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Ben Schwarz

@benschwarz.bsky.social
3.5K followers 205 following 1.4K posts

Founder & Product developer @calibreapp.com. Into sustainability, online privacy, cycling, photography, making music, hiking, native country and creative pursuits 🌞

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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Google started publishing ad metrics for websites, so naturally I went looking for the worst offender 🤓 The “award” goes to Italian news La Repubblica — where ads cover 96% (!!) of desktop viewports. (Experimental CrUX data.) Compare it yourself: calibreapp.com/tools/compar...
spiegel.de, hindustantimes.com, bild.de, lavanguardia.com and repubblica.it compared by amount of screen real estate devoted to ads. repubblica's coverage is 96%
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Chris Coyier @chriscoyier.net · 30/09/2026
Come for the webperf, stay for Ben's smooth intelligent voice
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
13 years after my first ShopTalk Show (episode 68!), Chris and Dave had me back to talk web performance: why airline websites are so slow, RUM vs synthetic testing, and whether fixing speed actually makes money ✈️🐢 shoptalkshow.com/734/
shoptalkshow.com
734: Web Performance with Ben Schwarz
Ben Schwarz stops by to discuss the state of web performance, using his research on airline websites as a case study.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
New as of Chrome 150: loading="lazy" on <video> and <audio>. A lazy video holds back its file, poster and autoplay until it's close. Firefox and Safari don't support it yet, so media there still loads straight away.
calibreapp.com
Lazy Loading Images and Media: How Far Ahead Browsers Fetch
How far ahead Chrome, Firefox and Safari fetch lazy media, why a lazy hero image slows your page, and where to use lazy, eager and fetchpriority.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How far ahead browsers fetch lazy images: • Chrome: 1,250px on 4G, 2,500px on 3G, 6,000px (!!) on 2G • Firefox: 600px, on any connection • Safari: one viewport. Lazy iframes: 0px, they wait until on screen
calibreapp.com
Lazy Loading Images and Media: How Far Ahead Browsers Fetch
How far ahead Chrome, Firefox and Safari fetch lazy media, why a lazy hero image slows your page, and where to use lazy, eager and fetchpriority.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I rewrote our lazy loading guide with new usage data. Most pages still don’t use it. Chrome page loads using loading="lazy" (Sept 2026): • <img>: 26% • <iframe>: 1.5% • <video>: 0.06% • <audio>: 0.000039%
calibreapp.com
Lazy Loading Images and Media: How Far Ahead Browsers Fetch
How far ahead Chrome, Firefox and Safari fetch lazy media, why a lazy hero image slows your page, and where to use lazy, eager and fetchpriority.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
⚠️ PSA for React 19 SSR apps: React automatically preloads ALL server rendered images. Without hints, early bandwidth is needlessly wasted. Fix it: * LCP image → fetchPriority="high" * Never lazy load the LCP image * Below-the-fold images → loading="lazy" (this also stops React preloading them)
Screenshot of react.dev docs, with a highlight over the text "React automatically generates a perload hint for an <img> by default."
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Credit where it's due. Frontier tops the airline benchmark, and has trimmed LCP from 3.29s to 2.60s over 9 months. Small, steady wins. Ryanair has been quietly shipping perf improvements since I wrote about their redesign in 2015. A decade of discipline.
Bar chart from Calibre's Core Web Vitals test showing Frontier Airlines' mobile Largest Contentful Paint over nine months. It trends steadily downward from 3.29 seconds to 2.60 seconds, crossing below the 2.5-second "good" threshold marker near the end of the period.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Australian government vulnerability disclosure car crash. We should 100% adopt GDPR, and other very common security practices Instead, they’ve left our asses swinging in the breeze, as usual 🤦‍♂️
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Why are airline websites so slow? After looking at 111 of them, it comes down to four things. A thread 🧵
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Caught up with my favorite web duo to talk performance and user-experience. Episode dropping soon 🤠 @shoptalkshow.com
Three older gentlemen talking about making websites faster
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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Very quick and dirty Jev test for hiring bias. One resume for a Wall Street job; asked whether the applicant should get a first-round interview. 76 evaluations, changing only the first name. 19 of each: White-associated men/women, Black-associated men/women. console.typesafe.ai/playground?s...
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Great to reduce the TTL for new web platform features. I'd love to see other browsers roll to a more regular cadence too.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Cathay Pacific: HK$72.5B in passenger revenue, and the slowest booking site of any major airline. Shopify’s data says a 1 second LCP improvement is worth ~30% in conversions. Airlines aren’t shops, but even a fraction of that is a very large number. calibreapp.com/blog/airline-websites-are-slow
Table of the ten Skytrax top-rated airlines for 2025 with yearly passenger numbers and mobile Core Web Vitals. Columns: airline, yearly passengers, UX rating out of 100, Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, Interaction to Next Paint. Rows in order: Qatar Airways, 41 million passengers, rating 50, 3.2 seconds, 0.15, 525 milliseconds. Singapore Airlines, 27 million, 64, 3.8 seconds, 0.00, 375 milliseconds. Cathay Pacific, 28 million, 17, 10.6 seconds, 0.45, 1.4 seconds. Emirates, 53 million, 65, 2.8 seconds, 0.00, 525 milliseconds. ANA, 54 million, 69, 2.2 seconds, 0.15, 300 milliseconds. Turkish Airlines, 92 million, 50, 4.4 seconds, 0.10, 425 milliseconds. Korean Air, 25 million, 49, 5.1 seconds, 0.40, 375 milliseconds. Air France, 42 million, 43, 4.4 seconds, 0.60, 950 milliseconds. Japan Airlines, 46 million, 30, 4.7 seconds, 0.15, 625 milliseconds. Hainan Airlines, 70 million, 79, 3.6 seconds, 0.00, 175 milliseconds.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Safe spaces stay safe by removing those who cause harm, even if they “only” weaponise psychological safety in bad faith. You don't have to be polite about it. Don’t be nice.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Everyone is rightfully happy to call out Ed Sheeran for bowing to pressure, but no one seems to be acknowledging that one of the world’s best known music artists felt compelled to bend over for fascists, and showed that he too can be controlled. That's where we're at right now.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Everyone’s explanation for slow airline sites: “it’s the booking engine.” Ryanair and Cathay Pacific both run on Amadeus. Ryanair is one of the fastest of the 111 sites I measured. Cathay is the slowest, by a wide margin. It isn’t the vendor. It's what you build on top of it.
Dot plot of Time to First Byte on mobile for 108 airline websites, grouped into four rows by booking engine vendor: Amadeus (71 sites), Sabre (12), built in-house (19) and TravelSky (6). Each dot is one airline, coloured green under 800 milliseconds, amber up to 1.8 seconds and red above. Every vendor row spans the full range from green to red. In the Amadeus row, TAP Air Portugal sits at 300 milliseconds and Air India Express at 5.5 seconds; Ryanair and Cathay Pacific appear in the same row at opposite ends.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
How much of a news site is just ads? 🪶 nikkei.com – almost none 🐘 huffpost.com – 11 MB @calibre compare tool can now rank sites by Ad data. Ran it on 5 global news sites 👇 calibreapp.com/tools/compar...
calibreapp.com
nikkei.com and 4 more: Advertising Comparison | Calibre
Compare ad metrics (ad density, ad count, and CPU and network usage by ads) for nikkei.com, cnn.com, huffpost.com, bbc.com, straitstimes.com. Real Chrome user data from the last 28 days.
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Jhey ʕ·ᴥ· ʔ @jhey.dev · 17/09/2026
one does not simply reveal a password 👁️
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Google started shipping ad metrics in CrUX overnight, so I’ve added them to Calibre's free Core Web Vitals tool. First look at the Independent: ads take up 20% of the screen, 7.25s of CPU and 5.1MB of data per page. 88% of their readers are on phones. calibreapp.com/tools/core-w...
Calibre's Core Web Vitals report for independent.co.uk showing new advertising metrics from Chrome User Experience Report. Total network usage by ads is 5.10 MB and total CPU usage by ads is 7.25 seconds at the 75th percentile, with the CPU figure trending upward over the last three months.
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Barry Pollard @tunetheweb.com · 15/09/2026
We just launched experimental ad metrics in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX): - Ad Count - Ad Density - Ad Weight: Network - Ad Weight: CPU These metrics are a set of ad-related measurements that provide transparency into sites' ad experiences. developer.chrome.com/blog/crux-ad... 1/8 🧵
developer.chrome.com
New ad metrics in Chrome User Experience Report  |  Blog  |  Chrome for Developers
Learn about the new ad metrics now available in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX)
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Qatar Airways was voted the world’s best airline in 2025. Its booking site ranks 79th out of 111. Cathay Pacific, five stars, ranks dead last. I spent a while digging into why airline websites are so slow, and what the fast ones (Ryanair, Frontier) do differently. calibreapp.com/blog/airline...
Slope chart comparing Skytrax 2025 service ranking with Calibre's website performance ranking for the ten highest-rated airlines. Lines connect each airline's service rank on the left to its performance rank out of 111 on the right. Nearly all lines plunge downward: Qatar Airways drops from 1st to 79th, Singapore Airlines 2nd to 31st, Cathay Pacific 3rd to 109th, Air France 8th to 95th, Japan Airlines 9th to 106th. Only Hainan Airlines rises, from 10th to 6th.
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Lea Verou, PhD @lea.verou.me · 15/09/2026
Whoa, folks… I knew there was a need, but this is unprecedented! In only 15h after I posted it, gamut mapping shot up to be the 4th most upvoted interop proposal¹! 🎉 It's also the #1 trending, but that's kind of expected given the fact above 😂 ¹ As of right now, note this is still very fluid
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
As you can see, I'm a completely normal person trying to write a blog post
Screenshot of Ben's commit message crimes: More, Fixes, Updates, and Words words words.
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Calibre @calibreapp.com · 09/09/2026
🏆 Website speed industry benchmarks, now with fresh CrUX data for August calibreapp.com/tools/websit...
calibreapp.com
Website Speed Leaderboard - Top Sites Ranked by Core Web Vitals
World’s top websites ranked by Core Web Vitals performance. See industry benchmarks and performance leaders.
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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
1. Elon Musk is spending millions pushing Americans to VoteSafe, which bills itself as a voter registration site but is actually a digital surveillance machine.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
People say they’re too scared to talk about their use of AI on bsky, so they have to go to X to feel like they’ll be supported (which… gross). My take: stop talking about AI incessantly and start showing what you’re achieving — aka results. So tired of all talk no action.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Winter is over in Australia, but our snow fields? Closed early, too warm for snow. Dramatic climate incoming.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
First magpie swooping of the season ✅ 🚴🏼🦅
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Rachel Andrew @rachelandrew.co.uk · 04/09/2026
I'm relaunching CSS Layout News on Offprint.
rachelandrew.co.uk
CSS Layout News in the ATmosphere
In 2015 I started my CSS Layout News newsletter mostly to have my own venue to go on about CSS grid, at the time unavailable in any stable browser. I got to 2023 and 343 issues and it fizzled out. Partly because I got busy, but mostly because the newsletter signup form on the platform...
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Coles, aussie supermarket, has dropped Palantir. A small victory for privacy, but also, get in the bin you bottom-feeding turds. www.theage.com.au/technology/c...
theage.com.au
Coles cuts ties with controversial CIA-linked data giant Palantir
The 2024 deal handed the Peter Thiel-founded company 10 billion rows of data covering every store, shift and one of Australia’s largest workforces.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Update: you can use Windows too! I’d forgotten all about this support.apple.com/en-au/guide/...
support.apple.com
Set up iCloud Passwords on your Windows computer
Set up iCloud Passwords in iCloud for Windows so you can manage and autofill your passwords on your PC.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Reminder that secure password handling is built into MacOS and IOS, so you can stop giving money to @1password.bsky.social — they’re just going to give it to short little fascist tits like DHH.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Tracking performance per deploy allows you to easily spot regressions, or … hopefully, the moment you made everything faster 🥳 The new Deployment segment panel in @calibreapp.com calibreapp.com/changelog/ar...
Screenshot from Calibreapp.com, Largest Contentful Paint by Deployment. Displaying 5 recent deployments, and a recent regression that resulted in +1 second delays 😅
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Reuters Climate Monitor shows temperature changes against historic averages. Today, its 6ºC warmer in Melbourne. www.reuters.com/graphics/CLI...
Screenshot of Reuters Climate Monitor tool showing Melbourne with a high of 20ºC, 6º higher than the historic norm
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
🚨 JPEG XL incoming 🐘 Smaller file sizes, and progressive rendering means images appear sooner. “Free” user experience upgrade
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Melbourne’s now or never festival brings audio, light, smoke and projection together at night
Multimmersion 浸 漬 的 ( ) 線 Upside Down V2

By AKA ChangFlinders street station projection mapped - From the Dhungala to the Birrarung: Water is Life

By ENOKiFrom the Dhungala to the Birrarung: Water is Life

ENOKi
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I’ve had this small cat themed thermal printer for several years and always wanted to make a message of the day print but never quite got around to it — until today 
Cat themed thermal printerMessage of the day, and Jurgen Klopp printed on thermal paper
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Of all of the emails I get, my favourite is from my local falafel place that has a dedicated section called “salad news”, and important announcements, like the first artichokes of the season.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
When my partner is away visiting family I’ve taken it as an opportunity to cook a bunch of new dishes and experiment more to broaden my techniques and understanding of seasonal vegetables. It’s been a blast. Being able to rip out interesting and delicious on any weekday will never get old.
Kent pumpkin with pine nuts, chili oil, fennel fronds on home made hummus
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Winter often breaks with the striking yellow wattle, which carries a gentle scent through the forest. It is always welcome 🙏
Yellow Wattle flowers up close
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
www.404media.co/person-hides...
static.klipy.com
Think Use Your Head Meme
Alt: Think Use Your Head Meme
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Run CI? Use Puppeteer? You may be entitled to leaner silicon 🍃 Update: Chrome for Testing arm64 builds are out! I've already updated @calibreapp.com pre-release Synthetic test agents to run arm64 — after observation, they’ll join the fleet Early numbers looking positive so far 📉
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Mathias Bynens @mths.be · 11/08/2026
I’m happy to announce that linux-arm64 Chrome for Testing builds are now available, starting with version 153.0.8001.0: github.com/GoogleChrome... More background: github.com/GoogleChrome...
github.com
Issue · GoogleChromeLabs/chrome-for-testing
Contribute to GoogleChromeLabs/chrome-for-testing development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Booked a 10 day cycling trip in Japan, plan is to ride the Shimanami Kaido, ride an event, hop islands, go to Dogo onsen, eat a lot and ride ride ride
Photograph of cyclists on the Shimanami kaido cycling route, in Shikoku / Ehime JapanPhotograph of historic Dogo onsen
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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
electronicmaterialsoffice.com ok i preordered the altar ll
electronicmaterialsoffice.com
Altar II | Electronic Materials Office
Shockingly thin, fully mechanical. Altar II combines a superlative typing experience with an unbelievable design.
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Derek Powazek @fraying.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
JK Rowling has pledged to use the money she earns from Harry Potter to persecute trans people. If you spend money on Harry Potter, that’s what you’re supporting. This isn’t theoretical, it’s totally overt, and there’s no rationalizing it away.
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Michael West @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Police to have right to seize mobile phones without a warrant, use IDF tech to search data, under new legislation brought to NSW Parliament #auspol #nswpol @michaelsainsbury.bsky.social michaelwest.com.au/the-police-s...
michaelwest.com.au
Surveillance State. NSW Police to seize mobile phone data without a warrant - Michael West
Legislation before NSW Parliament to allow police access to mobile phone data without a warrant, developed by Israel Defence Force veterans.
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Virginia Murdoch @virginia.alertbutnotalarmed.com · 07/08/2026
Big Walk is glorious — I got a bit emotional playing a game set in Australian bushland. Kookaburras! I could almost smell the eucalyptus.
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Lena Reinhard (she/they) @lenareinhard.com · 06/08/2026
We Were Meant to Be: On Tech, Hype, Being Human, and Making a Future youtu.be/cqocz1D4rds
youtu.be
We Were Meant to Be: On Tech, Hype, Being Human, and Making a Future
YouTube video by Lena Reinhard
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