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Ryan Townsend

@twnsnd.com
887 followers 268 following 402 posts

Principal Product Manager @ Cloudflare • Public Speaker • 20+ YOE in Tech, 10 as CTO • LessonsofaCTO.com

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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 28/09/2026
So happy to share mine & @nicj.net's first @cloudflare.social blog post—during our 16th Birthday Week no less! 🥳 Today we announce BEACON, a #webperf research dataset we're contributing to the @rumarchive.com community. blog.cloudflare.com/how-fast-is-...
blog.cloudflare.com
How fast is the web? Explore billions of real-user measurements with BEACON
Cloudflare is open-sourcing the BEACON dataset, making billions of anonymized Real User Monitoring (RUM) performance records publicly available on Google BigQuery.
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Jake Archibald @jakearchibald.com · 23/09/2026
I've proposed "progressive image rendering" as a focus area for Interop 2027, so we can get progressive JPEG XL support in Safari, and progressive AVIF support in both Safari and Firefox. github.com/web-platform...
github.com
Progressive image rendering for JPEG XL and AVIF · Issue #1459 · web-platform-tests/interop
Description When we looked into JPEG XL, I asked developers why they were interested in the format, and the most common answer was "progressive rendering". This is now working in Firefox and Chrome...
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Patrick Brosset @patrickbrosset.com · 21/09/2026
📢 Lot's of updates in our new Edge for devs issue: OpaqueRange, referenceTarget, window-drag, <install>, WebMCP, and more!
blogs.windows.com
New in Edge for developers – Create better components and make your site agent-ready
Welcome back to New in Edge for developers, our recurring roundup of recent web platform updates in Microsoft Edge. In this edition, we'll look more closely at some of the newest additions to Microso...
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Viewport @viewportconf.org · 03/09/2026
We just finished the beta of our website. Look out for updates on Viewport soon! You can sign up to our mailing list to be kept in the loop. viewportconf.org
viewportconf.org
Viewport 2027 — An independent conference about the web
An independent conference about the web, the people who build it, and the people we build it for. Liverpool, May 2027.
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Alex Russell @infrequently.org · 14/09/2026
Jeremy's whole post is worth a read, and I would underline + bold the last point: the web is the superior choice for privacy and security, and it's anti-web *and anti-user* to be preferencing native app install affordances: adactio.com/journal/22757
adactio.com
Stalling installing
Trying to get past Webkit’s blockage at the W3C.
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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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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 12/09/2026
I can't attend in person, but NY folk should! Sufian is a talented engineer who I'm lucky to call one of my colleagues.
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Patrick Brosset @patrickbrosset.com · 11/09/2026
Interop 2027 prep is now. Want to help? 1. Go to developer-signals.rviscomi.workers.dev 2. Sign-in using GitHub 3. Find features you need 4. Click the comment icon, add your use case 5. Submit There aren't many ways to tell browsers what you need and why you need them. That's a very effective one.
The website, showing a list of web features and a search tool. The title says Shape what browsers build next. The github sign-in button is highlighted as step 1. The speech bubble icon on one of the features is highlighted as step 2.The website, a feature has been selected, and the Provide developer signal dialog is displayed. The use case text input field is highlighted as step 3. The workaround text input field is highlighted as optional. And the submit button is highlighted as step 4.
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erwinhofman.bsky.social @erwinhofman.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
So, submit your own proposal or give a 👍 to already listed/proposed features you'd like to see supported across browsers. Starting with LoAF when unsure where to start upvoting 😜 github.com/web-platform... RUM tools, developers and ultimately site visitors will all benefit! 3/3
github.com
Long Animation Frames API · Issue #1372 · web-platform-tests/interop
Description The Long Animation Frames API (aka LoAF) defines a mechanism for pages to observe “long animation frames” (animation or rendering updates delayed beyond ~50 ms) that block rendering or ...
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 04/09/2026
Huge milestone for Cloudflare RUM (aka Web Analytics) today! @nicj.net completed his first major update: support for the Soft Navigations API 🎉 🎉 🎉 see: developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/po... Hat-tip to @tunetheweb.com, @mmocny.com and @yoav.ws for their work and support on the API 🧡
developers.cloudflare.com
Web Analytics improves soft navigation measurement for Single Page Applications (SPAs)
Cloudflare Web Analytics now uses the native Soft Navigation API (where available) to more accurately measure pageviews and Core Web Vitals for Single Page Applications. Pageview counts may increase a...
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 03/09/2026
Can 2027 be the year we finally get all the Core Web Vitals in all browsers? 🙏 Work your magic folks: github.com/web-platform... #webperf
Bernie Sanders meme captioned “I am one again asking for CLS”
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James @43081j.com · 04/08/2026
Using the @e18e.dev MCP server has been pretty fun. "Check the dependencies for any redundant ones", and it does a pretty good job! We can improve it but it's a great start 🎉 Big thanks to @paolo.ricciuti.me being the resident ai guy 😄
mcp.e18e.dev
e18e MCP server
The official e18e MCP server, advising agents on modern and performant best practices.
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Stefan Judis @stefanjudis.com · 17/07/2026
If you're dealing with SVG icons you probably know the pain of overwriting colors. There's a new spec in the making that allows controlling CSS variables from "the outside". And it's shipping in Firefox already! drafts.csswg.org...
Code snippet: img { link-parameters: param(--color, green); } and .foo { background-image: url("image.svg", param(--color, green)); }
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 25/07/2026
Amazing resource for anyone trying to understand performance profiles 👏🏻
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Alex Russell @infrequently.org · 15/07/2026
If you work in frontend or on browsers, @lea.verou.me's post on polyfills is worth your time: lea.verou.me/blog/2026/po... /via @gregwhitworth.bsky.social
lea.verou.me
In defense of polyfills • Lea Verou
A highly influential spec editor expressed the opinion that polyfilling is harmful. I beg to differ.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 09/07/2026
Cloudflare Real User Monitoring (aka Web Analytics) is the # analytics tool of 2025—with installs on 1.5% of all websites!—according to w3techs.com/blog/entry/w... Reminder you can use this completely for free, even if you don’t use Cloudflare as your CDN!
Screenshot from w3tech.com. Read Bluesky post for breakdown.
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Andrey Sitnik @en.sitnik.es · 08/07/2026
The unsung heroes of our time. @43081j.com from the @e18e.dev community cut 1 MB from caniuse-lite. With 700M installs per month, that saves around 700 TB of global internet traffic every month. github.com/browserslist...
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 07/07/2026
Huge improvement to Cloudflare just dropped: you can now cache worker responses 🎉 🎉 🎉 blog.cloudflare.com/workers-cache/ #webperf
blog.cloudflare.com
Your Worker can now have its own cache in front of it
We are launching Workers Cache, a regionally tiered cache that sits directly in front of your Worker entrypoints. Infinitely composable, configured via standard HTTP headers
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 06/07/2026
Thank god I don’t have to keep this quiet any longer! Looking forward to having you onboard @philhawksworth.dev! 🎉
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Josh Nesbitt @joshnesbitt.dev · 03/07/2026
I've just hit publish on the photos and videos for the last conference in May. It's wonderful to reflect now a few months have passed on what an amazing day it was. I'll look back at the years we ran All Day Hey! with incredibly fond memories.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 24/06/2026
What’s the daily recommended intake of Calipos for an adult male? Asking for a friend.
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Barry Pollard @tunetheweb.com · 23/06/2026
It's happening... We've asked Chromium API owners for permission to ship The Soft Navigation work to allow measuring of Core Web Vitals for SPAs!!
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 23/06/2026
This number is now <43 😉
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Eric Portis @ericportis.com · 08/06/2026
Hey! Look at that! <img sizes=auto> in Safari 27! webkit.org/blog/17967/n...
webkit.org
News from WWDC26: WebKit in Safari 27 beta
Safari 27 beta is here.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 02/06/2026
@bram.us are there any plans to make the "positioning an between two anchors, allowing for crossing either axis" any cleaner? (basically your demo from SotB youtu.be/VD_q3x9GnZs?...) I've just had a need to do this and while it works... I'm not proud of this committing this code.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 01/06/2026
We definitely need more image codecs, right? Apple have been working on a machine-learning-based image codec with some impressive stats: apple.github.io/ml-pico/ #webperf
apple.github.io
What Matters in Practical Learned Image Compression
What Matters in Practical Learned Image Compression
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JSHeroes @jsheroes.io · 28/05/2026
beating our blues by watching this amazing aftermovie youtu.be/EmNVwmB7k90
youtu.be
Aftermovie JSHeroes 2026
YouTube video by JSHeroes
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 23/05/2026
Still not over how wonderful @jsheroes.io was. 💯 post-conference blues. I’ve been fortunate enough to speak at over 20 conferences now and this was in a league of its own. So many new friends made, attendees, speakers, organisers and volunteers alike ❤️ Well done @alexmoldovan.dev and crew 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 21/05/2026
Get your tickets to @perfnow.nl before prices rise on July 1st! I say this every year and I will continue to say it: there is nowhere better to learn about #webperf 🚀 The speaker line-up is always absolute gold and the hallway track is just as valuable.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 16/05/2026
I took a picture of @jeremias.codes taking a picture of @danielroe.dev taking a picture of his flat white.
A group of lovable idiots taking photos
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danielroe @danielroe.dev · 15/05/2026
🚨 if you want to follow the amazing speakers/mcs from this year then may i submit this starter pack for your consideration? it has been such a pleasure to listen and learn from them all ❤️❤️❤️ thank you especially to the team at @jsheroes.io for making this incredible conference 🙏
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FFConf @ffconf.org · 15/05/2026
Besides key dates from our latest newsletter, we also want to let you know (OR SHOUT ABOUT) that our CFP is now officially open: ffconf.org/cfp Please help spread the word (re-post). @remysharp.com always carefully curates the event, whilst always finding new and interesting ideas from your CFPs.
ffconf.org
FFConf Call for Papers
FFConf is accepting talk proposals. Submissions are reviewed continuously; speakers receive travel & accommodation.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 14/05/2026
“We’re going to animate the living shit out of this” — this phrase will now live in my head rent free forever. @cydstumpel.nl @jsheroes.io
Cyd presenting an example conference website with scroll driven animations
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 14/05/2026
Pausing, slowing down and inspecting view-transitions in the DOM within DevTools is an absolute super power 👏🏻 @cydstumpel.nl @jsheroes.io
Cyd showing Chrome DevTools with animation paused and the view-transition pseudo element in the inspector
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 14/05/2026
@cydstumpel.nl is giving me so much slide design AND website design jealousy @jsheroes.io 😍
Cyd presenting her websiteCyd presenting with her slides showing a stylistic browser window design
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 14/05/2026
Romania really pulled out all the stops on the weather for @jsheroes.io 😍
View of the hills surrounding Cluj with clear blue skies and lush greenery
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 12/05/2026
Is it the wine talking, or does anyone else recall that sites early to adopting HTTP/2 websites *felt* different to those stuck on 1.1? We had no Core Web Vitals back then, but I swear I could sense that vertical waterfall before even opening DevTools.
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Mike Hall @mikehall314.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
I’ll just leave this here for now. viewportconf.org #web #conference
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 07/05/2026
End of an era 😭 #alldayhey
Everyman Cinema. All Day Hey 2026: The Last One
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 05/05/2026
“It's just an otter nightmare” 🦦 iMessage’s voice note transcripts bringing joy to my day.
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Mateusz Krzeszowiak @krzksz.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
We switched Speculation Rules on Shopify storefronts from conservative to moderate eagerness. Here's how that went: performance.shopify.com/blogs/blog/f...
performance.shopify.com
Faster storefront navigations with moderate speculation rules
We upgraded Speculation Rules to moderate eagerness on all Liquid storefronts. Desktop navigations are now 285ms faster at the median, with near-zero TTFB.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 30/04/2026
Got my first (albeit a very minor change) Cloudflare RUM release out to production 🎉 developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/po...
developers.cloudflare.com
Web Analytics adds Navigation Type filtering and reporting
Monitor browser caching effectiveness and navigation behavior with new Navigation Type metrics in Web Analytics.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 29/04/2026
This is so creative, love it!
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Cloudflare Radar @radar.cloudflare.com · 28/04/2026
On February 28, the #Internet was shut down in #Iran for the second time in 2026. Two months later, it remains largely unavailable. However, increased allowlisting of external sites, and availability of "Internet Pro" access has driven nominal increases in traffic visible in the back half of April.
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James @43081j.com · 27/04/2026
we launched a new @e18e.dev mini-site today! replacements.fyi acts as a super simple frontend to the module replacements data. we noticed the data wasn't very discoverable, so this is a focused tool for when you want to quicky look up if something has alternatives (esp. native ones!)
e18e.dev
replacements.fyi - A new module replacements website
A look at the new module replacements website and the collaboration that went into it
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JordanFinners @jordanfinners.dev · 25/04/2026
Wild how much difference @preactjs.com and Shopify Polaris Web Components make. A simple Admin UI Extension is 4 times smaller bundle 🤯 React version: 116KB New version: 24KB
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 23/04/2026
Get yourselves on the mailing list folks!
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Barry Pollard @tunetheweb.com · 20/04/2026
Wanna measure Core Web Vitals for SPAs? It's been a long-standing gap, but one that we've been working hard to fill. We're approaching the final stages and have launched one last origin trial (🤞) as the "last call" before we ship it! More details: developer.chrome.com/blog/final-s...
developer.chrome.com
Final Soft Navigations origin trial starting in Chrome 147  |  Blog  |  Chrome for Developers
Take a last chance to try out the Soft Navigations API before release with this final origin trial.
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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 18/04/2026
I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it a million more: Poland is so underrated. Thanks for having me @wrocloverb.com ❤️
Wroclaw city centre with churches and buildings on the riverPierogi covered in pickles, bacon and herbsAn “I love Wroclaw Airport” neon signA boat on the river with beautiful buildings behind
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