I use Firefox on Linux Mint over a 8Mb/s broadband link.
When I access ELR I spend more time waiting for secure.gravatar.com than anything else. (OK - bit of an exaggeration there, but say 20 - 50% of total page load time.)
I’ve blacklisted secure.gravatar.com in /etc/hosts but, surprisingly, Firefox still seems to wait for it sometimes (if there are uncached avatars I assume) although typing s.g.c directly in Ffox instantly returns with “unable to connect”.
Should I:
Stop whingeing and get mixing.
Setup a local proxy + blacklist.
Blacklist s.g.c on my router. Edit: Done - no discernible difference.
@daath I’ve had a vague suspicion for years that FF does secret things to resolve certain unavailable / blacklisted names but have never proved it. I also suspect it’s slow to update its status messages when retrieving pages so when it says it’s waiting for s.g.c it might be playing me false and have already moved on.
Apache: Oh the maintenance, the humanity… (that was experience talking)
Cached avatars: good plan - the only time I miss avatars is on the main recipes page where the word Gravatar gets overwritten with the author’s name, so I can’t, say, order by chef and see everything Alisa’s made - but I can do that in other ways as you undoubtedly know!
@Grubby I’ve only noticed the problem on the main site - forum is fine. If you’ve got a fast link (mine is not) and the DNS servers are working you won’t notice anything untoward.