Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Short explanation, because this is looking a bit strange to other people, I guess.
I found out on the background of the forum very big images are being downloaded, far over 500 KB, on a lot of pages.
I thought this were private screenshots of Open Source, but luckily I was wrong about that.
But these huge images may explain the amount of bandwith. They don't download on every page, about on half of them.
Well, that's what I mailed Open Source about.
I didn't want to write that here, because if it were indeed private screenshots, I thought it wasn't a good idea to write on a public forum you can view them...
Well, back to topic.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

It looks like the huge images are gone. So are the thumbnails. Size of the page went down from 800 KB - over 1MB to about 50 KB.
It loads much faster now.
I'm absolutely sure it were big images that were downloaded on the background, because I could measure it with my bandwith-monitor. And I saved one, it was about 700 KB. But they didn't show on the screen.

I'm going to look on other pages to verify it's gone now.
By the way: I used the Firefox' extension Firebug, really handy to see what you download.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

I looked at several pages. The size went down to 15 - 55 KB, instead of sometimes over 1 M
Thumbnails and big images disappeared.
Since you disabled the image-sidebar I guess this makes the difference.
Thumbnails were about 50 KB, if I remember well. But the main traffic were the huge images that downloaded while not even showing up. Maybe you can change that, so they only download when somebody wants to see it?

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Here is a thought, in firefox, you can disable images from loading (example: avatars, signature images, etc.). You can specify what websites as well. This might be a solution for those who are short on bandwidth. On large threads, this can save you upwards of 200 Kb. As for the rest of the data, I am afraid thats just the way the software is designed. Maybe there is a better forum program out there. I would say disable images for kf.n and if there is still too much traffic, we can try something else.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

For me it's no problem, but I think for people with less bandwith it can be handy to disable images.
The size I see now (15-55 KB) is about the same as I see on other forums. It's pretty inefficient code, but I guess it's very hard to generate efficient code automatically, so I guess that's just the way it is.

Hmm, work with Firefox for years, never noticed you can block images for just one site

I wonder if other people notice a difference in speed and bandwidth?

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

In the options, there is a box for load images, and then there is a button for exceptions and you can choose specific sites. Or disable all sites and allow only a couple. Pretty neat when used with some sites.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Yes, really handy.
I don't know if you're gonna enable that image-sidebar again. I guess if you leave it off the problems is solved too, but that's up to you of course.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

A page like this counts now about 100 KB, without buttons etc. 89 KB to be exactly. And that's all code.
If I reload this gets downloaded again, it doesn't com out of the cache. But normally you don't reload a page.
The buttons etc. add 48 KB, but you download them only once, after that they're in the cache. If I go to another page they are indeed loaded out of the cache, not from the internet.

Well, I think it's time for me to go to bed.