Chrome Now Reloads Pages 28% Faster (techcrunch.com)

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Chrome Now Reloads Pages 28% Faster (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on Thursday January 26, 2017 @07:10AM from the faster-browsing dept.

Google has announced that it has worked with Facebook and Mozilla to make page reloads in Chrome for desktop and mobile significantly faster. According to Google's data, reloading sites with the latest version of Chrome should now be about 28 percent faster. From a report: Typically, when you reload a page, the browser ends up making hundreds of network requests just to see if the images and other resources it cached the first time you went to a site are still valid. As Google engineer Takashi Toyoshima notes in today's announcement, users typically reload pages because they either look broken or because the content looks like it should have been updated (think old-school live blogs). He argues that when browser developers first added this feature, it was mostly because broken pages were common. Today, users mostly reload pages because the content of a site seems stale.

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Umm, no... usually the page is broken. by zephvark · 2017-01-26 07:17 · Score: 3, Informative

I reload pages because they are broken, generally due to an excess of advertising. Yes, I could filter out advertising but, I often get paid for having it there. Not that I look at it.
1. Re:Umm, no... usually the page is broken. by gnick · 2017-01-26 07:22 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I reload the page to see if I've gotten any replies to my /. posts since my last refresh.
  I know how sad that is.
  
  --
  He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
2. Re:Umm, no... usually the page is broken. by arth1 · 2017-01-26 07:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I reload pages because they are broken, generally due to an excess of advertising.
  Yes, broken javascript in an ad is probably the #1 reason why I reload pages. At least I have a chance to get a different ad (which may also be broken, in a different way).
  The #2 reason is brain dead javascript code that doesn't account for things occurring out of order due to dropped packets and retransmits. Which is becoming more of a problem as internet provider drop more packets for content providers that don't pay the bridge troll.
3. Re:Umm, no... usually the page is broken. by sycodon · 2017-01-26 08:08 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I reload the page because the pornhub video froze up.
  
  --
  When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Not all pages by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-26 07:17 · Score: 4, Informative

Chrome now reloads Facebook pages up to 28% faster. The rest of the web won't see the benefit.
1. Re:Not all pages by freeze128 · 2017-01-26 07:24 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  In other news, Chrome now uses 12% more RAM.
2. Re:Not all pages by arth1 · 2017-01-26 07:39 · Score: 2
  
  In other news, Chrome now uses 12% more RAM.
  In other words, going from 90% to 102%?
Actual Summary by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-26 07:23 · Score: 3, Informative

Because it'd be awful if the summary actually summarized what was being done. From the article:

To overcome this issue, the team simplified Chrome’s reload behavior and it now only validates the main resource. Facebook, just like other pages, says its pages now reload 28 percent faster, too, so the next time you want to check if your friends finally posted new pictures of their cute corgis to Facebook (and you are using the web app instead of the native FB app), you’ll now get the answer faster.
TLDR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-26 07:23 · Score: 5, Informative

One liner description of the change...
They made refresh 28% faster by having it no longer refresh.
Ctrl-F5 by gQuigs · 2017-01-26 07:28 · Score: 2

Guess it makes Ctrl-F5 even more useful...
Won't this break things? by lucasnate1 · 2017-01-26 07:32 · Score: 2

From what I understand, this changes reload behavior so that reload doesn't completely reload a page. Won't this break the reload behavior when testing a page you're developing and/or when browsing pages that glitched temporarily? Would we end up with a "hold shift during reload" that all tech people will use instead?

--
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
1. Re:Won't this break things? by viperidaenz · 2017-01-26 08:51 · Score: 2
  
  If you're doing web development, try opening the web development tools and turning off the browser cache. Press F12. On Chrome it's a checkbox called "Disable cache" under the "Network" tab. IE has a "Always refresh from server" option on their network page too.
Re:Efficiency by jellomizer · 2017-01-26 07:38 · Score: 2

That isn't how http works. Send the data and disconnect.
We should have a better protocol that deals with Web 2.0 content. But the protocol wouldn't be http

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What does it have to do with Mozilla? by xfizik · 2017-01-26 07:54 · Score: 2

So Mozilla helped Google make Chrome faster? It's not clear what Mozilla's role and benefit in all of this...
1. Re:What does it have to do with Mozilla? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-26 09:41 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  There's actual information at this link, as opposed to the glorified Chrome ad that was submitted: https://code.facebook.com/posts/557147474482256/this-browser-tweak-saved-60-of-requests-to-facebook
Re:Efficiency by tepples · 2017-01-26 08:15 · Score: 2

HTTP has supported keep-alive and pipelining since 1.1, the first to make support for name-based virtual hosts mandatory.
Not this again by WaffleMonster · 2017-01-26 08:26 · Score: 2

Engineer A: Lets re-interpret intent to make it faster
Engineer B: Lets re-interpret intent to make it current
GOTO A
The history of HTTP cache headers are filled with this same contention between different people trying to reinterpret the meaning of words to further their narrow agendas.
This crap always ends with everyone having a headache without solving anything.
If you want to make reload better try adding mechanisms to explicitly signal intent so it can explicitly be acted on rather than hacking shit to make it work better for *you* because you can.
Here's an idea to cut down on requests by viperidaenz · 2017-01-26 08:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

Add the ability to put an ETag in the HTML document along side the resources, so the browser doesn't have to make a conditional "if-none-match" request to check if it is stale.
<img href="blah" etag="12345" />
Re:Confusing summary. by unrtst · 2017-01-26 08:52 · Score: 2

I feel like I read a book and somebody ripped out the last several chapters.
Don't feel too bad. You won't find those in the article either. Here's the only sentence you missed:

The team simplified Chrome’s reload behavior and it now only validates the main resource.
IE. it used to reload 100's of page elements (eg. checking the etag of each), and now it only checks the main page.
I occasionally find I need to do a SHIFT+Reload (or CTRL+SHIFT+R) to force reload of all elements. With this new "only reload main resource" feature, I sure hope they add a something similar to reproduce the old behavior because a full reload is MUCH more overhead than the current reloads, or provide an option to use the old behavior (hahaha, yeah right! modern app *adding* a setting/option!).