[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 104585] New: apple-touch-icon.png and apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png are fetched for every load, even though they're commonly 404

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=104585

           Summary: apple-touch-icon.png and
                    apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png are fetched for every
                    load, even though they're commonly 404
           Product: WebKit
           Version: 528+ (Nightly build)
          Platform: Unspecified
        OS/Version: Unspecified
            Status: NEW
          Severity: Normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: Page Loading
        AssignedTo: webkit-unassigned at lists.webkit.org
        ReportedBy: eric at webkit.org
                CC: pkasting at google.com, abarth at webkit.org,
                    japhet at chromium.org, tonyg at chromium.org


apple-touch-icon.png and apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png are fetched for every load, even though they're commonly 404

This wastes bandwidth for mobile users, as these 404 page are sometimes HUGE.

Some internal testing showed the average 404 page in our sample at 3.7k.  Meaning these requests were wasting on average nearly 8k per page!

There are two problems here:
1.  It's not clear we need to fetch these at all (until the user tries to save the page).
2.  If we are requesting these, since they're uncommon we could consider trying a HEAD request first, and only issuing the GET if the HEAD does not return 404.

Our bandwidth noted that these requests accounted for around 3-4% of mobile bandwidth usage in their (limited) testing.

-- 
Configure bugmail: https://bugs.webkit.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=email
------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
You are the assignee for the bug.