Introduction
Web applications have come a long way from the time they were first introduced. The advancement of the internet, the versatility of the browsers and the growing popularity of the usage of web applications have driven the development of better and faster web applications.
There are many ways to improve the speed and efficiency of web applications. They can range from simple fixes like minifying the CSS and JS files, to complex actions like changing how the various items are cached from the server.
There are many reasons why web applications are important and why they need to be optimized. Firstly, browsers have gotten very powerful, that they can run very advanced code over the internet. Browsers can now handle entire 3D games as well as can be used to perform business operations which once required software to be installed on the device.
As the power of browsers grow, we must also be aware that bad and unoptimised practices while developing web applications can hinder the performance of the browsers drastically. In order to boost the performance of the web apps, the following methods can be very useful.
Minifying CSS and JS Files
- Minifying means the process of removing unwanted characters like new line characters, breaks and other hidden useless parts of the code, before uploading them to the server.
- This reduces the size of the code and thus reduces the load time for that resource.
- The user will be able to access the web application in faster load times.
- This is a simple yet effective way to reduce your applications load time.
Using a CDN (Content Delivery Network)
- The traditional way of serving the images and other files like the CSS and JS files is slower, since the load time will depend upon the physical distance of the user from the server.
- Using a CDN drastically improves on this. Instead of the resources being served from a single server, the resources can be accessed from the server closest to the user.
- That is, the resource is stored in multiple servers across the globe and thus increases the speed in which the resource is being fetched.
- CDN’s also free us from storing all the static data ourselves and provides an overall better experience for the users.
Minifying CSS and JS Files
- Minifying means the process of removing unwanted characters like new line characters, breaks and other hidden useless parts of the code, before uploading them to the server.
- This reduces the size of the code and thus reduces the load time for that resource.
- The user will be able to access the web application in faster load times.
- This is a simple yet effective way to reduce your applications load time.
Optimize Image Sizes
- Many websites use graphics heavily.
- If your images are not compressed, or if you use too high of a resolution it will slow down your website’s performance.
- Using webp instead of the traditional jpeg and png will offer a much more optimised way to display images on websites.
- In addition to that, adjust the resolution of the image so that the images that are uploaded are able to be loaded faster.
Using Native SQL
- It is better to use the native SQL queries to solve the problem rather than trying to implement the same using loops in coding.
- If not, then the database query must be repeated multiple times in until the loop stops its execution.
- This causes performance issues as multiple requests are constantly made to the database, when the same solution can be completed with one database query.
- Thus maximize the use of native SQL solutions over using loops in code.
Reduce Your Number of HTTP Requests
- Browsers fetch data from servers through HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) requests.
- The more requests your webpage is making, the more slowly it will load.
- Make sure you’re not generating unnecessary and unused HTTP requests that will needlessly slow your loading time.
- Some of the ways to reduce your HTTP requests include using less code, not using third-party frameworks, and reducing your assets (including third-party plugins making external requests).
Bundle Your Files
- Reducing your overall number of files and optimizing them are important elements of optimization.
- That’s why you should bundle and minify your files to improve your web app performance.
- As the name implies, bundling involves combining your files to reduce the overall number of lines.
- It can speed up your load time as the number of requests that the browser makes to the server increases the more number of files that it has to download from the server.
Conclusion
The above methods are some of the many optimisation methods available. Using these methods could provide a very huge advantage and could optimise the web application to provide a smooth user experience.
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