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Are Ad Servers Bogging Down the Web?
blackbearnh writes "The work of making high-volume web sites perform well is an ongoing challenge, and one that continues to evolve as the nature of web content changes. According to Google Performance Guru Steve Souders, fat JavaScript libraries and rich content are creating new problems for web site tuning, but one of the biggest problems lies outside the control of web site administrators — ad servers. In an interview previewing the upcoming Velocity Online conference run by O'Reilly, Souders talks at length about the real causes of poor web performance today, and in particular, the effect that poorly performing ad servers are creating. 'We adopted a framework of inserting ads, of creating ads, that's pretty simple. And because it's pretty simple, it's not highly tuned. That's one reason why we shouldn't be too surprised that we see performance issues in third party ads. The other reason is that ad services are not focused on technology. Certainly companies like Yahoo and Google and Microsoft, we're technology companies. We focus on technology. So it's not surprising that our web developers are on the leading edge of adopting these performance best practices. And it's also not surprising that ad services might lag two, three or four years behind where these web technology companies are.'"
The solution is simple: /etc/hosts
vi
add:
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 twx.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.uk.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 googleads.g.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 partner.googleadservices.com
127.0.0.1 analytics.live.com
127.0.0.1 ads1.msn.com
etc.
Second biggest offender is usually Google Analytics.
That's why it's usually interesting to host the JavaScript file, that seldom changes on your webserver, and only have the img that conveys the data retrieved from the foreign host.
JavaScript loading is usually blocking the rendering whereas img loading usually not.
The solution is simple: /etc/hosts
...
vi
add:
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
etc.
Even easier, as I thankfully learned from Slashdot a long time ago, this downloadable MVPS hosts file instantly prevents connecting to ads, spyware as well as other "parasites" and is constantly updated.
Since adopting it, I no longer wait for ad servers and a side benefit is not even being exposed to the ads!
I have FlashBlock, but that doesn't stop sites from using Flash cookies, whether or not a flash movie is even played.
If you use Firefox, upgrade to version 3.5+ and install Better Privacy and you can blow away these nasties (each one can be up to 100kb binary data by default, with no expiration, ever), which btw are OS- and browser-independent. You will be shocked at the baggage they've saddled you with till now...
Top 3 addins for privacy: Better Privacy, AdBlock Plus, and NoScript, hands down imo.
From what I understand, it is. It's shown to those who have a high Karma, moderate, and meta-moderate. So, the good users. :)
It's been on mine for several months, so I've been happy. :) I'm guessing it was about the time they implemented it, since I've been doing all the stuff above for years.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.