I wrote a diary posted a blog a few days ago relating my observations of how DK5 was performing on iOS, Mac OS, and Windows using the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome, over a home Comcast cable connection, a commercial Comcast cable connection, and Verizon 4G LTE. In general, I reported that DK5 lagged so badly it was unusable on an iPad at home on residential cable and over LTE, only marginally better over commercial cable; iPhone performance was similar; and on Macs and Windows it was pretty good on either cable connection. I also commented on a few design issues. This follow-up is devoted only to performance (lag) issues, as others have commented much more thoroughly regarding the design issues (eg., here and here).
Anyway, some commenters to my post indicated that they had no problems with speeds over connections as low as 6 mbps. Others said their problems were limited to pages with large numbers of comments. One commenter said DK5 was lagging on his Galaxy S6. I made a few comments using my iPhone 5S at home later that night and the lagging seemed to have miraculously cleared up. Markos chimed in and said that he was personally experiencing no lagging on his iPad, but there would be issues to work out with specific devices and browsers.
I sincerely hope that Kos’ apparently good experience on his own iPad will not result in iPad performance issues being overlooked, because DK5 is still unusable on my iPad Air (iOS 9.1, Safari).
Last night and this morning the lag was still present on my iPad. DK5 would take a couple of seconds to load, then the button functionality would take a couple more seconds. It would fall behind every time I scrolled. It seemed to be only keeping about a screen and a half (landscape) worth of content in memory at any time, so as soon as you scrolled it would start showing blank space at the bottom. If you want to scroll down to find something you have to go 1 ½ screens at a time. If you go too fast you end up staring at a completely white screen and you lose your place.
By the way, this was all with me signed in as a subscriber. So it’s the best case for DK5, because there is no ad content adding to the load.
I can affirmatively state that the lag is not connection speed dependent. I checked my connection speed using an app installed on my iPad called Speedtest. Comcast was in excellent form this morning, delivering an average speed of 55 mbps down and 11.6 mbps up over two tests. I immediately switched over to DK5 on Safari and the lag was still there. Checked to see whether I had other apps competing for memory space. Only one; I shut it down and re-checked; same results.
For good measure I fired up my Mac Pro before I left for work and it again rendered everything instantly, and scrolling was seamless over the same internet connection. (OS X Yosemite, Firefox 42.0.)
I’m writing this at work on my MacBook Pro (OS X El Capitan (updated last night), Firefox 42.0). I don’t have a speed test app on my MB Pro, but my iPad reports the connection is 45 mbps down and 23.9 up averaged over two tests. On the MB Pro, DK5 continues to perform well, with maybe a second of lag when the site is first accessed before everything is loaded and ready to go, then seamless scrolling after that under all circumstances.
On my work Windows machine (Windows 7, Firefox 42.0) the performance is a little choppier than on my MB Pro, but overall it’s similar. Mostly, it takes longer to complete the initial homepage load and become functional. Once everything is good to go scrolling is seamless just as on the Mac.
The only time I see a lag on (both) Mac and Windows machines is when commenting. As others have reported, initially, there is a lag of several seconds before you can type in the text box. I have found that if you first click one of the formatting boxes (say, left justify), DK5 seems to allow you to start typing right away. Otherwise you have to wait at least 10 seconds.
On my iPad Air over my work network it’s a completely different story. Just as it did over my home Comcast connection, DK5 takes 2-3 seconds to load up, then another short increment to become fully functional, and then it scrolls about a screen-and-a-half at a time. This happens on the DK5 home page just the same as on comment pages. On the other hand, unlike on my Mac and PC, my iPad Air does not lag when I type a comment. Nevertheless, because of the incredibly laggy scrolling, DK5 remains essentially unusable on my iPad Air.
My iPhone 5S experience is very different from that on the iPad, even though both are iOS. That’s probably because on an iPhone DK5 switches to the mobile site, which loads only one column at a time. Scrolling can sometimes get laggy on the DK5 home screen, but only after you quickly scroll through several screens at a time. Curiously, there is no lag when scrolling through a post, even one with lots of photos and graphics. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any lag before I can type in a comment text box.
Many people have complained about DK5’s requirement that the browser must load the entire article or post and all the comments when one is trying to see and reply to a comment. This does not—initially—cause a problem for me on any of the platforms. DK5 pretty much instantly loads the article and jumps to the comment reply. Problems arise if I then decide to scroll around in the comment section: it lags, or not, depending on the platform, just as described above. To be fair, in DK4 you’d have to click to see the parent and/or the article to see the rest of the comments, so that was often a pain, too.
What’s your experience?
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