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No, You're Not Impatient. The Internet is Getting Slower

Kent Alstad

We live in a world where we expect instant gratification, especially when it comes to the quality of our internet experience. From the ability to have 24/7 access to our financial accounts, “one-click” shopping on eCommerce sites, and of course, searching for answers to the boundless array of questions we have on a daily basis.

However, as quickly as we can access this information right at our fingertips, there is a slight speed bump in doing so. Believe it or not – you aren’t being impatient. The Internet is getting slower and just about everyone is noticing.

So what’s part of the cause for this issue? Page bloat and unoptimized images.

Unoptimized Images Are Bogging Down the User Experience

People browsing the web expect a similar experience to a fast-paced HD TV channel, with intensive graphics, animations and other visual assets, and site designers have largely obliged.

However, there’s been a push-pull dynamic: people also expect websites to load as quickly as the changing of a channel, serving bright, high-resolution images in real-time.

According to data from HTTP Archive, the average website is now 2.1 MB which is twice as large as the average website in 2012. Images, scripts and video make up most of that space.


Source: HTTP Archive

What isn’t helping the cause is the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and even watches that can access the Internet, which lead to incredible fragmentation.

All of these devices come with marketing campaigns promising portable powerhouses and break-neck speed, but don’t speak to the real-world bottlenecks in play, from browsers to bandwidth.

And the Solution Is…?

While coverage of the issues present the challenges adequately, they don’t address the steps that can be taken to address the problem.

If they did, you’d be reading about automation solutions. Using the right web performance optimization (WPO) solution enables faster websites and web-based applications, optimizes images on the fly, and selects the most effective image compression format that the browser can support.

It’s an elegant solution to a complex challenge, but can yield serious gains on Time to Interact (TTI), the measurement of the total load time between the first request and the point where the feature image loads and/or interactive elements can be engaged with. This is a key metric, and the real gauge for site speed.

So, when you are feeling a bit impatient that you’re website isn’t loading quickly enough, remember – it's not you. Web pages simply aren’t loading as quickly as they used to. Just know that an automation solution can address the spinning wheel of interminable loading.

Kent Alstad is VP of Acceleration at Radware.

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No, You're Not Impatient. The Internet is Getting Slower

Kent Alstad

We live in a world where we expect instant gratification, especially when it comes to the quality of our internet experience. From the ability to have 24/7 access to our financial accounts, “one-click” shopping on eCommerce sites, and of course, searching for answers to the boundless array of questions we have on a daily basis.

However, as quickly as we can access this information right at our fingertips, there is a slight speed bump in doing so. Believe it or not – you aren’t being impatient. The Internet is getting slower and just about everyone is noticing.

So what’s part of the cause for this issue? Page bloat and unoptimized images.

Unoptimized Images Are Bogging Down the User Experience

People browsing the web expect a similar experience to a fast-paced HD TV channel, with intensive graphics, animations and other visual assets, and site designers have largely obliged.

However, there’s been a push-pull dynamic: people also expect websites to load as quickly as the changing of a channel, serving bright, high-resolution images in real-time.

According to data from HTTP Archive, the average website is now 2.1 MB which is twice as large as the average website in 2012. Images, scripts and video make up most of that space.


Source: HTTP Archive

What isn’t helping the cause is the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and even watches that can access the Internet, which lead to incredible fragmentation.

All of these devices come with marketing campaigns promising portable powerhouses and break-neck speed, but don’t speak to the real-world bottlenecks in play, from browsers to bandwidth.

And the Solution Is…?

While coverage of the issues present the challenges adequately, they don’t address the steps that can be taken to address the problem.

If they did, you’d be reading about automation solutions. Using the right web performance optimization (WPO) solution enables faster websites and web-based applications, optimizes images on the fly, and selects the most effective image compression format that the browser can support.

It’s an elegant solution to a complex challenge, but can yield serious gains on Time to Interact (TTI), the measurement of the total load time between the first request and the point where the feature image loads and/or interactive elements can be engaged with. This is a key metric, and the real gauge for site speed.

So, when you are feeling a bit impatient that you’re website isn’t loading quickly enough, remember – it's not you. Web pages simply aren’t loading as quickly as they used to. Just know that an automation solution can address the spinning wheel of interminable loading.

Kent Alstad is VP of Acceleration at Radware.

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...