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Ask HN: Why are some sites - like TechCrunch - so slow to respond upon loading?

4 points by calebhicks ↗ HN
At first I thought it was just my computer (a 2008 MacBook), but I just tried on a brand new i7 iMac and it takes forever to respond to scrolling. I'll try to scroll down the page and it will crawl, sputter, and jump all over the place.

9to5Mac is another culprit.

Do you have this problem? What other sites does your computer struggle with? What causes it?

9 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 30.2 ms ] thread
nudge
Techcrunch has a ridiculous number of widgets. Try browsing with a blocker (I use the Disconnect extension on Chrome) and you'll see the difference.
calebhicks
Huge difference. Huge thanks nudge.
aDemoUzer
Use google reader.
calebhicks
I actually use Google Reader (or Reeder) quite often, but when I want to read a full story I click through to the actual website. 30 seconds later I am finally able to read it. Seems a little excessive.
aDemoUzer
you can't read the full story on the reader? or by "full story" are u adding in the comments? I see all of the text of the story, right in the reader.
calebhicks
I'll quite often get a 'Read More' after a paragraph of information. That's usually for stories hosted on crunchgear though.
ecaron
Search Google for "Steve Souders" and read some of his articles. He is the foremost expert on front-end optimization (and is the guru behind such things as Google's async-loading analytics code).

The main problem with the sites that you mention isn't the number of widgets/elements that they load, but how and where they load them. If you want to know more about this, though, you should probably read the relevant threads on StackOverflow.