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Firefox 57's Speed Secret? Delaying Requests from Tracking Domains (zdnet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the Quantum-improvements dept.

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: A Mozilla engineer has revealed one of the hidden techniques that Firefox 57 -- known as Quantum -- is using to improve page load times... It delays scripts from tracking domains, such as www.google-analytics.com. The technique was developed by Mozilla engineer Honza Bambas, who calls it "tailing". It works by delaying scripts from tracking domains when a page is actively loading and rendering...

Tailing only briefly prevents the tracking scripts loading, rather than disabling them entirely. Page load performance is improved by saving on network bandwidth and computing resources while loading a page, in a way that prioritizes site requests over tracking requests. "Requests are kept on hold only while there are site sub-resources still loading and only up to about 6 seconds. The delay is engaged only for scripts added dynamically or as async. Tracking images are always delayed. This is legal according all HTML specifications and it's assumed that well built sites will not be affected regarding functionality," explains Bambas.

7 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. With adblocking this is not even an issue. by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Everyone that already runs adblocking won't notice this anyway.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    1. Re:With adblocking this is not even an issue. by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Informative

      An advertising site serves ads. A tracking site tracks you.

      To clarify:

      Advert: a picture, movie, or some text, intended to impart a message not associated with the core article, that is there because someone paid for it to be shown.

      Tracking: the act of determining a user's path through a website or collection of websites. Typically used by marketing departments to determine the success of a page in terms of keeping users engaged within a so-called 'funnel', a series of webpages that delivers a user to a store front, sometimes by UI designers and developers to debug usability issues.

      Does this help?

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Save even more time and block them altogether by Noishkel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And why shouldn't we? No one wanted to be tracked. And even more corporatist a-holes like Google have persistently gone out of their way to obscure the end users ability to even know how the system works. Screw them. It's our hardware, and it's our data. If you have a problem with this then Google should release a version of their OS that you can pay and doesn't track us and avoid the situation entirely.

  3. Re:But ... by Aighearach · · Score: 5, Informative

    Too bad some websites have noticed the NoScripters and made their website unusable once your disable JS execution.

    I say to them, Thank you! I'm glad we agree that it is best if I use another site. Everybody wins!

    Lets not fight about this adblock stuff. Not everybody agrees, and that is wonderful, it is a sign of Freedom. There is no need to be passive-aggressive and make the site appear to work at first, and then fail later when you get to the heart of the content. Detect what is detectable, and be honest and straightforwards; if you don't want me as a user, great! I can agree to that, no problem!

  4. Really kill those third party user trackers by Anaerin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    FireFox inherited a small security update from the Tor project called "First Party Isolation". It's in newer versions of FF, but isn't turned on by default as it can break some authentication systems.

    What it does, is only allow cookies to be sent and received by the site in the page's URL. So, for instance, while visiting YouTube.com, images and the like from google.com can load, but have no cookies attached, and do not receive those cookies.

    To enable it, go to about:config and find "privacy.firstparty.isolate". Set it to true and restart the browser, and enjoy surfing the web knowing that you're not being tracked from site to site.

    1. Re:Really kill those third party user trackers by Pieroxy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Exactly what Apple has done with Safari, on both iOS and OSX. Except that Apple enabled the option by default.

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
  5. Re:Ghostery and Privacy Badger by Sannemen · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ghostery, probably because it keeps you private while, guess what?, selling your data... https://www.ghostery.com/faqs/...