Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

blog.cloudflare.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#21

Post by tempguy9999 »

ben_jones wrote: post #20
3xblah wrote: post #17

"Web pages are made up of dozens (sometimes hundreds) of separate resources that are loaded and assembled by the browser into the final displayed content." Could that be the reason that that the web needs to be "faster" (despite tremendous advances in CPU, storage, bandwidth and network speeds)? The dozens (sometimes hundreds) of separate resources are loaded by default . What is their purpose? Where do they come fro…

Humans don't naturally optimize down to the byte level, be it a whole foods cashier who takes an extra 30 seconds to bag your groceries, an airline who's pilot needs to use the restroom and delays takeoff, or whatever other situation where convenience takes precedent. When and how often should human hours be spent to optimize machine hours? Sometimes clearly, but should they always? Where is the line? I think these q…

> Humans don't naturally optimize down to the byte level,

Who said bytes? You did. Other commenters including myself have mentioned megabytes (ie. six orders of magnitude larger). Nobody said bytes AFAICS.

> When and how often should human hours be spent to optimize machine hours

Oooh, perhaps I can help! Being as I'm currently trying to shave 200 to 300 milliseconds at a time off one stage of a simulation, taking 2 to 6 hours for each optimisation. So 4 to 5 orders of magnitude more programmer time than machine time. That way larger models can be used, and all of multiple multiple sites will benefit, and less of their time will be spent waiting (see disclosure below).

It's not actually that difficult an inequality to solve, except when haystacks of JS and advert crud are pushed on us by advertisers etc. whose money is made by wrecking the commons for their profit so don't want to know.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair

disclosure, I'm actually doing this unpaid as I'm getting back into work after illness, however if I wasn't there they'd get someone else in, paid, as it needs doing.

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#22

Post by ignoramous »

3xblah wrote: post #17

"Web pages are made up of dozens (sometimes hundreds) of separate resources that are loaded and assembled by the browser into the final displayed content." Could that be the reason that that the web needs to be "faster" (despite tremendous advances in CPU, storage, bandwidth and network speeds)? The dozens (sometimes hundreds) of separate resources are loaded by default . What is their purpose? Where do they come fro…

80%, if not more, of what you describe is do-able with Raymond Hill's uMatrix [0]. And yes, it does make the web faster and safer, though it breaks certain websites.

--

[0] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/blob/master/README.md

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#23

Post by dullgiulio »

patrickmeenan wrote: post #7
voiper1 wrote: post #4

So their main improvement over Chrome is that chrome doesn't benefit from progressive images -- they load images in sequence instead of parallel. Sounds like a simple fix. (If you actually know the images are progressive.)

Yep, hopefully a lot of the default improvements will make their way into all of the browsers. Until then, this also evens the field across all of the browsers but for me the really exciting part is exposing it to Workers so sites can customize the logic specific to their needs. Boosting the priority of hero images or async scripts that are important for the site but the browser's default logic has no way to know. Pr…

I am not sure it is a good idea to trust the server to decide what is more important. I can easily imagine ads taking higher priority than actual content, just look at the pop-ups that interrupt reading.

Browsers and protocol should start concentrating on how to secure users from the very sites they visit.

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#24

Post by jandrese »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #18
tempguy9999 wrote: post #11

I block all JS and have a comprehensive blocklist for just about every ad service there is. Stuff usually loads damn fast (ok, when not broken by JS missing, an acceptable price to me, I get speed and safety for free). I always recommend people try it. It's fast enough except when webbish types do stupid things. Just yesterday I was looking at a Scientific American article which was held up by an entirely pointless 2…

Downvoted for the bad language perhaps? I'd accept that. Or downvoted for recommending a blocklist to cap off ad networks? Or to disable JS to speed things up and increase my safety without new protocols? Or asking not to have my browsing turned into an Awesome Experience by web designers that don't understand the web is a means to an end for its users, not a way of life? Or something else?

I don't know about the downvotes on your original comment, but comments complaining about being downvoted will always attract more downvotes.

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#25

Post by tempguy9999 »

jandrese wrote: post #24
tempguy9999 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted for the bad language perhaps? I'd accept that. Or downvoted for recommending a blocklist to cap off ad networks? Or to disable JS to speed things up and increase my safety without new protocols? Or asking not to have my browsing turned into an Awesome Experience by web designers that don't understand the web is a means to an end for its users, not a way of life? Or something else?

I don't know about the downvotes on your original comment, but comments complaining about being downvoted will always attract more downvotes.

I didn't complain, I asked why. It may well be down to my rather abrasive style, in which case I'd apologise and try to be less so next time.

Or it may be down to me being factually wrong, which I also need to know cos how else does one learn.

Or maybe someone doesn't like what I said which is very much another thing. But I wasn't complaining.

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#26

Post by jandrese »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #25
jandrese wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the downvotes on your original comment, but comments complaining about being downvoted will always attract more downvotes.

I didn't complain, I asked why. It may well be down to my rather abrasive style, in which case I'd apologise and try to be less so next time. Or it may be down to me being factually wrong, which I also need to know cos how else does one learn. Or maybe someone doesn't like what I said which is very much another thing. But I wasn't complaining.

Or someone just didn't like your comment and downvoted it. There's no test you have to pass to be a moderator. Nobody comes back later and checks your work. Some people may even have agendas with their voting.

Downvotes are inevitable when you start making comments regularly, don't worry about them too much. It's all fake Internet points in the end.

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#27

Post by tempguy9999 »

jandrese wrote: post #26
tempguy9999 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't complain, I asked why. It may well be down to my rather abrasive style, in which case I'd apologise and try to be less so next time. Or it may be down to me being factually wrong, which I also need to know cos how else does one learn. Or maybe someone doesn't like what I said which is very much another thing. But I wasn't complaining.

Or someone just didn't like your comment and downvoted it. There's no test you have to pass to be a moderator. Nobody comes back later and checks your work. Some people may even have agendas with their voting. Downvotes are inevitable when you start making comments regularly, don't worry about them too much. It's all fake Internet points in the end.

Yep, there's a bit of fishiness going on here, it's not just my stuff that's being consistently getting downvotes.

I guess I'm being that guy who just won't let things go, so thanks for the reminder to chill out, upvoted!

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#28

Post by 3xblah »

ignoramous wrote: post #22
3xblah wrote: post #17

"Web pages are made up of dozens (sometimes hundreds) of separate resources that are loaded and assembled by the browser into the final displayed content." Could that be the reason that that the web needs to be "faster" (despite tremendous advances in CPU, storage, bandwidth and network speeds)? The dozens (sometimes hundreds) of separate resources are loaded by default . What is their purpose? Where do they come fro…

80%, if not more, of what you describe is do-able with Raymond Hill's uMatrix [0]. And yes, it does make the web faster and safer, though it breaks certain websites. -- [0] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/blob/master/README.md

True, there are ad-ons to address such browser deficiencies. The question is why browsers do not have these capabilities natively. Clearly, a large number of users want them.

Note that the 20% in your estimate are quite significant.

As for "breaking websites", perhaps in the evolution of a web to be faster, those "certain websites" with too many third-party dependencies should be selected against, not for.

Another interesting question is whether something like HTTP/2 developed by an advertising company encourages the inclusion of more third-party resources, perhaps in the form of advertising and tracking, or does it encourage less, in the form of smaller, faster, safer websites? It appears to be overkill for the later.

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#29

Post by ken »

Don't some of these browsers display a best-approximation font, while the actual font file is downloading, while others display no text until the font file is available? That seems like an awfully big distinction which is omitted here.

Re: Better HTTP/2 Prioritization for a Faster Web

#30

Post by pornel »

dullgiulio wrote: post #23
patrickmeenan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, hopefully a lot of the default improvements will make their way into all of the browsers. Until then, this also evens the field across all of the browsers but for me the really exciting part is exposing it to Workers so sites can customize the logic specific to their needs. Boosting the priority of hero images or async scripts that are important for the site but the browser's default logic has no way to know. Pr…

I am not sure it is a good idea to trust the server to decide what is more important. I can easily imagine ads taking higher priority than actual content, just look at the pop-ups that interrupt reading. Browsers and protocol should start concentrating on how to secure users from the very sites they visit.

Prioritization works within a single HTTP/2 connection. Ads are generally served by a 3rd party, and while there are some limited ways of sharing HTTP/2 connections across origins, I don't think any ad servers offer such a close integration.

Besides, sites already have blunt tools they can use if they really wanted to force ads to load first. This feature is more for site developers who care about performance. Instead of tweaking the markup and adding hints to help browsers request resources in the right order, they can now set the priorities directly and precisely.

Post reply on HN