META: Site is very slow to load on Firefox. Not so on Chrome and I hate Chrome.

Submitted by massblue on May 6th, 2021 at 10:31 AM

The site is painfully slow to load on Firefox. But not so on Chrome.  I do not trust Google and Chrome.  Any suggestions what to do to speed it up on Firefox (already cleared cookies)?

Sports

May 6th, 2021 at 11:58 AM ^

That is because the website that you're looking at is actively choosing to provide the data to Facebook in an attempt to monetize your visit. It isn't Facebook mysteriously reaching across the net to steal your data. The websites that you choose to patronize have chosen to tag their site for Facebook in a very deliberate decision and are then choosing to serve you very specific ads. Facebook is a middleman in this scenario. 

Seth

May 6th, 2021 at 11:12 AM ^

We're looking into it. Not sure what's causing that but I am guessing it has something to do with the ad callbacks.

Blue@LSU

May 6th, 2021 at 3:06 PM ^

What's this tit-for-tat shit? He publicly shamed you, man. You wanna get Seth back? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue!

Sports

May 6th, 2021 at 11:56 AM ^

You are not being tracked via Chrome any differently than you would be from any other browser. On-site tagging is used to build audience data for ad targeting. The browser, despite loud headlines about this, does not really play a huge role in that. 

Upcoming cookie depracation in favor of FLOC targeting will also make browser choice entirely irrelevant for targeted advertising. 

Finally, Google lets you see exactly what data is used for targeting and you can turn it off. It's really transparent.

It's a huge pet peeve to hear people make these complaints, because they basically amount to "I am uneducated about the technology that I use every day and choose to believe conspiracies instead of taking five minutes to learn."

Sports

May 6th, 2021 at 12:38 PM ^

Not to be that guy, but I am fully correct. Gmail data is not used in ad targeting. Companies that collect your gmail address can email you promotions, but your email is not being scraped for ad data. Gmail powers the emails of tons of universities, NGOs, and major corporations. There is literally zero way Google could do that and not have it come out or result in a massive loss of user trust. It would also be highly inefficient to scrape email data in an attempt to target users with ads. Viewing products on a landing page or submitting a very intent-driven query to a search engine is very different from getting dozens of emails on wide ranging topics. The reliability of ad targeting via email data would be laughably poor. There is no viable business case for doing this.

As I've illustrated already, using Chrome does not really do anything different with your data. Your browser should not be the concern if you are worried about privacy. You should be far more concerned with the websites that you visit, as your actions on those sites represent proprietary data that these websites can do basically whatever they want with. If you want privacy there, use a VPN. 

matty blue

May 6th, 2021 at 1:10 PM ^

with all due respect, this notion that google wouldn't scrape data because of some loss of respect or business is simply false.  how do i know?  well, they DID scrape user email data (in addition to their browsing information), for years and years and years, and only said that they "will" stop doing it, back in their own blog post from late 2017 (i.e. long after they had hundreds of millions of consumer and enterprise users):

https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in-the-enterprise-g-suites-gmail-and-consumer-gmail-to-more-closely-align/

the money shot:

G Suite’s Gmail is already not used as input for ads personalization, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer Gmail service. Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change.

TruBluMich

May 6th, 2021 at 12:18 PM ^

Most sites are required to list how to remove or turn off ad tracking in their privacy policy.  MGoBlogs's policy probably needs to be updated to reflect CCPA, CalOPPA, GDPR, and any new advertising platforms, but it does have a link to opt-out.

https://mgoblog.com/content/mgoblog-privacy-policy

Also, for those of you who wish to go even further, here is a list of the most popular ad platforms and how to opt out.

 

Booted Blue in PA

May 6th, 2021 at 12:13 PM ^

I'm so glad i don't use the internet..... and have to worry about all that data tracking and mining bullshit.... 

whew!!

did you ever do one of those quizzes that tells you which animal you'd be if you were an animal?

the one that tells you what type of car fits you best is really cool too.

 

Seth

May 6th, 2021 at 12:36 PM ^

Still working on it. I managed to shave a half a second off the load time by replacing the lead photo of Matt's article with a cropped version. 

We try to stay under 6MB. At any given time we're usually about 4MB of photos and 1.5 MB of scripts running on the site, most of them security.

https://tools.pingdom.com/#5e50a1b98bc00000

uminks

May 6th, 2021 at 1:30 PM ^

I use to use FF as my primary browser but in 2017, I noticed it was loading sites slow. So, I switched over to chrome and all web pages load much faster. I guess I don't care any longer if Google is tracking me, if they even do?

pdxblue

May 6th, 2021 at 2:04 PM ^

I have been having trouble with FireFox on a number of sites.   I am currently using Edge - the new version is based on Chrome but is less resource hungry than Chrome

LSAClassOf2000

May 6th, 2021 at 4:16 PM ^

I know some people have feelings about Adblock, but if you're using Firefox (or any browser - I personally do not mind Chrome) and you don't have it, try it out and see if the speed improves. Do your own bit to keep the site going via the magazine and so forth, as we all do, but I don't know that there is a need to have the ads on even when you are perusing the board.