
The mobile web sucks - prostoalex
http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/20/9002721/the-mobile-web-sucks
======
13
That's rich, coming from The Verge.

245 objects requested, 48 JavaScript files loaded, 9.8MB.

~~~
skore
My first impulse as well. As the article states, though, they're aware of and
working on it[0].

[0] [http://product.voxmedia.com/2015/5/6/8561867/declaring-
perfo...](http://product.voxmedia.com/2015/5/6/8561867/declaring-performance-
bankruptcy)

~~~
13
Why is their target 8 seconds to load the page? That's a ridiculously long
time.

------
gaze
Maybe it has something to do with all the garbage that the verge loads every
time you load the page?

~~~
jschwartzi
Like the 4 identical ads from Qualcomm bogging down my 6-core desktop machine?

------
puranjay
Why are people here attacking The Verge instead of talking about the issue in
question?

Let's be honest: mobile web is a far crappier experience than the desktop web

~~~
Sanddancer
Because the mobile web is putting the magnifying glass to the issues that have
been lurking in sites. Most people here have computers and the bandwidth to
download a large site in seconds, and needed RAM and drive space to have a
large cache. When you get rid of that cache, and you slow down the connection,
the Verge is a shitty site on the desktop too.

------
kennywinker
Is it too conspiracy theory-ist to notice that these articles trashing mobile
browsing and Safari in particular come from an ad-supported site on the eve of
Apple adding adblock to Mobile Safari? This isn't my observation, though I
can't recall where I read it.

~~~
CmonDev
No, Apple is funding them behind the scenes anyways (based on their reviews).

------
jetskindo
I stopped reading half way. The mobile Web is amazing. The verge is the kind
of website that is broken both on desktop and mobile. And unfortunately there
are too many websites like those.

------
welly
There is a lot of terrible mobile websites out there, but some how I manage to
get by. I simply refuse to have a mobile/native app for every website that is
out there that I use. My mobile screen would be full to the brim with icons.

As it stands, I'm able to have a single "Contrib" folder, which contains
mobile apps I can't do without (Skype, Feedly, BeerSmith 2, Untapped) on my
iPhone with the apps I use mostly on the first screen. I now no longer have to
scroll through multiple pages and multiple folders to find what app I want.

Why do I need a Medium.com mobile app when the mobile website works fine? It
could be better, of course, but it works. Same with Facebook. I don't see the
necessity to have a dedicated Facebook app on my phone when the mobile site
gives me all I particularly want from Facebook.

All the sites I visit regularly work fine on mobile - I do wish they'd
dedicate more time/resources/money on their mobile sites rather than their
apps but I suppose the marketing department calls the shots. Got to take up
room on my mobile phone screen!

------
bobbles
I remember distinctly that the Verge was the first website I _hated_ using on
my phone. (As in, yes there are awful websites, but whatever, move on. As I
was actually trying to read the Verge article.. i grew to hate it much more)

They have that awful floating box that is a constant overlay menu on their
articles.. not to mention its completely black! in stark contrast to the rest
of the page.

------
gitah
If iOS marketshare keeps going up, Apple will get sued for anti-trust.

Imaging if Microsoft won't let other developers write web browsers for
windows.

------
liviu
I read some answers on this article in the past weeks. Some interesting links:

[http://blog.lmorchard.com/2015/07/22/the-verge-web-
sucks/](http://blog.lmorchard.com/2015/07/22/the-verge-web-sucks/)

[https://twitter.com/satefan/status/623226230301523968](https://twitter.com/satefan/status/623226230301523968)

------
perlpimp
there was a post, a link to TED show that referred to binary applets and how
we suppose to think of browser being OS and having a safe environment in it to
run small binary networked applets. Javascript was a great expriment and V8
kicks ass and probably best there has been for the browsers - yet model that
browser is an app and not OS/Kernel with safe place to run privilged code - I
think little will change. Because phones still have too little battery to
waste and approach to mobile web that it is a browser and not Kernel or a part
of the Kernel, little will change.

Apple has something - their stuff is binary. Android is all Java so there is
that barrier beyond getting closer to hardware. Yes I know JVM is pretty fast
and there is JIT. But it is not binary.

IMHO

~~~
Sanddancer
Android 5 has gotten rid of JIT, and does AOT compilation of bytecode via
libart, and thus runs native code.

------
andreapaiola
Let me declut that for you

[http://andreapaiola.name/magpie/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thever...](http://andreapaiola.name/magpie/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F&action=&links=on)

------
bobajeff
I just recently made a comment about how many big sites are maintaining
several frontends (when they can barely maintain one) with the mobile site
being last behind mobile platforms in terms of priority.

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jay_kyburz
You know, people call me crazy, but I build my website for mobile first, and
stop there. I kind of like a narrow 480px columns even on desktop.

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davidgerard
AdBlock for Firefox on Android.

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tempestn
As it happens, yesterday I had to stop a well-performing ad campaign on our
site, because the banners were simply too bloated. For a good 10 seconds after
the page loaded, their ads would be churning away, loading domain after
domain, all to ultimately load a single 160x600px image.

In an attempt to demonstrate the problem to them, I made a list of all the
domains that were being loaded by their ad code. Here they are:

    
    
      a.rfihub.com
      aa.chango.com
      ad.360yield.com
      adadvisor.net
      ads.ebay.com
      ads.nexage.com
      ads.googleapis.com
      analytics.spongecell.com
      ap.lijit.com
      as.chango.com
      b3.mookie1.com
      bc.ixiaa.com
      bh.contextweb.com
      c1.rfihub.net
      cc.chango.com
      cdn-akamai.mookie1.com
      cdn.spotxchange.com
      cdn.viglink.com
      ce.lijit.com
      choices.truste.com
      ckm-m.xp1.ru4.com
      click.sovrn.com
      clickcdn.sovrn.com
      clients1.google.com
      cm.yieldoptimizer.com
      d.agkn.com
      d.turn.com
      dis.criteo.com
      dm.de.mookie1.com
      dpm.demdex.net
      dsum-sec.casalemedia.com
      dsum.casalemedia.com
      e.nexac.com
      edge.quantserve.com
      ev.ib-ibi.com
      ewr-128.ewr-rtb1.rfihub.com
      fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net
      fei.pro-market.net
      global.ib-ibi.com
      gmtdmp.mookie1.com
      gpush.cogocast.net
      gslbeacon.lijit.com
      i.w55c.net
      ib.mookie1.com
      idsync.rlcdn.com
      image2.pubmatic.com
      js.revsci.net
      load.s3.amazonaws.com
      loadm.exelator.com
      match.adsrvr.org
      msec.xp1.ru4.com
      openx2-match.dotomi.com
      p.rfihub.com
      pix04.revsci.net
      pixel.quantserve.com
      pixel.rubiconproject.com
      pixel.sitescout.com
      r.openx.net
      royale.cdn.spongecell.com
      rs.gwallet.com
      rtb.gumgum.com
      rtd.tubemogul.com
      secure-us.imrworldwide.com
      secure.adnxs.com
      securepubads.g.doubleclick.net
      simage2.pubmatic.com
      soma.smaato.net
      stags.bluekai.com
      su.addthis.com
      sync.adap.tv
      sync.adaptv.advertising.com
      sync.graph.bluecava.com
      sync.search.spotxchange.com
      sync.tidaltv.com
      t.mookie1.com
      t4.liverail.com
      tag.apxlv.com
      tag.cogocast.net
      tag.yieldoptimizer.com
      tags.bluekai.com
      tapestry.tapad.com
      tpc.googlesyndication.com
      uav.tidaltv.com
      ums.adtechus.com
      us-ads.openx.net
      usefb.adsrvr.org
      vap1iad3.lijit.com
      vox-static.liverail.com
      x.bidswitch.net
    

That's ALL to ultimately load _one ad_.

And of course, those are only domains; many of those load multiple resources.
Basically what they appear to be doing is "waterfalling" through a massive
number of third party networks, looking for the most profitable ads. And it
works well, if all you care about is revenue. The user experience is pretty
terrible though. Even though the ads are asynchronous, so don't block the rest
of the page, that amount of crap obviously slows things down in general,
especially on mobile browsers. Plus, it just _feels_ bloated when after the
page is done loading, it sits there for 10 seconds with the spinner whirling
and random ad domains spamming across the status bar.

It's really painful, because this kind of thing works; it outperforms adsense
(which is extremely lightweight in comparison) by a significant margin.
There's got to be a cost in user retention though, even if your only concern
is the bottom line. (Let alone caring about user experience.)

~~~
Borating
How do you generated that list?

~~~
tempestn
I just loaded the page with the ad and made a list of all the domains I didn't
recognize (or that I knew were ad domains) using the Chrome network tab. Then
I removed the ad and checked that none of them were still present.

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andreapaiola
Nope: theverge sucks.

~~~
jay_kyburz
Yeah, I don't know why everybody is pointing at browsers and saying the mobile
web sux. I'm constantly amazed at what my phones browser can do.

Its the content that sux.

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bgirard
| The page isn't redirecting properly

... yup

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totemizer
Let me FTFY: The web sucks.

~~~
Aoyagi
>"Modern" web sucks

FTFFY

~~~
CmonDev
Yes, documents should not pretend they are apps.

~~~
Aoyagi
See, this is why I hate that word; it's used for absolutely everything, so I
actually don't consider it to be incorrect when someone says "BBC's web app"
and is referring to their website. I mean, I cringe a _lot_ , but that's
because of the word itself, not because of the meaning, which today seems to
be "any kind of software".

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byron_fast
Not a single mention of Flash! I've got a hunch Windows 10 may popularize it
again... Still a more consistent runtime than all the stuff that "killed" it.

~~~
jetskindo
Flash wasn't the problem entirely. If they fixed the security issues we would
be better off. The reason we hated flash is because of how advertisers used
it.

~~~
dorgo
My problem with flash is the same as with all plugins: scroll doesnt work,
mouse-gesture dont work, shortcuts dont work, no control of content. Its like
opening an enterly other program in browser without any integration.

