Media websites, JavaScript bloat, tracking, Ghostery monitoring Jul 4, 2014 - PandoDaily - "I just installed a tool which shows how popular websites are spying on me. The results are horrifying":http://pando.com/2014/07/04/i-just-installed-a-tool-which-shows-how-popular-websites-are-spying-on-me-the-results-are-horrifying/ With JavaScript enabled, an article page may take several seconds, maybe more than 10 seconds, to load completely. With JavaScript disabled, an article page will load in under a second. more. With JavaScript disabled, as long as the content of the article is displayed, that's all the matters. If the JavaScript was used only to help the user, that would be okay. But a lot of the crap is ad-based, tracking-based, etc. Cruft. Some of the JavaScript, however, is meant to improve the user experience, but too many sites are bogging themselves down with trying to create a native app-like experience in the browser. So on older machines, the heavy JavaScript sites use more CPU. And too much JavaScript meant to improve the user experience can actually hinder the experience. From the PandoDaily article: q. What I didn’t know is how absolutely out of control the number of trackers on popular sites has become. It’s actually horrifying. Earlier today I met with an entrepreneur who is working on some neat-sounding software that allows us to improve our “related articles” recommendations for readers. To prove how many different sites already use his software, he showed me the results from a browser extension called Ghostery which shows which trackers are embedded in any given page. Every site he visited contained at least one piece of tracking code, but some showed dozens. That’s dozens of different companies, or divisions of companies, watching you every time you visit a single web page. Those creepy ads that follow you from site to site, reminding you about products you once looked at? Yeah — that’s one tracker. Imagine how much a dozen trackers know about you. q.. https://www.ghostery.com/en/ - browser plug-in. The browser that I have used the most in recent years on desktop and laptop computers is Google Chrome. When I want to surf the web with JavaScript disabled, I use Firefox, since I have JavaScript disabled globally in that browser. In Chrome, I have rules setup to disable JavaScript for a few sites, such as the "ToledoBlade.com.":http://toledoblade.com Reading the Blade website with JavaScripe enabled is a horrible experience. It's offensive to the Web. The Blade uses too many slide-down and slide-in adds. When copying text, it adds that "read more" crap to the copied text like many media sites do. I understand the need to generate some revenue, but it's so bad, that the Blade's experience needs a major do-over. The Toledo Blade website will take 10 to 20 seconds to load completely when JavaScript is enabled, even for an article page. It's terrible. It's piggish and bloated. But an article page will load nearly instantly with JavaScript disabled. It's a much better experience. Maybe media sites should offer paying customers a version of their site without all the JavaScript crap. It might be worth a subscription fee if the org produced a pleasant reading experience. * "One possible design idea for an article page, read by a paying customer.":http://testcode.soupmode.com/article/article3.html * Redesign of an actual Blade article: ** "Droid Serif":http://toledotalk.com/tb/tb.html ** "Merriweather Serif":http://toledotalk.com/tb/tb3.html ** "Open Sans":http://toledotalk.com/tb/tb2.html ** "Open Sans, slightly smaller font size":http://toledotalk.com/tb/tb4.html ** "original Blade article":http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2014/01/31/Last-Alarm-rings-for-fallen-heroes.html Feature request: A clean article web page with good typography, good design, little to no JavaScript bloat, super-fast load time, and responsive designed to display comfortably on all devices with no need to install an app nor visit a mobile version. Jul 7, 2014 - Ghostery findings for the Toledo Blade home page with JavaScript enabled (23 findings): # Adify - Advertising # Advertising.com - Advertising # BlueKai - Beacons # Casale Media - Advertising # ChartBeat - Analytics # Criteo - Advertising # Dotomi - Beacons # DoubleClick - Advertising # Facebook Connect - Widgets, Social # Google Adsense - Advertising # Google AdWords Conversion - Advertising # Google Analytics - Analytics, Analytics # Google+ Platform - Widgets, Social # Lotame - Beacons, Analytics, Lead Management # MediaMath - Advertising # Pinterest - Widgets, Social # Press+ - Widgets, Affiliate Marketing # Quantcast - Advertising # Rubicon - Advertising # ScoreCard Research Beacon - Beacons, Analytics # Turn - Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Lead Management # Twitter Button - Widgets, Social # Zedo - Advertising On an article page at one of the Blade's subsites, such as this, http://www.ourtownperrysburg.com/local/2014/07/07/Perrysburg-expands-its-Dixie-Hwy-intersection.html Ghostery detected 14 trackers. For this Blade article: http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2014/07/07/Police-think-2-shootings-hours-apart-are-related.html Ghostery detected ++34 trackers!!++ Again, this is probably a major reason why an article page takes so long to load when JavaScript is enabled. Here are the 34 trackers or findings from Ghostery: # Adify - Advertising # AdInterax - Advertising # Advertising.com - Advertising # Adzerk - Advertising # AppNexus - Advertising # BlueKai - Beacons # ChartBeat - Analytics # Content.ad - Beacons # Criteo - Advertising # DoubleClick - Advertising # Facebook Connect - Widgets, Social # Facebook Social Plugins - Widgets, Social # Google Adsense - Advertising # Google AdWords Conversion - Advertising # Google Analytics - Analytics, Analytics # Google+ Platform - Widgets, Social # Lotame - Beacons, Analytics, Lead Management # MediaMath - Advertising # Newsmax - Widgets # OpenX - Advertising # Pinterest - Widgets, Social # Po.st - Widgets # Press+ - Widgets, Affiliate Marketing # PubMatic - Advertising # PulsePoint - Advertising # Quantcast - Advertising # RadiumOne - Beacons, Behavior Tracking # Rubicon - Advertising # RUN - Advertising # Sailthru Horizon - Beacons # ScoreCard Research Beacon - Beacons, Analytics # Simpli.fi - Advertising, Segment Data, Behavior Tracking # Twitter Button - Widgets, Social # Zedo - Advertising This section: http://www.toledoblade.com/news 26 Ghostery findings. The findings vary for some reason. This page: http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2014/07/07/Coroner-April-death-ruled-a-homicide.html has 31 findings. Reloading this one again with JavaScript still enabled: http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2014/07/07/Police-think-2-shootings-hours-apart-are-related.html 31 findings by Ghostery. What happened to the other 3? Maybe when visiting page for the first time, additional trackers are loaded. Reloading the above page again, produces 33 findings or trackers by Ghostery. Anyway, it's over 30 findings, and it takes *at least 15 seconds* for the page to load completely. And then once loaded, annoying ads, quite large and intrusive, will drift down from the top and/or from the left side, covering content. Now with JavaScript disabled, this page: http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2014/07/07/Police-think-2-shootings-hours-apart-are-related.html fully loads in one second or less, and Ghostery detects only one item: # Quantcast - Advertising br. +How to disable JavaScript in Chrome browser:+ (pulldown menu) -> settings -> show advanced settings -> privacy -> content settings -> (pop-up menu) -> Do not allow any site to run JavaScript -> Done br. To disable JavaScript in Chrome for a specific website, do the following: * click the three-lined icon in the upper right corner of the browser. * near the bottom of the menu, click "Settings." * scroll to the bottom and click "Show advanced settings." * underneath "Privacy," click "Content Settings." * underneath "JavaScript," leave the radio button clicked for "Allow all sites to run JavaScript (recommended)" and click the button for "Manage exceptions." * in the text input field for "Hostname pattern," add this text: ++[*.]toledoblade.com++ and then select "Block" from the dropdown. * click "Done." * click "Done" again. * close "Settings" browser tab. * reload an article page or visit the website. No more pop-ups. No more slide overs. You won't be able read Facebook comments on article pages, but I don't care about those anyway. But the biggest change will be in page load speed. Article pages will load much faster without the bloated JavaScript. This I like. If you want JavaScript working, try visiting their mobile site at http://m.toledoblade.com which is simpler and much less cluttered. It loads faster. h2. Aug 11, 2014 Cleveland.com Ghostery detected 43 "things" with this article: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/08/cleveland_better-positioned_th.html Acxiom Advertising Adconion Advertising, Segment Data, Analytics AddThis Widgets, Social Advertising.com Advertising Aggregate Knowledge Beacons BlueKai Beacons Burt Analytics ClickTale Analytics, Analytics, Behavior Tracking Datalogix Advertising DoubleClick Advertising Dynamic Logic Beacons eXelate Beacons Facebook Connect Widgets, Social Facebook Social Plugins Widgets, Social Gigya Socialize Widgets, Social Google Adsense Advertising Google Analytics Analytics, Analytics Google+ Platform Widgets, Social Integral Ad Science Analytics Legolas Media Beacons Livefyre Widgets, Commenting System Lotame Beacons, Analytics, Lead Management Moat Advertising NDN Analytics Analytics NetRatings SiteCensus Analytics Neustar AdAdvisor Beacons, Lead Management Omniture (Adobe Analytics) Beacons Parse.ly Beacons, Analytics Pinterest Widgets, Social PubMatic Advertising Quantcast Advertising Rich Analytics ScoreCard Research Beacon Beacons, Analytics Tapad Advertising, Analytics Tealium Analytics, Tag Manager TRUSTe Notice Privacy Twitter Badge Widgets, Social Twitter Button Widgets, Social Typekit by Adobe Widgets, Font System Undertone Advertising VoiceFive Beacons, Analytics, Popups Xaxis Advertising Zedo Advertising #media - #browser - #javascript - #blog_jr