Is it safe to blame these centralized banner ad companies for the way so many of the Web sites I visit take forever to load? I notice this particularly with the various webcomics I read. I have a list of 30+ webcomics that I check every day, and webcomic sites tend to use a lot of the same ad clearinghouses. What prompts me to this question is the fact that when one of my webcomic sites decides to hang, they tend to all hang. (With the exceptions of a handful of webcomics that are clearly hobbies for their creators, not revenue sources, and so have little/no advertising.)
The main thing that makes me think it’s the ads doing it is the way these sites’ <TITLE> text will appear (the text that appears in the browser’s title bar/tab), and then nothing else on the page will load. I know this isn’t always simply the cached page title loading - several of the webcomics I read have <TITLE> text that changes daily or with each update, and I’ll see the new text, but nothing else. So I can tell I’m connecting to the server and the page is starting to load (the <TITLE> HTML tag is one of the very first elements on any HTML page), but then not getting any further.
I have a very fast fiber-optic Internet connection, and can download things very quickly. When a site loads properly, it loads quickly. I can play World of Warcraft for hours without noticeable connection slowdowns, but then switch out to my browser and try to load a site, only to have it hang on me. The ads are all I can think of to blame this on.
That said: Ad-blocking software. How do these programs/plug-ins work? Do they simply prevent the images from being displayed, or do they actively stop my browser from even trying to connect to the ad server? If the former, I don’t see ad-blockers being any help in this case. If the latter, I see potential.
For the record, I use a Mac, and primarily use the Safari browser. However, I have many different browsers installed, and have the same issue with all of them.
Well, if you provided the URLs to some of these sites, other people can try them and see if it takes them forever to load, too.
If it loads fine for them, then I imagine you’d have to start looking at stuff on your end for an answer.
Regarding the ad-block question, this is for the Ad Block Plus plugin
So it would appear that this would make you happy. There is one other thing to consider tho: that flash apps just hang your system for whatever reason (meaning, it might have nothing to do with the network latency involved in fetching the ad content from the ad server). I don’t know if this can explain why it happens to all your browsers tho. It is conceivable that they all use the same core Flash executable installed on your system, but I’m not sure.
I would tend to concur with the OP’s observation. I see alot of different machines every day and they all exhibit the same behavior on large/animated banner ads.
The best thing you can do is use Firefox with AdBlock Plus. Make sure it’s configured to grab the filter updates like EasyList. You can add your own entries and they remain even after the updates to the filter lists are applied. Very well done extension.
Two browsers is a pain, but between Firefox for most stuff and Internet Explorer for things that Must have Internet Explorer, I haven’t ever needed any other browser personally. And the Extensions make Firefox my favorite browser anyway. Add to that the ability to copy your profile directory to any other computer and there’s all your extensions, settings, and bookmarks, a 100% copied browser environment…
Well, I’ve gone ahead an installed an ad blocker for Safari, and the results look promising so far. Some of those sites that usually load slowly popped right up.
Really savvy sites that depend on ad revenue, such as Fark, make sure all their ad content loads before their site content, and as part of the index page, not as popups/downs/unders/overs. (Mmmm, popovers. ;)) They can be slow to load even with blockers installed.
I think that’s part of the problem I’m having - the code for the ad comes before everything else (browsers load content in the order it appears in the HTML), so if the ad won’t load, nothing that comes after it will load either because it’s all waiting for that first part to finish. It’s like being in line at the grocery store behind the old lady who waits until everything is rung up before she produces her coupons and starts digging for her checkbook
OTOH, I think “database-driven” sites are also part of the problem. If the database hiccups, the page content just ain’t gonna load. Witness this site right here.
