A new research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and Harvard University has developed a tool that will reportedly allow webpages to load up to 34% faster. Named ‘Polaris’, the tool creates a virtual map of all elements that are required to load on a webpage, including all fonts, javascripts and page formatting.
This then allows for simultaneous downloading of similar content, thereby saving the browser time spent on mapping the objects and downloading them without a specific structure, often leading to redundancy. Polaris, the developers claim, is built in Javascript and can run on almost any functional browser.
The idea is to create a simplified route for browsers to load pages based on systematic priority. For instance, this is similar to creating a travel route based on shortest travel times, thereby cutting down on repeated routes. The researchers are looking to further work on Polaris to fine tune its operations, but are enthusiastic about opening it to the public for wider opinions.
As of now, they have stated that Polaris shows its best results when tried out on websites with very heavy traffic. We wait to see how it really performs in everyday usage, and how much of a difference does it really make.
