How do you measure file size?

Hi guys

I have been wondering how you would measure file size for your website. I mean their is actually 2 ways of doing it? One is the way the SE sees your site and the other is affecting the download time of the page. Here is my way of checking, Does anyone disagree with me?

SE Way

Open in browser, view source, then safe it in notepad and check the size of the notepad (text) file.

Download time

In IE I go to "File" > "Save As" and then save the file. Also see if there is any Flash files refered to in the HTML that are not included in the folder safed with the page. The combined size of the folder saved with the HTML page and the flash file, counts for the download time. For example, piggspeak.co.za is a splash page I use to experiment with file size, what is the total download size you get on this page? I get SE size = 30.2k and download size = 167k.

Also when you use external JS and CSS files it only saves you size on SEO size not download time, or does it? Any comments?

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.piggspeak.co.za/

Much easier to measure download time.

Javascript in a external file will not necessary save much download time because it's not always cached.

CSS in external file will save you download time because it's cached (you especially experience this when you move to the "second" page because the design doesn't have to load again, only the content). And if you move away from tables and start using div's instead in combination with CSS you can save a lot.

A while ago I took a table-design and redesigned it using CSS. The download time was reduced with more than 30%. The design and content were the same.
You can and should still use tables, but use them for tabular data.

That is a cool tool but it still doesn,t include the full file sizes. For example, the same site in .com is mainly a Flash design and exceeds 170k, still this tool gives it's file size as 50k. Not true, unless Flash has a different way of being loaded.

The tool normally give you the size, but on the .com site they are using some heavy javascript to load the Flash, and therefor it doesn't work properly. The webpage doesn't work properly in Firefox either BTW so this one I would blame on the website and not the tool.

Thanx, I am aware of that! If it depended on me there would be no flash at all on this site!

Check this out.. it is realy helpful.

www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.loading-time-checker.htm

It has been said that reducing your sites donload time by 1% increases sites's visitors by 65%.

Is that global or in the US? Where exactly? I understand conection speed in the US is super fast so it doesn't really matter what the file size of a site is!

Why not just right click on the page you're viewing and choose properties? So long as you aren't hovering over an image, it'll give you the total size of the page, images and all. This reply page is 61 kb!

As of this moment, the thread is 91kb.

Perhaps because that doesn't work! If you go to the same site I referred to at the top you will note that properties shows the file size as only the HTML code no images no flash!