Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

The internet is becoming unusable.

R

Radiating

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 29, 2011
1,018
7
I logged onto kelly blue book today which is around the 400th most popular website on the internet in the US.

Immediately when I got to the page, the main page file loaded in 0.12 seconds. So far so good. Then I decided that I actually wanted to use this website. Kbb.com had other plans though. To prevent me from using their service they immediately loaded up 12 animated advertisements each in a separate frame.

It took 3.93 seconds to load all the additional content from 162 sources and 16 seconds for the page to be scrollable and fully processed by the browser.

16 seconds.

in 2014

16 seconds and 12 animated ads. Wow.

I started using the internet on the most basic entry level computer, which only had a 56k modem and a processor with 275,000 transistors and 4 MB of ram.

I'm now using the internet on one of the fastest computers and connections possibly available. My internet speed is 2,000 times faster. My CPU has one million times more processing power, and I have 16 thousand times more memory.

Yet, the average internet page actually runs worse as technology improves.

For the love of god, why can't programers stop exponentially increasing the clutter, complexity, and bloat on the internet?

I don't need or want 12 advertisements with 46 buttons per page 55 widgets, and 8 different types of flash videos with 650 separate jpgs, six different types of sources for the ads on each page, and a kitchen sink.

Apple.com on the other hands seem to do fine, I hear that's the home page to a pretty innovative and cutting edge company... and currently Apple.com only has 1 picture and 10 buttons, and 21 words. Nothing else.

The page loads and is usable instantly.

Amazing how that works?
 
Last edited:
turtle777 said:
https://getadblock.com/ and be done with it. :D

-t
Click to expand...

I see that AdBlock is conspicuously not available for Internet Explorer. For the OP, I assume you are not using IE? I was visiting a friend who uses IE (on a PC). and while borrowing their computer, it was a complete nightmare., pop ups and even unwanted program installs. I convinced her to switch to Firefox or Chrome and installed both of those browsers for them.
 
Huntn said:
I see that AdBlock is conspicuously not available for Internet Explorer. For the OP, I assume you are not using IE? I was visiting a friend who uses IE (on a PC). and while borrowing their computer, it was a complete nightmare., pop ups and even unwanted program installs. I convinced her to switch to Firefox or Chrome and installed both of those browsers for them.
Click to expand...

Do people still use IE? My least favourite browser ever.
 
Re KBB: ...that's weird. I was just there last week or two weeks ago and it work swimmingly. No glitches or ads. Of course, I have Safari with ad block but even then I still get pop ups if they try hard enough.
 
I see what the OP means. I went to KBB and Edmunds and they are both jammed with adverts. I don't remember one of them there were so many cluttering the pages.
 
Melrose said:
Re KBB: ...that's weird. I was just there last week or two weeks ago and it work swimmingly. No glitches or ads. Of course, I have Safari with ad block but even then I still get pop ups if they try hard enough.
Click to expand...
Me too. I've been on KBB quite a bit in recent months and it's loaded just fine for me and I've been on there on Chrome from my iMac, iPad and iPhone and everything worked out just fine.
 
VI™ said:
The OP is nuts! It used to take me hours just to download a game demo over dial up!
Click to expand...

Pepperidge Farm remembers using a 56k modem and waiting 30 minutes for a page to load.

"This might take a while. I'll away and get some tea..."
 
Melrose said:
Pepperidge Farm remembers using a 56k modem and waiting 30 minutes for a page to load.

"This might take a while. I'll away and get some tea..."
Click to expand...

My first computer had 486 processor, 2MB of RAM, 40MG HDD, 13" monitor, and a 14.4 modem. That was in 1993. Added 4MB RAM at $98/MB and later upgraded to a CDROM drive and 56K modem.

Still have that old Packard Bell. I use it as a foot stool at my computer desk.
 
The notion that the primary limits to performance are technical is, sadly, a myth.

Your ISP cranks down your speed unless you pay top dollar, and even then they have their foot on the brake when they feel inclined. Websites make money from advertising and are thus crammed with performance-sapping ads. Your OS includes a bunch of features you rarely, if ever, use but they eat up memory all the same. Your CPU/GPU may contain extra cores or features that have been disabled or masked off so that manufacturers can charge extra for those features yet still benefit from economies of scale in chip production.

The reality of computing sits far, far, far below the technical potential, unless you are able to pay. That's capitalism for ya.
 
Melrose said:
Pepperidge Farm remembers using a 56k modem and waiting 30 minutes for a page to load.

"This might take a while. I'll away and get some tea..."
Click to expand...

I just read that post out in my mind in the old man voice that did the voiceovers for their TV ads in the 70s and 80s. "Pepperidge Farm's Tasty Goldfish!"

Anyway, I won't bore you all with how long it took me to download 150K worth of data on my trusty 300 baud modem I started out with.
 
Silencio said:
Anyway, I won't bore you all with how long it took me to download 150K worth of data on my trusty 300 baud modem I started out with.
Click to expand...

In the bad old days of the early 80s I did some hefty uploading via an acoustic coupler (300 baud). The source was a PDP11 and I watched the upload proceed on a VT100 terminal.

We used to joke that we could see each character forming.

Even more amusing was that the only way to connect to the newspaper (these were results from a large running race) was for me to inject codes identifying my feed as coming from NY Off Track Betting. There was no other way to transmit data to the newspaper.
 
One thing I've noticed about extremely ad-heavy pages is that the ads always, and I mean always, display first. Half the time, all the ads will load, and then the page never does.

The absolute worst are those "13 crazy things from so-and-so movie" things that pop up on Facebook a lot. They always look so interesting, but the pages are so filled with ads, it's impossible to even see the content.
 
Roric said:
My first computer had 486 processor, 2MB of RAM, 40MG HDD, 13" monitor, and a 14.4 modem. That was in 1993. Added 4MB RAM at $98/MB and later upgraded to a CDROM drive and 56K modem.

Still have that old Packard Bell. I use it as a foot stool at my computer desk.
Click to expand...

Silencio said:
I just read that post out in my mind in the old man voice that did the voiceovers for their TV ads in the 70s and 80s. "Pepperidge Farm's Tasty Goldfish!"

Anyway, I won't bore you all with how long it took me to download 150K worth of data on my trusty 300 baud modem I started out with.
Click to expand...

lol... who would ever need more than 8KB of hard drive space, I ask you.

When my family bought our first computer it had a whopping 60GB hard drive. What a monster! The goober sales guy told us "That's more than you'll EVER use." :D I have 1TB in my laptop and I'm running low...
 
Keep in mind that those ads that you hate seeing are generating revenue for the content provider which allows them to continue to bring you the content that you want to see at no charge. Just as the commercials pay for the programs that we watch on television.

BTW - I started with a Commodore 64 with a 300 bps modem. Literally, you saw character by character appear on the screen. Then I went to 1200 bps, then 2400 bps... then 9600 bps. So my 14 mbps speed that I have now, is phenomenal to me although to someone with a 50 mbps connection, they think I'm slow.
 
samiwas said:
The absolute worst are those "13 crazy things from so-and-so movie" things that pop up on Facebook a lot. They always look so interesting, but the pages are so filled with ads, it's impossible to even see the content.
Click to expand...

I reckon how many ads a site has has a lot to do with how related the site's content is to specific products. For example, in the case of MacRumors there are a ton of products that can be advertised which would appeal to Mac/iOS users, so Arn doesn't need to saturate the site with ads. But a website listing 13 crazy things about so-and-so movie will have a very vague audience, which isn't easy to target ads to. I mean, do you think the best ads would be to go with a site like that? There's nothing specific, so they have to have a ton of general/unrelated ads instead of a couple of high quality ones.

With cryptocurrencies however I can see all this changing. Since cryptos allow micro-payments with very small fees, users could tip websites directly when they read an interesting article or watch a funny video, rather than having to buy a related product through a third party company. So you could read that article about 13 crazy things in so-and-so movie and tip the webmaster 20 cents or whatever if you find it interesting :)
 
Southern Dad said:
Keep in mind that those ads that you hate seeing are generating revenue for the content provider which allows them to continue to bring you the content that you want to see at no charge. Just as the commercials pay for the programs that we watch on television.
Click to expand...

Of course many websites need ads to generate revenue. Very few people would suggest otherwise. Otherwise, many websites simply wouldn't exist. But a banner ad and maybe a sidebar ad is a little less obtrusive than 17 ads surrounding the content, half of which are animated flash ads. Even worse is when they disguise the ad to look just like the "next" button for a page and cause you to inadvertently click on the ad.

However, in the OP's case, I think he might have some malware of some sort. I went to KBB on Safari, and I don't have adblock, and I didn't experience an infiltration of ads. I accidentally installed some sort of malware on my bootcamp partition one day when quickly trying to update java. Now, I can't even use the internet in bootcamp. Even non-internet usage is so plagued with ads and crap that I can't hardly see what I'm actually doing. Going to have to erase the partition and re-install.
 
samiwas said:
Of course many websites need ads to generate revenue. Very few people would suggest otherwise. Otherwise, many websites simply wouldn't exist. But a banner ad and maybe a sidebar ad is a little less obtrusive than 17 ads surrounding the content, half of which are animated flash ads. Even worse is when they disguise the ad to look just like the "next" button for a page and cause you to inadvertently click on the ad.

However, in the OP's case, I think he might have some malware of some sort. I went to KBB on Safari, and I don't have adblock, and I didn't experience an infiltration of ads. I accidentally installed some sort of malware on my bootcamp partition one day when quickly trying to update java. Now, I can't even use the internet in bootcamp. Even non-internet usage is so plagued with ads and crap that I can't hardly see what I'm actually doing. Going to have to erase the partition and re-install.
Click to expand...
Do you actually have to click the ad for it to count as a view or will looking at the page be enough? I always hear how sites need ads to survive, or do they need to you click the ad. If I have no intention of clicking on an ad what is the point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back