Entire site is nearing "unusable state"

[MacGizmo]

The last month or so, MacRumors has lagged so badly that I've cut way back on the amount of visits I make because it's so frustratingly slow to load, or the pages don't fully load at all—usually requiring several manual page refreshes.

I actually installed an ad blocker in Safari specifically for this site (the regular site and the forums).

I'm not one to complain about a publisher wanting to make money, but the results of the test are ridiculous (see below).

And no, it's not just me or my particular install of Safari. It happens at any location I go to (WiFi or hard-wired), any browser I use, any OS version I have available (including betas), and happens on Mac and Windows.

Turning on an ad blocker fixes the slow or incomplete page loads in every case.

 

[Plutonius]

Works fine for me with no issues and quick load times.

What are the different ads that are causing the slowdown for you ?

Could it be an interface issue with the website inspector (i.e. temporarily turn it off and see how MacRumors loads) ?

 

[macs4nw]

The last month or so, MacRumors has lagged so badly that I've cut way back on the amount of visits I make because it's so frustratingly slow to load, or the pages don't fully load at all—usually requiring several manual page refreshes.

I actually installed an ad blocker in Safari specifically for this site (the regular site and the forums).

I'm not one to complain about a publisher wanting to make money, but the results of the test are ridiculous (see below).

View attachment 708841

And no, it's not just me or my particular install of Safari. It happens at any location I go to (WiFi or hard-wired), any browser I use, any OS version I have available (including betas), and happens on Mac and Windows.

Turning on an ad blocker fixes the slow or incomplete page loads in every case.

Does this only happen with MacRumors, or have you also noticed it with other sites?

 

[MacGizmo]

Does this only happen with MacRumors, or have you also noticed it with other sites?

I mostly noticed it with MacRumors, but there were a few other Mac-related sites as well. I actually did a full comparison of a dozen or so sites. MacRumors and CultofMac were the worst offenders by far. In all cases, turning on ad blocker fixed the problem on all sites that were having issues for me.

And because I know someone will ask, yes - I've had the same results in Firefox, Chrome and Safari on both macOS and Windows, at my home and office locations.

It's all the ads and trackers causing the issue. It has nothing to do with any particular piece of software or lacking in hardware specs. And as I state in the article, I don't particularly blame the sites because they generally have no control over what specifically appears in their ads.