Site speed, articles. My .02

[seboj]

Just putting my .02 out there.

The new site is rather slow, especially in Firefox. This really should be addressed. I like the new look and all, but when the pages sometimes load 5x slower than the previous site, is it really worth it?

Also, I think the reviewers need more time to write articles. It's getting a little old, reading 10+ pages of an article, only to find out that relevant information has been excluded because there "just wasn't enough time" to test this, or "hardware broke and there was no time to replace it" so that didn't get reviewed. I understand that articles need to get written, people need to have deadlines and all, but when every other review contains the phrase "because we didn't have enough time, this was omitted", it starts to grate on the nerves. After all, what's better: a review posted on Monday that tells you nothing, or a review posted on Wednesday that actually contains results? I vote for the latter.

Aaaaanyways, those are just my thoughts. /Grain of salt.

 

[Flakes]

actually i noticed its not Tomshardware that is slow, firefox sits and waits for all the images from all the adverts to load before displaying the page and thats what my browser pauses on...

look at the status bar, it loads toms and says done, then it will move onto *.adverts.com and stay there for a minute.

 

[seboj]

^ I don't know about the ads, I'm running Opera on my fiancee's Mac, and it's just as slow as Firefox on my WinServ desktop.

 

[Ombudsman]

We're doing speed tests right now, as we speak.

People who are having problems, what part of the world are you connecting from? And which location are you connecting to?

 

[seboj]

I'm connecting from Athens, Georgia, USA, as well as Atlanta and Buford, GA, USA -> To the USA site.

It's the same whether I'm using Opera, Firefox, or Safari, Windows or Mac, cable internet, dsl, T1/T3.

I will say this, it does seem to move a -little- bit faster on the France site.

 

[Duncan NZ]

NZ to US. Definently slower then the old look

 

[Flakes]

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/

from this you can see the big files that cause the site to be slow are from,
http://img.bestofmedia.com

Analysis and Recommendations

* TOTAL_HTML - Congratulations, the total number of HTML files on this page (including the main HTML file) is 1 which most browsers can multithread. Minimizing HTTP requests is key for web site optimization.

* TOTAL_OBJECTS - Warning! The total number of objects on this page is 41 - consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your external objects. Replace graphic rollovers with CSS rollovers to speed display and minimize HTTP requests.

* TOTAL_IMAGES - Warning! The total number of images on this page is 33 , consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your graphics. Replace graphic rollovers with CSS rollovers to speed display and minimize HTTP requests.

* TOTAL_CSS - Caution. The total number of external CSS files on this page is 3 , consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your external CSS files. Ideally you should have one (or even embed CSS for high-traffic pages) on your pages.

* TOTAL_SIZE - Warning! The total size of this page is 446996 bytes, which will load in 97.29 seconds on a 56Kbps modem. Consider reducing total page size to less than 30K to achieve sub eight second response times on 56K connections. Pages over 100K exceed most attention thresholds at 56Kbps, even with feedback. Consider contacting us about our optimization services.
* TOTAL_SCRIPT - Caution. The total number of external script files on this page is 4 , consider reducing this to one or two. Combine, refine, and optimize your external script files. Ideally you should have one (or even embed scripts for high-traffic pages) on your pages.

* HTML_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of this HTML file is 9036 bytes, which less than 20K. Assuming that you specify the HEIGHT and WIDTH of your images, this size allows your page to display content in well under 8 seconds, the average time users are willing to wait for a page to display without feedback.

* IMAGES_SIZE - Warning! The total size of your images is 226582 bytes, which is over 30K. Consider optimizing your images for size, combining them, and replacing graphic rollovers with CSS.

* SCRIPT_SIZE - Warning! The total size of external your scripts is 175212 bytes, which is over 8K. Consider optimizing your scripts for size, combining them, and using compression where appropriate for any scripts placed in the HEAD of your documents.

* CSS_SIZE - Warning! The total size of your external CSS is 36166 bytes, which is over 8K. Consider optimizing your CSS for size by eliminating whitespace, using shorthand notation, and combining multiple CSS files where appropriate.

* MULTIM_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of all your external multimedia files is 0 bytes, which is less than 4K.


and Newcastle, to .co.uk site.


one last thing,

loading times

Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 354.64 seconds
28.8K 181.42 seconds
33.6K 156.68 seconds
56K 97.29 seconds
ISDN 128K 35.48 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 10.57 seconds

wtf! 10 seconds on a T1, i never really noticed but im on a 20MB cable, no wonder you guys have complaints.