The Web is getting slower

It's not you. Web pages really are loading slower. The average site is now 2.1 MB in size -- two times larger than the average site from three years ago, according to data tracked by HTTP Archive. There are a few reasons for this added weight.

Websites are adding more attention-attracting videos, images, interactivity plug-ins (comments and feeds) and other code and script-heavy features that clog up broadband pipes and wireless spectrum. Sites also have ramped up their usage of tracking and analysis tools to learn more about their visitors. Inserting third-party data trackers not only increases a website's weight, but also the number of separate data fetching tasks, which leads to slower load times as well. Photos and videos continue to be the bulkiest part of websites, making up almost three-fourths their size. That proportion has stayed relatively constant over the past three years, even as the total size of websites has grown. On top of all this, websites are using stronger encryption to make themselves more secure. Shielding themselves behind secured protocols requires more code and data crunching power, too.