and made the site look much better at no performance cost, but he wants to make a statement instead. That shows this guy is biased with his "study":

So now you can load his post with a fax machine under a minute.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Actually, ad blockers waste at least as much memory as ads, because of the large filter lists. Just google "ad blocker memory usage".

Ad blockers are popular because people love freeloading, and because that's the only way for low-life people to at least pretend they have control over at least some aspects of their lives.

Tell me again how 3 simultaneous ads on a 6.4" screen is okay.

 

[GoldenGoat]

It kind of seems like it's scripts that are slowing pages down rather than size of the content or memory used. Trying to collect a lot of data and send it to 100 different data brokers. I don't think the actual ads are the issue. It's what they do to determine which ad to show you.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

It kind of seems like it's scripts that are slowing pages down rather than size of the content or memory used. Trying to collect a lot of data and send it to 100 different data brokers. I don't think the actual ads are the issue. It's what they do to determine which ad to show you.

The ads are not helping. Multiple ad servers, which all need to authorize with the site and load apps in a specific format from a list of what is current, all done PAINFULLY slowly. I can disable it on my desktop *bleh* and the difference is immediately noticeable.

Be it scripts, ads, whatever, ad blockers fix it, because they kneecap these services which forces them to failover and move to the next step.

Actually, ad blockers waste at least as much memory as ads, because of the large filter lists. Just google "ad blocker memory usage".

Ad blockers are popular because people love freeloading, and because that's the only way for low-life people to at least pretend they have control over at least some aspects of their lives.

The memory use of an adblocker is trivial compared to the 10+ extra seconds a device will spend loading a site because of garbage ad servers in terms of power use.

 

[p51d007]

Actually, ad blockers waste at least as much memory as ads, because of the large filter lists. Just google "ad blocker memory usage".

Ad blockers are popular because people love freeloading, and because that's the only way for low-life people to at least pretend they have control over at least some aspects of their lives.

I white list a few sites. But here's my take on website ads.
If they were like ads in PRINT publications, I wouldn't block. But, a lot of sites have to have pop ups,
videos that play without users clicking on anything etc.

 

[Vanderlinde]

People really have no clue on how to properly build a website. It usually starts with wordpress. Oh I need a (big) layout that looks just as good as usually the demo content provided with it. So you need like 10 to 15 different plugins to get to that visual level. Those plugins load a TON of their own CSS, JS files and on top of that unoptimized images running into the megabytes per second.

Then you need a proper utility to "optimize" the website which adds basic things like caching, compression, minify of HTML, minify or combine of CSS, the minify or deferred loading of JS files, and obviously a beast of a server because sites like wordpress have the worst memory or CPU footprint of all time.

If I compare my sites which on server end consume on avg only 6MB compared to wordpress just eating even tho the caching has bin set through all sorts of levels (Litespeed, Object cache, CDN) over 250MB to spawn up one page.. It's just incredible to see how bad the internet has turned these days.

 

[daffy duck]

Memo to Techspot, this is one of the slowest loading websites I visit, across all browsers on gigabit internet.

 

[user478318]

uBlock will help