News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Web.dev by Google by yandrypozo on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:18PM (#18435932)
I just ran their audit to https://mail.google.com, you guys (googlers) need to speed up your websites first, Gmail is terrible slow lately, just saying...
Re:Web.dev by Google by partiallypro on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:22PM (#18435970)
Google's pagespeed service is hot garbage. You can do things that make the page load significantly slower and get a perfect score than if you had a lower pagespeed score with a much faster page load.

I also find it strange how I can get an A on every other page speed service, including GTMetrix, but get an F on Google's tes(s). Totally useless.

Re:Web.dev by Google by rocky1138 on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:29PM (#18436573)
Google Pagespeed once recommended that I enable gzip compression on an embedded Google map.

https://johnrockefeller.net/google-pagespeed-_/

Re:Web.dev by Google by arkitaip on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:36PM (#18436635)
Most performance profilers will penalize you for embedding Google Analytics and Google Fonts because they have poor caching settings. What's so important about those resources that they can't be cached for longer periods?
Re:Web.dev by Google by hrrsn on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:35PM (#18437662)
I’ve always loved how Google’s own performance profiler marks you down for Analytics/Doubleclick caching.
Re:Web.dev by Google by jefftk on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @07:00AM (#18440324)
There are two main reasons why short caching is helpful on tag scripts:

* Faster iteration time for developers: the more often you release updates the faster you can move. If your script has a one week cache lifetime then there's not much point in daily releases and any experiments you run will be really skewed.

* Quicker response to problems: if we push out a bad update that gets past our testing, the TTL we serve it with determines how long that will stick around in browser caches.

(Disclosure: I work at Google, on ads JS, and I previously worked on mod_pagespeed. Not speaking for Google, just myself.)

Re:Web.dev by Google by tehlike on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:45PM (#18437391)
Easier bug fix presumably. Meaning if there is a bad release url is cached for little. If urls were versioned and were changable by google, it would have been done.

https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js

Google cannot bust this in case of a bug. They can mitigate this by having a loader with built in functionality that always looks out for "is there a newer version" but that has its limitations.

Re:Web.dev by Google by gondo on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:40PM (#18436665)
tracking
Re:Web.dev by Google by jopsen on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:55PM (#18436763)
https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#what_does_using_the_...

I'm no lawyer, but I read that as it is not used for tracking users.

(full disclosure: I work at Google, on something unrelated)

Re:Web.dev by Google by PavlovsCat on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @05:03AM (#18439890)
I see no explanation given why an asset that never changes would need to be requested once a day, and they clearly state they do record it.

> We only [sic] see 1 CSS request per font family, per day, per browser. Google Fonts logs records of the CSS and the font file requests, and access to this data is kept secure.

I read that as what's written there. It's for tracking. Tracking popularity is still tracking.

Re:Web.dev by Google by jopsen on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @10:21AM (#18441593)
> Tracking popularity is still tracking.

Tracking usually refers to tracking users, which as I read the FAQ isn't what it's for.

Re:Web.dev by Google by PavlovsCat on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @02:49AM (#18448268)
They take and keep the tracking data. What they say they use it for doesn't change that. If they simply incremented a counter the bit about "keeping access to the data secure" would make no sense.
Re:Web.dev by Google by philtar on Monday November 12, 2018 @06:28PM (#18436958)
Do you have a guess why those assets are not cached more aggressively?
Re:Web.dev by Google by jopsen on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @10:28AM (#18441645)
As I read the FAQ, the actual font files are aggressively cached. It's only the CSS files that links to the font files that aren't cached forever.

Probably to allow for updates and estimate popularity, with low overhead assuming CSS files are small.

Re:Web.dev by Google by fantyoon on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:26PM (#18437263)
This is a complete guess but I suppose one request everyday would be enough to get atleast some idea of how popular any given font is. The page says its to keep them updated but I highly doubt that would be the reason.
Re:Web.dev by Google by outside1234 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:14AM (#18438778)
So it’s tracking then
Re:Web.dev by Google by jefftk on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @07:00AM (#18440323)
While I don't know anything about fonts stuff, successful execution of the ad tag leads to an ad request, and this happens on every page view which has the script and not just the ones where the file has fallen out of cache. So there's no additional useful information Google would get from a low cache lifetime for the script.

The script request is to a cookiless domain for performance, unlike the ad request, so there's not even much useful information on that request.

(Disclosure: I work at Google, on ads JS, and I previously worked on mod_pagespeed. Not speaking for Google, just myself.)

Re:Web.dev by Google by m3nu on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:35PM (#18437322)
Doesn't work against my S3-hosted static site?

"Error: 500 from Lighthouse API: Internal Server Error"

Re:Web.dev by Google by foxylad on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:00PM (#18437475)
Same for my Cloudflare-fronted Appengine site.
Re:Web.dev by Google by vinniejames on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:38PM (#18437681)
Same on multiple domains, I think their site is broken
Re:Web.dev by Google by zwaps on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @05:48AM (#18440054)
Same here, custom hosted website.
Re:Web.dev by Google by jansan on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @05:07AM (#18439905)
On our website Google's pagespeed mainly complained about the Google Analytics snippets.
Re:Web.dev by Google by rawoke083600 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:30AM (#18439070)
I agree it's not perfect! But my view is that if they(Google) did the effort todo pagespeed, then lighthouse, then integrate lighthouse in Chrome.. and now in a separate website... Some of the metrics must be import for your rankings/site - even if only indirectly (slow site etc)
Re:Web.dev by Google by billyhoffman on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:28PM (#18436021)
Isn't GTMetrix just a combined Page Speed Insights and YSlow audit?
Re:Web.dev by Google by josefresco on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @10:03AM (#18441436)
I never pay attention to the "grades" only the data, especially the waterfall graph/data. The grades are ridiculous, and mostly meant to cause alarm. You can score 100/100 on almost every test, but get a "D" overall because you scored poorly on 1 or 2 tests. It's great tool for techs, but in the hands of a client almost every result/score appears terrible.
Re:Web.dev by Google by partiallypro on Monday November 12, 2018 @06:20PM (#18436922)
It uses an older version of Pagespeed, yes.
Re:Web.dev by Google by wild_preference on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:38PM (#18436115)
Meh, these tests are just good ways to find obvious problems with your site.

Fixating on the overall score seems like an indication of a different problem.

For example, you can't change the caching behavior of google-analytics.js, and it's usually intractable to split apart your CSS to optimize for above-the-fold content. Oh well, you didn't get a perfect score. Stay practical.

Re:Web.dev by Google by partiallypro on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:34PM (#18436613)
Try selling that to a client that keeps using the test against a site that is A rated everywhere else because Google's brand has fooled them into thinking a perfect score means better SEO.
Re:Web.dev by Google by wild_preference on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:50PM (#18437424)
Right, that would be an example of a "different problem."

I'd be hard pressed to let stupid things client/managers can do direct how this sort of tool should work. For example, it'd be silly to demand "score inflation" just because your client is unreasonable. Or rather, if a client is making your life hard, I don't think it's the world that needs to change.

What's your solution if your client measures your success by punching their website into https://www.worthofweb.com/calculator/? And doesn't take you seriously enough to listen to you in general?

Re:Web.dev by Google by savethefuture on Monday November 12, 2018 @06:01PM (#18436799)
This is a problem we run into, clients will run their site through a speed tester then give us a list of things to fix...without having a clue of what the ratings and results even mean.
Re:Web.dev by Google by arkitaip on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:38PM (#18436645)
True. This is like when movie studios start obsessing about the Metacritic ranking on their movies instead of focusing on the quality of the movies.
Re:Web.dev by Google by crunchlibrarian on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:29PM (#18436035)
When Gmail first came out I was amazed at how fast it was, so much faster than the native outlook client I used at the time, wow! How is that even possible in javascript!

Now gmail is slower than most any other website I use regularly. Can't even refresh the inbox in less than three seconds.

I've noticed the same slower by a bit every year pattern with google maps too. I'm afraid to click anything when I have a map open because I know it might trigger a repaint which will cause me to sigh and switch to another tab while it chugs for a few seconds to accomplish this.

Re:Web.dev by Google by komali2 on Monday November 12, 2018 @06:21PM (#18436929)
Not web dev related, but related to Google not focusing on performance: the latest Android release of Google Maps is actually non-functional on my Galaxy S7 because of how slow it is. It completely overloads RAM and crashes. Every time. Hilarious.
Re:Web.dev by Google by 05 on Monday November 12, 2018 @09:04PM (#18437833)
You should probably try their third world app version: Google Maps Go Edition. (See e.g. https://www.androidinfotech.com/2018/02/google-maps-go-editi...)
Re:Web.dev by Google by jniedrauer on Monday November 12, 2018 @10:57PM (#18438457)
I'm kind of disappointed that this isn't Go the programming language. I thought "that'd be really cool, porting android apps from Java to Go." But no, turns out there are only so many creative words you can come up with when "google" is your starting point.
Re:Web.dev by Google by imrehg on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @03:30AM (#18439534)
Gosh, thanks for this note! I thought it was just me and my 2.5 years old HTC that can't keep up. It is totally unusable as you say, for a few weeks now (crashes, slow, markers/directions not show at all while the app thinks it does)...
Re:Web.dev by Google by ocdtrekkie on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:42PM (#18436146)
The difference in performance between Fastmail and the new Gmail interface right now is freaking stunning. I still load Gmail every few days to see if I have email there, and it's like waiting for Windows 98 to boot.
Re:Web.dev by Google by mortehu on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:08PM (#18437521)
The main Gmail desktop website is sort of like a desktop application. Most active users keep it permanently open. Try https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/x/ , https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ or https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/mu/ (on mobile these will redirect unless you enable "request desktop site")
Re:Web.dev by Google by spurgu on Sunday November 25, 2018 @05:41PM (#18529548)
This is brilliant. Using the last one. And now https://m.facebook.com/messages/ for FB messenger as well. Thank you for this kind sir!

edit: Last one because it supports keyboard shortcuts.

Re:Web.dev by Google by joobus on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:45PM (#18436174)
Setup forwarding in Gmail to send to a fastmail address. Problem solved.
Re:Web.dev by Google by ocdtrekkie on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:56PM (#18436287)
This was actually an intentional choice not to do that. Setting up forwarding means you may have email continually passing through Google servers you didn't realize was still doing so. By having a hard cut between the two, I know for a fact that any email received at FastMail is not going through my Gmail account, and any email received at Gmail is, and needs to have the contact information updated.

I have a vacation auto-responder permanently on on Gmail as well to notify any individuals who hit my old address where my new address is.

Re:Web.dev by Google by onlyrealcuzzo on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:43PM (#18436688)
Recent Ad Words user here. It is quite possibly the worst application I've used in years. I get that they offer a LOT of products and that the nature of the business is complicated. But, man, was everything about that process awful. And the UI is unbearably slow.
Re:Web.dev by Google by hrrsn on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:36PM (#18437671)
I agree, it’s painful, but the new AdWords UI is still far ahead of the old one.
Re:Web.dev by Google by logicallee on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:06PM (#18437158)
I think it is in poor taste for Google to publish https://web.dev/ during the new desktop Gmail.

>Google's web platform team has spent over a decade learning about user needs. Now we want to make it as easy as possible for you to master the defining standards of web development today.

>Fast load times

>Guarantee your site loads quickly to avoid user drop off.

"Loading Gmail"

>Network resilience

>See consistent, reliable performance regardless of network quality.

"Loading..." (in yellow at the top, after clicking a search result. Indefinitely.)

(some other non-quoted parts are OK)

>Accessible to all

>[Build] a site that works for all of your users.

Re:Web.dev by Google by davidjnelson on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:45PM (#18437717)
> “Loading..." (in yellow at the top, after clicking a search result. Indefinitely.)

I dig google and its products but oh wow is this bug frustrating. Hope it’s fixed soon.

Re:Web.dev by Google by gowld on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:11PM (#18437538)
A Gmail account has has 10+GB of data. Users for the most part don't want 10GB in browser local storage. Gmail's speed problems are in the backend, not the web UI.
Re:Web.dev by Google by joshfraser on Monday November 12, 2018 @08:47PM (#18437733)
That's not true. Pop open your console and watch the network tab for yourself. Slow websites are almost always due to frontend issues. Besides, Google has the ability to index the entire internet and return results in milliseconds. I'm guessing it's not my 10GB of email that's tripping them up.
Re:Web.dev by Google by logicallee on Monday November 12, 2018 @10:03PM (#18438126)
what you've written is totally false. It worked fine on the old UI, and also still works fine in simple HTML mode.

You can see this yourself here: http://mail.google.com/mail/h/ (direct link to html view. you have to already be signed in for this link to work.)

Side note: I'm sure you would have mentioned it, but you don't happen to work at Google on the new Gmail front-end, do you? (Since I could see someone who is, trying to deflect blame for their current bugs by "blaming the back-end".) Just want to make sure...

Re:Web.dev by Google by sumoboy on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:03PM (#18436362)
You think gmail is slow, try the new adwords interface.
Re:Web.dev by Google by e40 on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:37PM (#18436640)
Or the g suite admin console. Cripes, it's insanely frustrating to use.
Re:Web.dev by Google by hanoz on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:30PM (#18437288)
Google seems to be increasingly giving the impression of collapsing under its own weight.
Re:Web.dev by Google by e40 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @09:58AM (#18441389)
That's kinda what it feels like to me. Does g suite already have so much technical debt that they can't make it better? It's been this way since I started using it, more than a year ago.
Re:Web.dev by Google by r1ch on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:46PM (#18436707)
Seriously! Every click feels like a chore, it's easily 3+ seconds before the page is interactive again. I've started using the mobile app for everyday tasks since it's so much more responsive, I just wish it supported better password resets.
Re:Web.dev by Google by mellow-lake-day on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:47PM (#18437407)
Or the Google Cloud Platform
Re:Web.dev by Google by alexbecker on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:14PM (#18443237)
Oh man, I used to be on the team that built that. It's just enormous. If you're on Chrome, the optimizations are sometimes enough to make it smooth. If you're on any other browser, god help you. I used to see 30s(!) reflows in Firefox.
Re:Web.dev by Google by Semaphor on Monday November 12, 2018 @10:32PM (#18438293)
I assume it's the same as the DFP/AdManager interface? Because every click means I can make a new pot of coffee.
Re:Web.dev by Google by dextersgenius on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @02:32AM (#18439317)
Even Google.com doesn't fare too well by their own standards. https://lighthouse-dot-webdotdevsite.appspot.com/lh/html?url...
Re:Web.dev by Google by pmarin on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @03:03AM (#18439426)
>Gmail is terrible slow lately, just saying...

Recently I started using the html only version of Gmail because for my user case is faster than the web app.

Re:Web.dev by Google by Touche on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:57PM (#18436292)
This is a bad take. By releasing tools like this it helps all websites, including Gmail, have the data on how to speed up their website.
Re:Web.dev by Google by svnpenn on Monday November 12, 2018 @11:54PM (#18438698)
Not really. Would you take webdev advice from a company where their own apps are memory hog/leaking garbage (Gmail)? At some point you need to call a square a square.
Re:Web.dev by Google by Touche on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @08:08AM (#18440626)
If you disagree with the advice on web.dev then that's fine. Call that out. Saying that the advice is wrong because another team in another building, maybe in another city or another country, built an app you don't like, is just wrong. This sort of ad hominem is beneath HN.
Re:Web.dev by Google by kodablah on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @10:17AM (#18441557)
Yet it seems excusing corporate hypocrisy and inconsistency based on size and employee location to be par for the course.
Re:Web.dev by Google by Touche on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @11:21AM (#18442122)
Sorry, I'm not letting you get away with an illogical argument here. There's nothing hypocritical about the authors of web.dev making an auditing tool because some other people who work for the same company work on site that (may) do badly.

In fact, it wouldn't be hypocritical even if the authors of web.dev themselves worked on a site that did badly.

It is, after all, a tool. It's not a declaration of superior intellect. It's not an article of condescension. It's a tool.

Re:Web.dev by Google by kodablah on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @11:34AM (#18442244)
The hypocritical statement is on the part of the company, not the specific authors. The efforts represent the company, as do their efforts in standards organizations, browser implementations, and email user interfaces. It is completely logical to question their inconsistencies especially as one of the primary drivers of standards. If the company cannot present a consistent front, we can ask ourselves whether their attempts to help others do so are accurate much less well intentioned. This should be obviously clear and not about individuals or their feelings.
Re:Web.dev by Google by Touche on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @08:23AM (#18449634)
Releasing a tool cannot be hypocritical. The existence of a tool to audit performance, accessibility, etc. is not a declaration of Google's moral or virtuous superiority. It's a tool.
Re:Web.dev by Google by collinmanderson on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @02:31PM (#18453058)
Maybe the web.dev is trying to convince other teams at Google to improve their products.
Re:Web.dev by Google by stef25 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @04:47AM (#18439820)
Their advice isn't perfect but that doesn't mean I won't pay attention to it. Memory use and leaking isn't really covered in their page speed advice anyway, which is mostly about server side caching, image optimisation, css / js delivery.

If there's any other decent page speed assistance I'd love to see it.

Re:Web.dev by Google by fold_left on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:37AM (#18438852)
> Not really. Would you take webdev advice from a company where their own apps are memory hog/leaking garbage (Gmail)? At some point you need to call a square a square.

Wait, was web.dev built by the Gmail team? I always assumed Google was bigger and more complex than that?

Re:Web.dev by Google by dmitriid on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:14AM (#18439009)
Yup. It’s a company that routinely breaks the web, pursues its own standards at the detroment of others and and will prioritize things like AMP over any of its own tools.
Re:Web.dev by Google by IloveHN84 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:40AM (#18438867)
Google websites and services are terribly slow