AIBU to think Mumsnet has become very slow to use?

[Clafoutie]

I can barely use Mumsnet now as every single thing clicked on takes a couple of seconds to open, and the screen reloads itself. It has been a problem for ages, and I have seen other threads on it, but it seems to be getting worse. Or is it something wrong at my end?

Yes lots of advert and memes seem
to slow the paring of pages down a lot.

Yep, this thread took 2 minutes to load and be readable.
Too many ads, too many video ads, too many moving picture ads. I don't even read 99.9% of the ads.
the pages stutter, move about and it's unusable and even writing this has taken nearly 10 minutes. In
2 minutes I will get so frustrated that I will sign outn
TO.....ok, I give up 😵

I agree. I used to post or reply all the time. It's very hard work.

Yes, it’s infuriating when you are typing and each letter is appearing…a few..seconds..at a time, and then you end up having typppped …
Glad it isn’t just me!

Christ on a bike! Don't complain too loudly about the adverts ruining your mumsnetting or Justine will appear calling you a shoplifter for wanting to enjoy mumsnet without a massive advert popping up all over the place 😂

I use the app and don’t have this issue
I do find desktop slow and rarely use it - only for messages really

I can only use incognito for it for some reason.

Doesn’t happen on any other website I use, people have been saying this for a long long time but nothing changes.

OP, how old is your phone?

I only use mumsnet on pc now because it's so ad-heavy that my iphone, which is not the newest, doesn't have the processing power to deal with them. I get bored waiting for pages to clear.

I pay the monthly subscription and recently added an extension on chrome to block GIFS (not because they slow my internet down but because I hate them) so I don't have any of these issues!

Do not even look at the adverts. Agree irritating. Modern phone.

Use the duckduckgo browser

Yes. For me with my Internet it's becoming unuseable so I only click on rare threads.

I’ve noticed that when I go on the forum it consumes so much battery power and my phone gets hot whilst on it. Does anyone else experience this? This doesn’t seem to happen with any other site or app I use.

Glad it’s not just me! I really struggled yesterday evening I even reset the router at one point! Tried 5G and different places in the house thinking it was a connectivity problem my end!
I wonder if it’s at particularly busy times and the site can’t cope with the amount of traffic?

Me too! I have a 15plus. I have switched to Chrome for Mumsnet after seeing an old generic email from Mumsnet advising this saying they were aware of the problem and working on it.🤔

It’s a pain and I strongly suspect they are not on it and want people to take out an add free subscription which I refuse to do. I’m hoping they make Chrome unusable too as I hate how nasty Mumsnet has got and need a push to leave completely.

I'm currently sat looking at 6 Tesco Fred & Flo ads, all identical and none have a shut down/off tab. What's the point because as a result they interfere with my reading, writing and stability on each page.
My devices also get hot and burn through battery charge really quickly and it's all down to ads.
I believe is an orchestrated campaign by MN to make us all pay to remove ads in that we all get so fed up that we'll pay to get rid of them. And then what? Everyone pays and ad revenue drops considerably so then it will be 'carefully selected ads' regardless of whether you pay or not.
I hate being held hostage by these ads that you can't pause or stop and often just leave the post (and the ads) unread - so who's benefitting from that?

And don't get me started on the 'cookies'!
If I use a cookie counter then it's not unusual to have more than 50,000 cookies downloaded or attempt to download in about 2 hours!!!! 50,000+!
Luckily I can get rid of most of them when I shut down and use MN in a restricted area of my computer to minimise damage but I know that most users do not have the time, skill or inclination to do this and let's face it....we shouldn't have to.

Are you sure it’s not your device? Have you checked your storage? If your phone is full, it will take ages to load websites.

My iPad is nearing end of life and it takes ages to load webpages on any site, not just MN.

My IPhone is 7 years old and MN page loading is fine.

Nope my husband works in IT and went though my phone. It’s definitely a MN thing. Horne is better.

But if it’s working fine for millions of other MN users then I think it’s more likely it’s an individual’s device or broadband issue.

IT workers are not the source of truth.

Following advice from other posters on a long thread about it in Site Stuff, I use the DuckDuckGo app for Mumsnet and it's ok. Before that I could only use it on my iMac as it was unusable on my iPad and kept crashing Safari

Thanks for all the replies so far. Glad to know it isn’t just me. There’s some useful advice and tips here which I’ll look at. Meanwhile it has taken me forever to type this message! 😩

Yes! (Laptop user as the app is not pleasant to use)

Up till about 3-4 weeks ago, I would routinely get BSOD if I tried to open more than 2-3 MN pages - ONLY MN caused this, no other sites. It's like the pages are so bloated my computer falls over trying to process them.

Then something seemed to change and it was relatively speedy and I rejoiced!

...But in the past few days it's back to being slow again. Tempting fate to say no BSOD so far, but...

It’s not though and I only experience it on Mumsnet. Really don’t think they’d send out an email to everybody if it’s an individual device issue. This was sent unprompted in May and they’ve done nothing.

“You may have experienced freezing or crashing during longer browsing sessions on Mumsnet, particularly on Safari, and I wanted to explain a bit more about what’s going on.

Over longer sessions, browser memory usage can gradually build up because of advertising and other third-party technologies running on the site. Eventually this can cause pages or tabs to freeze, crash, or refresh unexpectedly.

Safari has lower memory limits than some other browsers, which means people using Safari during long sessions on Mumsnet are particularly affected. This is not unique to Mumsnet and can happen on other heavily used ad-supported sites too.

I want to reassure you that I and the team are actively working on improvements. We’re currently testing changes including different ad partners, lighter ad formats, and reduced ad refresh rates to try to reduce the problem. However, this is a technically complex issue involving browser memory limits, long browsing sessions, and third-party advertising technology, so it is not something we can fix overnight.

In the meantime, a few things may help improve your experience:
where possible, using Chrome instead of Safari, as it tends to be more stable
clearing your browser cache regularly
making sure your browser is fully up to date
closing older or unused tabs during very long browsing sessions
bookmarking longer threads so that if a page refreshes unexpectedly, it’s easier to return to where you were
I know this is frustrating, especially for those of you who spend a lot of time reading, posting, and supporting others on the site, and I really appreciate your patience while I continue working on improvements.

Thanks,
Justine
Founder, Mumsnet”

Yea, so it’s an issue with a browser. Try a different browser! There are loads.