Paizo blogs index page extremely slow (and makes whole computer very slow)

[UnArcaneElection]

For the past few months, the Paizo blogs index page has been extremely slow and makes my whole computer very slow, to the point of being barely usable -- I have to wait on the order of a minute (or even more) for it to respond to a mouse click or keypress. This is NOT the Paizo home page, which loads fine; and it is NOT the individual blogs, which also load fine as long as the blogs index page isn't also open. All of the other Paizo pages I have found usually load fine if they load at all. It is the page you get by clicking Read More on the home page under the most recent 4 blogs. Closing this page eventually returns the computer to normal.

Anybody know what's going on? Performance of this page (which would otherwise be very useful) is something to think about if the web site is going to get upgraded.

Computer specifications below. Note: OS and web browser are latest supported versions on this hardware as of this posting. (I know, I need a new computer -- but I think that would, at best, just temporarily mask an underlying problem.)

Firefox 115.3.1esr (64-bit)

MacOS High Sierra
Version 10.13.6

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac12,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Boot ROM Version: 87.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 1.71f22
Serial Number (system): C02HXLYKDHJF
Hardware UUID: B417BFAA-6E3B-55E4-95C5-7C1944F4FE57

[AJCarrington]

I have experienced this for a LONG time as well. Some changes were made maybe 12-18 months back, and performance improved, but overall, still incredibly slow.

I typically use FF on Windows with uBlock Origins and LastPass as my only plugins. The number of elements uBlock is flagging these days is crazy...over 1K after about 5 minutes o.O !! I've never seen numbers like this on any other site. For reference, when I load the blog using Vivaldi and its built in adblocker, it reports that it's blocked 136 trackers (doubleclick.net) and 136 ads (102 googleleads.g.doubleclick.net and 34 static.doubleclick.net).

I have an older iPad and navigating the blog is pretty much non-functional. It just takes forever to load. No real issues with the forums or pages on the site (at least in my experience).

All this being said, hopefully the site refresh coming soon can address.

[UnArcaneElection]

Additional information: Tried the blogs index page and at first (for very roughly half a minute to a minute) it seemed fine, but then it rapidly choked my computer as noted before (it usually chokes my computer immediately). Not sure if they actually changed anything or if it's just that the stuff you mention uBlock blocking was just delayed in getting going.

[UnArcaneElection]

Seems to be moderately (not completely) consistent that if I spend only a few seconds on the blogs index page, I can get in and out before it hoses my computer. But still would be good to fix this. (And yes, I know, I need a new computer.)

[Garrett Guillotte]

I saw this raised in a separate discussion off-forums, and I think Paizo is now (and recently) aware of this as a result.

The index page had been split off into monthly archives until around 2021, at which point it began accumulating every post, including all images in those posts, since that point. The browser struggles because it's loading two years of blog posts at once at the tune of more than a gigabyte.

For me on 1-gigabit fiber and a decent new laptop with lots of RAM, it transfers about 1.44 GB, takes about 1m35s, and near the end starts to degrade performance. (At least one post also seems to repeatedly and indefinitely try to fetch something from the Google Play store.) I can imagine on a phone or other less powerful device that it's much worse.

It's probably been a boiling-frog kind of problem on the web team side; it didn't cause errors for people until the index grew, week by week, into a monster large enough to do so.

[UnArcaneElection]

That would make sense. I can't get my computer to load up enough of it to diagnose the problem without also getting hosed so that I can't do anything.

[UnArcaneElection]

Additional information: It doesn't matter whether I am logged in or not -- if I am on the Blogs page for long enough to initiate loading of more than 2 or 3 tabs (less favorable if I have to scroll down first), my whole computer becomes insanely slow. And if I leave (which is not easy), it eventually recovers, even with the other tabs still open.