YSlow is a Firefox add-on that integrates into Firebug (another add-on I have featured here) to tell you how well or poorly a website is loading. For instance, my home page currently gets a D rating (not good at all) because of many factors, which are described in the YSlow toolbar. It examines things like:
- how many HTTP requests are made
- placement of JavaScript and CSS
- images, cookies, and content loading
- and many other things that affect speed
This is a great tool for figuring out what exactly is the problem causing a page to load slowly. While large images are the first place beginning Web designers should look, once you've optimized them, there are lots of other things that can be affecting your page performance. And YSlow helps you find and solve those problems.
- Web page Optimization: YSlow
- Optimizing Images for Faster Web Page Load Times
- Remove Comments from HTML to Speed Download Time
- Use CSS for Fonts to Speed Page Downloads
- Put Scripts in External JavaScript Files to Speed Page Downloads
- Use CSS Text Instead of Images to Speed Page Downloads
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