Sometime in the last few days, the load of both Read Stories and Saved Stories has been extraordinarily slow. Today it seems stalled completely, that is until I tell NoScript to allow google-analytics.com and then it loads right up. This is new behavior.
I normally block GoogleAnalytics and GoogleTagManager and, frankly, as much Google bloatware as I possibly can. It’s disappointing that Newsblur now seems to depend on GoogleAnalytics to finish loading.
This bit of disappointment was compounded by my effort to get GetSatisfaction to load and the discovery of even more mysterious and new javascript on its site. (The new parent of GetSatisfaction, Sprinklr, is an even worse hive of intrusive tracking javascript.)
All in all, a bad day for clean and simple sites that mind their own business.
Later - edited to point out that All Site Stories still loads, although more slowly when google-analytics.com is blocked. I also notice that Read Stories and Saved Stories both seem to load more slowly than they did, say, a week ago, even with g-a allowed.
So, to summarize, block google-analytics … loading stalls, i.e. it may load some day, but I can’t wait that long … allow google-analytics, loads slowly, but within my patience limits.
I have a potful. I started by pointing out the behavior because newsblur itself seemed like the common denominator. I have not installed any new extension, or changed the whitelists for AdBlock, NoScript, PrivacyBadger, BetterPrivacy, or any of the other obvious candidates (Kaspersky stuff) lately. This is Firefox, of course.
Come to think of it, I think I have noticed a slowdown in loading on my iPad, too. (Could be just guilt by association?) Is it possible that my Read Stories and Saved Stories (9406) have just become so large that the initial response is now slow? I realize the actual stories are spoonfed to the client, but this seems to be a delay in getting the first story out.
If you didn’t change anything and I didn’t change anything, that leaves Firefox itself or auto downloads of extension updates or sunspots or something. This is probably one of those ugly deals that will take some experimentation to figure out. I can compare Firefox with all the extensions to Chrome with none. I can get load times from the developer tools or Fiddler. Firefox with extensions off versus on. There’s all kinds of fun stuff to try.
What I wanted to do was rule out any of the simple head-slapping (oh, s**t!) possibilities on your end (and mine) before heading down that road. Suggestions about where to look first are welcome.
The amount of extensions may be your issue. Why not try launching your browser in safe mode or with extensions off and see how well the site works? I have just uBlock and it blocks GA and site is fine for me. Ad blockers and privacy tools can interfere with normal site code and javascript so normally I test with them off to be sure it’s not the client that’s the issue.