Chrome 148 Will Start 'Lazy Loading' Video and Audio to Improve Performance (pcworld.com)
- Reference: 0181223724
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/04/05/0031201/chrome-148-will-start-lazy-loading-video-and-audio-to-improve-performance
- Source link: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3106354/chrome-148-will-lazy-load-video-and-audio-closing-a-long-standing-gap.html
> [T]he browser can intelligently postpone the loading of certain elements. Why load all images at the start when it can instead load images as you get close to them while scrolling? Chrome and Chromium-based browsers have had built-in lazy loading support for images and iframes since 2019, but this feature would make browsers capable of lazy loading video and audio elements, too. Note, however, that this won't benefit YouTube video embeds — those are already lazy loadable since they're embedded using iframes. Actual video and audio elements are rarer but not uncommon. In addition to Chrome, lazy loading of video and audio elements is also expected to be added to other Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge and Vivaldi.
[1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/3106354/chrome-148-will-lazy-load-video-and-audio-closing-a-long-standing-gap.html
Re: (Score:3)
Like most here, I've been using ad blockers for many years and I'm still amazed at how much faster sites load when you block the additional crap. Depending on the site, sometimes up to 5-10 times faster - mind you, the important stuff does load first. Lazy loading (what a lame term) will be insignificant compared to ad blocking tech.
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Start a new term - for example 'just in time loading' / jit loading / jitl
How about only after interaction? (Score:2)
In general they've been on the right trend of only playing after interactions.
Most of the time they're ads, and even if they do manage to slip through my ad blocks and DNS fliters, I still don't want them playing.
Waste of bandwidth.
No auto load/play, period (Score:4, Insightful)
No video (or animated image) should ever load/autoplay unless the user interacts with that element, indicating he/she wants to play it. Same with audio.
That is how I have Firefox set up. I can't imagine why anyone would want something different, unless the user wants to whitelist the site (like I do with my video cameras, since I do want those to play automatically).
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It can buffer without playing.
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> "It can buffer without playing."
True. Anything is better than autoplaying. Although I would prefer delaying buffering as well. I don't care that it might take 2 seconds longer to start a video, later.
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Disagree heavily. You should absolutely load. Autoplay absolutely is a cancer and entirely within the control of the user, but when the user hits that play button that video better play instantly and not sit there buffering or loading. Lazyloading is a good thing that makes the internet appear far more responsive.
Tap or click to view article (Score:2)
> No video (or animated image) should ever load/autoplay unless the user interacts with that element, indicating he/she wants to play it.
How granular would the permission be? If web browsers start blocking all animation and post-load layout shifting by default, including [1]CSS transitions and animations [pineight.com], this would encourage website operators to structure the page to coerce permission to animate in each document. For example, a website operator could make each page load blank other than a notice to the effect " Tap or click to view 'Title of Article' on Name of Site."
[1] https://pineight.com/cssdemos/autoplay-methods/step_jpeg.html
I am skeptical (Score:2)
I don't trust Google, therefore I suspect this is about loading ads and claiming they were displayed even if user never got to see them.
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I think we can all be certain the ads will all load just fine. It will be the site's content that is delayed/held back.
Absolute Shit (Score:3)
So, cntrl-f search is broken because it's not loaded. I can't scroll down quickly because it does the constant stop-and-buffer routine.
This is just total ass because people have over-bloated the web. I don't need 20-50 MB pictures on a little screen. I don't need all the bloated java bullshit that companies, especially news media companies, are filling their pages with.
This is another symptom of shitty programmers using 100 different pre-made libraries all of which are shitty and bloated to begin with, along with oversize graphics and hundreds of links to third party ad servers all using bandwidth that's utterly unrelated to the actual content I want to read.
Java hasn't been in the browser for 10+ years (Score:2)
> This is another symptom of shitty programmers using 100 different pre-made libraries all of which are shitty and bloated to begin with, along with oversize graphics and hundreds of links to third party ad servers all using bandwidth that's utterly unrelated to the actual content I want to read.
All your complaints? They're not Java. Java kept in it's own little sandbox. Java applets sucked and were solution looking for a problem outside a few novelty browser games. However, Java has been absent for browsers for almost 20 years. All the vendors removed support 10 years ago now. It began a very steep decline once the iPhone was introduced and Apple refused to support it.
Java has been a server side technology since the early 2000s. It doesn't even render HTML very much any more. It only pr
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It’s already broken because sites have so much content hidden behind collapsible text. I’ve already had to view the page source to ctrl f something.
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> So, cntrl-f search is broken because it's not loaded. I can't scroll down quickly because it does the constant stop-and-buffer routine.
Continuous scrolling content has nothing to do with this article. This article is about Chrome, and Ctrl+F works fine for all loaded content, you are misdirecting your anger in a comment to the wrong article. Also you can't load infinitely. You can't Ctrl+F the second page of Slashdot while on the first page either.
> This is another symptom of shitty programmers using 100 different pre-made libraries all of which are shitty and bloated to begin with, along with oversize graphics and hundreds of links to third party ad servers all using bandwidth that's utterly unrelated to the actual content I want to read.
This has nothing to do with anything. You are making a completely off-topic rant. Continuous scrolling pages are not a symptom of using a pre-made libarary. It's a choice for displaying content.
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It doesn't affect text so ctrl F still works. The rest can be mitigated by supplying element sizes in the HTML.
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> Wouldn't a better description be load-on-demand?
Lazy-loading is not load on demand. It's literally loading it when it gets close to the viewport, in advance, before the user actually sees it or clicks on it. It's the middle thing between loading on demand, and pre-loading every element on the page.
Lazy loading images sucks when you're offline (Score:2)
> Why load all images at the start when it can instead load images as you get close to them while scrolling?
That's all fine and good if you have connectivity when you're scrolling .
When I'm getting ready to fly, I preload about 50 tabs in my browser so I have something to read. It is a horrible PITA to hand-scroll each tab down to the bottom so all its images load.
It's even worse when the browser crashes. Because then I get to do that again, for every tab. Usually on crappy airport or hotel WiFi.
Sure, load all the images after the text. But please do load them all, rather than waiting until I scroll.
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The internet is dynamic. Lazy loading is an optimisation technique that makes the browser experience better for the 99.99% of people currently *not* sitting at the airport about to board a flight.
What you really want to do is save the page. Chrome has that function, though I suspect it will have other problems, but it very much does load all images and make the page static (many webpages have an expiry / timeout period so even if you pre-loaded the tab, activating it 30min later will cause it to attempt to
What's wrong with the API? (Score:2)
Isn't there an API for lazy loading? What's wrong with that? Developers not using it? They should be very careful of trying to outsmart dumb web "developers", the Web is messy enough as it is.
Needs to be optional (Score:2)
As long as I can turn it off, I don't give a rat's ass what stupid, annoying, and bandwidth-eating "features" they put into Chrome.
Nah (Score:1)
In my experience this slows down rather than speeds up browsing for the end-user, but it does save server bandwidth for the provider.
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Can be useful when you have a limited amount of data.
Download with eager loading and read offline (Score:2)
In my experience on laptops and tablets, I've found the exact opposite (eager loading) helpful in some situations with limited or no data. I would download an entire page on unmetered Wi-Fi, go offline, and read while riding as a passenger in a car or bus.