Windows Central website is slow and full of ads

[anon(9223041)]

Hi,

I am also developer and I also have to say this site is awfully slow, full of ads and so, ok I understand you want to earn money with ads to hold the site alive, but common that issue is really bad, my suggestion is remove any third party services from the site (all ads ads), make the design and layout better, improve the site code, do automated tests to see what are the results and do some brain storm to think is there any other way to earn money to hold the site alive without any ads, I understand I could use ad block or other browser, but I want to use Microsoft Edge and that's it. You cannot accuse people due their slow internet speed, slow devices. It does not matter, what device people are using. It seems really that site is gonna take more and more the corporate view, it means the only purpose is to earn a profit, you should look into the mirror and ask yourself is that really me or what is the purpose of that what you are doing.

 

[primortal]

Adding Adblock to desktop IE11 solely to view this site would be a bear. Known to increase memory usage and loading times significantly.

No need to load Adblock, just go to this site Internet Explorer Gallery and add EasyList Standard and EasyPrivacy.

 

[realwarder]

No need to load Adblock, just go to this site Internet Explorer Gallery and add EasyList Standard and EasyPrivacy.

That what my IE is setup with.

Of course Edge doesn't support that (yet) and so the site is still slow on it. Worse on mobile too. Stupid popups that sit over the bottom of the page. Even had one that you had to scroll up and off the page to clear the other week.

Funniest thing to me is I've posted feedback to Microsoft many times for Edge on mobile and desktop now that WindowsCentral is the perfect test case for diabolical performance due to the ad overkill. No other website I use has this many ads. None. It's like you're asking us to install an ad-blocker!

 

[rdubmu]

I now use chrome to view windows central. I don't even want to visit this site anymore because it looks so bad and performs so badly. This thread started in March and it is almost October. IT has only gotten worse.

 

[jlzimmerman]

Yeah, the ad thing is getting ridiculous. The silver lining is that Mobile Nations isn't the only place. For instance, Verge readers are about to revolt with how they are handling ads, and the whole ethics behind ads and ad blocking is becoming a hot topic.

But like so many others, I understand why ads are in place and no I do not expect content for free. I don't have a problem with ads. I only have a problem with ads that slow my browsers down to a crawl, and in some cases just damn near impossible to navigate. The frequency in which I visit this site has all but stopped from my home machine. It's much too painful.

 

[rdubmu]

I hate the new look of Windows Central. If it isn't changed soon, I'll most likely stop coming to the site.

 

[Legatus]

I`ve always tried visiting WC on IE11, and now on Edge, but it was nearly impossible, considering I had to wait 15-20 sec just to load WC homepage. That was the reason I started using Chrome only to view this site. I`ve never had any problems visiting any other sites while using IE11 or Edge which is now my default browser. After seeing this post I decided to check if anything has improved and unfortunately it hasn`t. Eventually I`ll return visiting WC on Edge but because of all the problems I`ve had in the past it will happen the moment extensions arrive for Edge.

And I don`t think I`m the only who looks forward to using ad block for this site. It is sad actually because I have no problem turning ad block off if that is a primary way for the site to keep itself going but when ads start to annoy and affect my browsing, well, then you could say I`m forced to use it. :eck:

 

[BBMINI]

Just to chime in on a thread that's now been chugging along for several months, the site it agonizingly slow and very frustrating to use.

Every. Single. Step. Takes. FOREVER. While. The. Page. AND. All. The. Freaking. ADS. Load.

Definitely a deterrent to visiting and using the site. Yes, the content is worthwhile, but if navigating the site is truly irritating (and it really is) then it makes sense to start looking for Microsoft-related news elsewhere. I visit the site on Firefox and IE and the degree of suffering is the same on both browsers. And as others have mentioned, I have no hang/drag problems with any other sites I visit, so it's definitely unique to WindowsCentral. Also never had these problems when I was a regular on Crackberry.

 

[BBMINI]

Also, I'm not a developer and I know nothing about website design, but in my experience it seems like WindowsCentral as an overall site simply doesn't act/respond like other sites across the web. I mean that every step of the WC visit/experience seems to be problematic. For example, often when WC is one of the tabs I have open in IE and I'm away from the site and then go to click back to WC the tab often seems to not want to respond, ultimately making my laptop "rev up" like it's working really hard trying to do something, and generally locking up IE altogether. And if I can get the tab to respond and actually show me the site then the mouse pointer hangs and doesn't act correctly when I want to click on various buttons/links on the site.

So while, yes, the page load times on the site are undeniably much slower than any other site I visit, and prioritizing ad loads over user experience makes me feel like I'm being pimped out for WC's advertisers, something about the site in general is really just "off" in terms of how it works with IE and Firefox. Both browsers really seem to dislike the site and always have to work very hard to get anything to happen. I've come to know that if I have WC open in either browser and my laptop starts giving me trouble or locking up, I can usually close WC to relieve the laptop of its straining. Sorry I can't describe it in more technical/developer terms, but I hope this makes sense. And, for reference, it wasn't always like this. Maybe 12-18 months ago the site was much more navigable and user friendly, scrolling worked fine, pages loaded as expected, site hangs were infrequent, and my browsers seemed to get along with the site with no troubles.

 

[earle36]

Have to say I agree - I'm using Edge and the site is unbearably slow. I really hope you guys are working to improve it - the ads are slowing down page loads to the point where I really hate browsing the site even though I love the content and the community here

 

[rmeigs]

Site is also unbearably slow on Firefox 42. The site is the worst I've seen in years. Heaven help you if you open site threads using multiple tabs.

 

[ujori89]

Agree!

 

[anon(9738275)]

I found the solution in regards to painfully slow problems in Edge. Task managed was reporting like 400mb of RAM being used up when I had multiple tabs open. I installed a program called Adguard. It comes with a free 14 day trial but can be bought for ?5.27 ($9.98). Ram is about 90MB with this program.