On the Impact of the Critical CSS Technique on the Performance and Energy Consumption of Mobile Browsers

Kalle Janssen, Tim Pelle, Lucas De Geus, Reinier Van Der Gronden, Tanjina Islam, Ivano Malavolta

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Context. Due to the growing popularity of smartphones, mobile web browsing is more popular than ever with users desiring fast loading web apps and low energy usage. A technique that might improve the run-time performance and reduce the energy consumption of this action is the Critical CSS technique. Goal. The goal of this research is to analyze the impact of the Critical CSS technique for the purpose of evaluating the impact on run-time performance and energy consumption from the point of view of a developer in the context of Android mobile web apps. Method. To assess the impact of the Critical CSS technique, 40 web apps were served with and without Critical CSS on a mobile Android device. For each website, the energy consumption, load time, first paint and, first contentful paint were measured. Results. Applying the Critical CSS technique had a medium effect size on the first paint for Google Chrome, and on the first contentful paint for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, the effect size is small. Therefore, we can claim that applying critical CSS to web apps served to Android mobile devices has a small but positive effect on their run-time performance. The loading time difference for Google Chrome was small to negligible. Finally, the energy consumption for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and the loading time and first paint for Mozilla Firefox showed no significant differences. Conclusions. Depending on the characteristics of the web application, it is advisable to apply the Critical CSS technique to enhance the run-time performance (e.g., to ensure a fast loading time of the web app) of Android mobile web apps. Moreover, the experimental results show that applying the Critical CSS technique tends to have no significant impact on the energy consumption of mobile web apps on Android.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEASE '22
Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2022
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages130-139
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781450396134
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022
Event26th ACM International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, EASE 2022 - Gothenburg, Sweden
Duration: 13 Jun 202215 Jun 2022

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Conference

Conference26th ACM International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, EASE 2022
Country/TerritorySweden
CityGothenburg
Period13/06/2215/06/22

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 ACM.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'On the Impact of the Critical CSS Technique on the Performance and Energy Consumption of Mobile Browsers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this