webtest.app
Dev tools
web performance testing
SHOW HN2019
How HN took it
5 positive, 13 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 10 critical, out of 29 comments about the project. Thread score -0.15.
Performance: 0 for, 4 againstIdea: 2 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 3 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clean side-by-side comparison that shows the weight of ads and trackers
From 1 comment
Excellent way to show the weight of ads and trackers, very clean side by side comparison.
dddddaviddddd on HN
Useful idea that reveals what is hidden from ad-blocker users
From 2 comments
Great idea. Kudos for launch. Bookmarked. What striked me is JSHeapTotalSize, never really think the ADs are eating so much RAM / resources (make sense). In Guardian case this…
nwrk on HNIn what way do you think news sites would pay for this service? They want full throttle ads everywhere right, not sure why this service is of any use. They just think: the more…
aberforth123 on HN
Objections
Results are noisy and inconsistent, with timing differences likely from network variation
From 3 comments
Here's evidence[1] that uBlock adds less than 100ms to "an atypically large page from a nice site" (i.e. one that doesn't have any ads). Some other effect is at work here, it's…
bscphil on HNIt's also probably entirely random fluctuations in this case. uBlock doesn't add anywhere near that much latency normally.
bscphil on HNIt's the same 7 requests, probably a transient effect. E.g. https://webtest.app/?url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21052969 is 0.48 vs 0.5. I don't think it lets you…
Mathnerd314 on HN
Server is slow or queues jobs, so sites often fail to load
From 2 comments
I'm stuck in a queue. more workers please, this is awesome.
drenvuk on HNNo sites are loading for me, including the one in the Show HN URL, which ought to be cached. I think we broke the site.
bscphil on HN
Site accepts unsafe URLs such as file:// and enables recursion
From 1 comment
You need to filter the URLs that are accepted to avoid security problems - had you a contact address on your profile here, or on the site I'd have disclosed this more privately.…
stevekemp on HN
Requests
Open source the code
From 2 comments
I'm not sure why the code isn't open source on this one. If the OP is hoping that news websites (etc.,) will pay for this service, I wouldn't hold my breath. This site only…
codeisawesome on HNOr maybe provide the ability to run it locally. Is it open source and does it have deployment instructions?
gchamonlive on HN
Add more workers and capacity
From 1 comment
I'm stuck in a queue. more workers please, this is awesome.
drenvuk on HN
Add Speed Index metric and more scientific measurement
From 2 comments
Thanks for sharing this gem. Did you consider computing the Speed Index? [1] It would help assessing the performance impact these ads have. [1]…
arnley on HNInteresting to see many sites load faster without uBlock because DOM content loaded is faster... it would be nice if we could run more scientific measurement to get a better…
taf2 on HN
Allow downloading cached results as a dataset
From 1 comment
Nice, I like this. Would be nice if there was a way to display/download all cached results. Would be a nice dataset for visualisation or a dashboard.
phobonym on HN
Questions
Why does Reddit or YouTube load more requests with uBlock enabled?
From 2 comments
YouTube sends more requests with uBlock Origin enabled? [1][2] My theory is, without the ads, there is more space in the webview to load video thumbnails, each item representing…
guessmyname on HNWhy does the Reddit page get bigger with uBlock Origin? From 2.73 MB on Chrome to 8.48 with uBlock Origin. https://webtest.app/?url=https://reddit.com
regnerba on HN
Is the project open source and can it run locally?
From 1 comment
Or maybe provide the ability to run it locally. Is it open source and does it have deployment instructions?
gchamonlive on HN
Alternatives named
Headless Chrome
From 1 comment
Question for the developer: any particular reason you're using Chrome with xvfb rather than just headless. Its been stable for a while.
nreece on HN