Tech tips: Google’s PageSpeed tools – Analyze with Chrome & Firefox
PageSpeed Insights is available as an open-source browser extension for Google Chrome and Firefox. Webmasters and web developers can use PageSpeed Insightsto evaluate the performance of their web pages and to get suggestions on how to improve them. (See more how to make your web site faster with PageSpeed Insights)
PageSpeed Insights performs several tests on a site’s web server configuration and front-end code. These tests are based on a set of best practices known to enhance web page performance. Webmasters who run PageSpeed Insightson their pages get a score for each page, as well as suggestions on how to improve its performance. By following the suggestions you can make your site faster, keep Internet users engaged with your site, reduce your bandwidth (you also use Google’s PageSpeed Service to speed up loading of your web pages) and hosting costs and improve the web!
Get PageSpeed Insights extension for Chrome and Firefox here
Run PageSpeed Insights against your web pages
Follow the instructions to use PageSpeed Insights in Chrome or Firefox. When you visit a web page, open PageSpeed Insights and click “Analyze Performance” to get a performance report for that page. PageSpeed will present you with a set of rules and recommendations. Before you start changing the scripts and resources on your pages, press on the rule to understand what it is pointing out and its background.
Get familiar with the tool. There are a number of features that are easily accessible from the menus of the extension. In particular, for the Firefox extension, in the top tab called “PageSpeed”, a caret next to the text gives you the ability to set preferences for how PageSpeed runs and where it saves optimized resources.
Enjoy!