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MacRumors Site/Forums Causing Battery Drain?

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I normally only access the site on my Mini and don't see ads since I'm a moderator, I rarely use Safari at all on my phone, except to test a web app I'm working on. :)

Anyway, just spent a little while on the site with my iPhone 12 Pro Max (iOS 14.6). I was not logged in so I saw ads like any visitor. Spent about 3 minutes in the news section and didn't notice the phone warming up, battery was still showing 100% charge at that point. Then I spent about 9 minutes browsing through the forums with lots of scrolling, so lots of ads. None of them looked unusual, no big animations or anything. Phone was definitely feeling warm at that point and the battery dropped to 97%.

Now, I'm an admin at a regional website that currently runs Xenforo 2.25. Don't normally access that site on my phone either, but just spent 5 minutes browsing the forums there. Didn't login, just browsed as a visitor. Battery level did not change on my phone at all and I did not notice it getting warm. HOWEVER, this site does not have any ads.
 
jav6454 said:
On MR-forums, the forum (or sub-forum), or thread never finished loading per Safari (the blue loading bar was always at a 60-70% way). While the data was already presented and I could read and respond, Safari was still loading.
Click to expand...

Just checked again and I have not seen this happen on my 12 Pro Max. But I am on 802.11ac wifi at home with 400/400 FIOS.
 
Boyd01 said:
I normally only access the site on my Mini and don't see ads since I'm a moderator, I rarely use Safari at all on my phone, except to test a web app I'm working on. :)

Anyway, just spent a little while on the site with my iPhone 12 Pro Max (iOS 14.6). I was not logged in so I saw ads like any visitor. Spent about 3 minutes in the news section and didn't notice the phone warming up, battery was still showing 100% charge at that point. Then I spent about 9 minutes browsing through the forums with lots of scrolling, so lots of ads. None of them looked unusual, no big animations or anything. Phone was definitely feeling warm at that point and the battery dropped to 97%.

Now, I'm an admin at a regional website that currently runs Xenforo 2.25. Don't normally access that site on my phone either, but just spent 5 minutes browsing the forums there. Didn't login, just browsed as a visitor. Battery level did not change on my phone at all and I did not notice it getting warm. HOWEVER, this site does not have any ads.
Click to expand...

Can you reproduce it here without ads?
 
arn said:
I turned off ads on your account. Can you tell me if it is still doing it without ads?

edit: and can you take a video of it not completely loading?

arn
Click to expand...
I just completed video with the testing. I will be uploading soon for your viewing. Full disclosure, due to LTE saturation in my area I stick to 3G, but 3G performs better than LTE so I get better speeds. However here are some remarks:
  • During the ad-free pass granted, I did see slow down of general loading.
  • During the test of ad-free my phone did get hot, but not as before and battery drop went from 66% to 65%.
  • Testing on Chrome on my 12 Pro yielded the same results as with Safari pre-ad-free. 4% drop and the phone died get hot.
 
arn said:
Can you reproduce it here without ads?
Click to expand...

I logged into my moderator account on my phone and did general ad-free browsing of the forums for 6 minutes. Phone did not feel warm at all, battery level dropped from 96% to 95%. Not sure that is meaningful, since it was showing 96% at the end of my previous test and that was awhile ago. Everything loads very quickly.
 
Boyd01 said:
Just checked again and I have not seen this happen on my 12 Pro Max. But I am on 802.11ac wifi at home with 400/400 FIOS.
Click to expand...
I use mainly cellular. However, in theory, that shouldn't be a difference.

Boyd01 said:
I normally only access the site on my Mini and don't see ads since I'm a moderator, I rarely use Safari at all on my phone, except to test a web app I'm working on. :)

Anyway, just spent a little while on the site with my iPhone 12 Pro Max (iOS 14.6). I was not logged in so I saw ads like any visitor. Spent about 3 minutes in the news section and didn't notice the phone warming up, battery was still showing 100% charge at that point. Then I spent about 9 minutes browsing through the forums with lots of scrolling, so lots of ads. None of them looked unusual, no big animations or anything. Phone was definitely feeling warm at that point and the battery dropped to 97%.

Now, I'm an admin at a regional website that currently runs Xenforo 2.25. Don't normally access that site on my phone either, but just spent 5 minutes browsing the forums there. Didn't login, just browsed as a visitor. Battery level did not change on my phone at all and I did not notice it getting warm. HOWEVER, this site does not have any ads.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I also browse mainly on either a desktop or laptop. Now, since the laptop is work-provided it does have some locks and Extentions including Ad-Block. So I do browse on the work laptop ad-free. At home I do see ads, but since it's a desktop, I can't say if there is extra power draw or heat excess.
 
jav6454 said:
Unsure.
Click to expand...

"A pseudo-browser is a native application marketed as a web browser that, instead of providing its own rendering and execution engines, uses the native web view.

From a user’s point of view, it’s a browser. From a developer’s point of view, it’s just the web view with a particular UI. Therefore, we have the same rendering engine as in the preinstalled browser, but with a different UI.

[...]

Chrome on iOS is the best example of a pseudo-browser; because Apple has a restriction on using third-party engines, Chrome uses the iOS web view instead of a Blink-based engine."

www.oreilly.com

High Performance Mobile Web

Chapter 1. The Mobile Web World The topic of performance on the mobile web might seem confusing at first. Isn’t the mobile web the same web as the one we already know? The answer... - Selection from High Performance Mobile Web [Book]
www.oreilly.com www.oreilly.com
 
Boyd01 said:
"A pseudo-browser is a native application marketed as a web browser that, instead of providing its own rendering and execution engines, uses the native web view.

From a user’s point of view, it’s a browser. From a developer’s point of view, it’s just the web view with a particular UI. Therefore, we have the same rendering engine as in the preinstalled browser, but with a different UI.

[...]

Chrome on iOS is the best example of a pseudo-browser; because Apple has a restriction on using third-party engines, Chrome uses the iOS web view instead of a Blink-based engine."

www.oreilly.com

High Performance Mobile Web

Chapter 1. The Mobile Web World The topic of performance on the mobile web might seem confusing at first. Isn’t the mobile web the same web as the one we already know? The answer... - Selection from High Performance Mobile Web [Book]
www.oreilly.com www.oreilly.com
Click to expand...

I did not know that.

Boyd01 said:
Seems to me that things would be more likely to time out with a slow network connection.
Click to expand...
Yet, everything is loaded.

@arn Unluckily, I have tried 3 times to upload the video and it keeps dropping me. I'll try from a Wi-Fi connection later.
 
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I disabled a Lazyloading javascript just now. Let me know if you can tell any difference.
 
jav6454 said:
arn is like answering to posts left and right, the issue is being taken seriously.

That said, on my end I don't see what others are seeing. My phones does not get hot nor is battery depleted.

++++++++

@arn

Edit: My iPhone XS did not get hot, but just tried it on my iPhone 12 Pro. It did get hot, like really hot. As per ads, nothing that was interactive. Just regular run of the mill ads. I browsed like 3-4 minutes and battery did drop from 79% to 75% in that timeframe. As soon as I closed the Safari tab with MR-forums, the phone quickly chilled.

On my M1 MBP, I have non noticeable usages or memory demands. So not sure what is the root cause of the phone v laptop difference in heat and usage rate. Is there a way to toggle the forum to desktop mode on the mobile site?
Click to expand...

good for you 👍🏼
 
arn said:
I disabled a Lazyloading javascript just now. Let me know if you can tell any difference.
Click to expand...

just been scrolling on the beta 5 forum read two pages. Back of phone is heating up. 😳

just to be super clear, content blockers off, this forum only heats my phone up.

no other website I can report does this to my phone. I’d be honest and report that.
 
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arn said:
We're getting it looked into more by our devs. It happening with ad blockers makes it a lot easier to narrow down.
Click to expand...

Apparently it's not happening with AdGuard if that helps. Mozilla focus on the other hand doesn't make a difference on or off, still drains and phone gets very hot.
 
Also if it helps, all of this started happening 2 days before iOS 15 beta 5 got released, before then everything was running fine.
 
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LFC2020 said:
Apparently it's not happening with AdGuard if that helps. Mozilla focus on the other hand doesn't make a difference on or off, still drains and phone gets very hot.
Click to expand...
Not sure that adds any clarity. The AdGuard extension I just tried only blocks one script -- our ad network, which all ad blockers block.
 
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