Speed Boost

One of the goals we set ourselves for the 5.5.15 release of Affino was to reduce the average file size for Affino web pages. There are many benefits to this:

• Faster page loads
• Improved SEO
• Less data traffic generated
• Less processing power and energy required
• Snappier experience
• Improved 3G access
• Fewer browser errors
• Improved caching
• Content delivery network offloading
• Lower cost hosting
• Higher conversion rates

In this release we focused on shifting as much of the JavaScript and CSS code out of the core web page and through to separate CSS and JS files. The results have been dramatic, if we analyse the Comrz homepage we have reduced some size indicators by up to 64%:

• Page Length reduced by 51%
• Characters excluding spaces reduced by 48%
• Chars with spaces reduced by 45%
• The number of lines reduced by 64%

The file size reduction has been dramatic, but is only part of the story. The fact is that we’re shifting a great deal of code from being dynamically generated through to static files. These files can be cached by browsers, proxies and pre-caching servers, which means that the pages load up considerably faster. We’ve also changed the way the pages load up. It means that all the dynamic elements only load up once the overall page has downloaded and has been rendered.

The end result is that the end-user experience is now much snappier, and once the new Affino release has been fully rolled out, all Affino sites will benefit from significantly improved hosting server performance.