JSCleaner: De-Cluttering Mobile Webpages Through JavaScript Cleanup

Moumena Chaqfeh, Yasir Zaki, Jacinta Hu, Lakshmi Subramanian

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

A significant fraction of the World Wide Web suffers from the excessive usage of JavaScript (JS). Based on an analysis of popular webpages, we observed that a considerable number of JS elements utilized by these pages are not essential for their visual and functional features. In this paper, we propose JSCleaner, a JavaScript de-cluttering engine that aims at simplifying webpages without compromising their content or functionality. JSCleaner relies on a rule-based classification algorithm that classifies JS into three main categories: non-critical, replaceable, and critical. JSCleaner removes non-critical JS from a webpage, translates replaceable JS elements with their HTML outcomes, and preserves critical JS. Our quantitative evaluation of 500 popular webpages shows that JSCleaner achieves around 30% reduction in page load times coupled with a 50% reduction in the number of requests and the page size. In addition, our qualitative user study of 103 evaluators shows that JSCleaner preserves 95% of the page content similarity, while maintaining nearly 88% of the page functionality (the remaining 12% did not have a major impact on the user browsing experience).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationThe Web Conference 2020 - Proceedings of the World Wide Web Conference, WWW 2020
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages763-773
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781450370233
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 20 2020
Event29th International World Wide Web Conference, WWW 2020 - Taipei, Taiwan, Province of China
Duration: Apr 20 2020Apr 24 2020

Publication series

NameThe Web Conference 2020 - Proceedings of the World Wide Web Conference, WWW 2020

Conference

Conference29th International World Wide Web Conference, WWW 2020
Country/TerritoryTaiwan, Province of China
CityTaipei
Period4/20/204/24/20

Keywords

  • Classification
  • JavaScript
  • User Experience
  • Web Simplification

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Software

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