What Happens Before a Website Loads?
Weekly Wheaties #2549
In this newsletter:
📝 Post: What Happens Before a Website Loads?
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Android Updates
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Waymo Expands
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Streaming Updates
😎 Pick of the Week: Fing
📦 Featured Product: paleblue Rechargeable Batteries
📝 What Happens Before a Website Loads?
When you visit a website, a lot more is happening on the backend to display the pictures, colors, and text of that website than the page just ‘loading.’ The title the internet has been given since the early `90s, The Information Superhighway, is not far from being a crazy explanation of how it actually works. Weekly Wheaties #2548 talked about the various ways the internet reaches your home, but this week, I’d like to discuss how your computer actually reaches the websites and services you seek when typing in an address or loading an app. This goes for things like Netflix, social media apps, games, music, and even your banking.
Just as your home has a physical address, imagine if every website not only had the name you know it by, but also an “internet address.” For example, the White House has a physical address of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. To correlate this to the internet, Google (or even Google.com) has an internet address of 142.250.72.206. To prove it to you, type that number in your web browser and see Google.com pop up.
What this means is there is some service (or groups of services) that help convert “Google.com” to that number. This makes browsing the internet and using our apps and services easier and much more user-friendly than having to remember a bunch of numbers. This process of facilitating traffic from these domain names (Google.com) to their internet address (known as an IP Address) is known as the Domain Name System (DNS).
The problem, however, is that there are a bunch of systems on this information superhighway set up to facilitate these connections. Generally speaking, each domain or web address will be associated with a very specific IP address that won’t change. But the system helping facilitate the traffic to that information can - and has - changed. And not only that, not every site has an address that can be typed in directly, like the Google example above. For instance, my site (WeeklyWheaties.com) is built on a platform called Substack - which handles all of their traffic independently once it reaches them.
The companies responsible for this are referred to as a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Whether you realize it or not, you’ve probably heard of a few of the major players, too. They include: Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
While they are responsible for routing traffic, they also help speed up the internet for all, as well as protect websites from bad actors. They have cloud nodes all over the world, allowing users to connect to the closest one, thereby allowing quick access to their final destination. These nodes also ‘cache’ versions of websites, storing temporary copies closer to users so pages load faster. These services are technically third-party offerings, but are chosen by the end service or app you use.
As a prime example, let’s assume you choose to build a website on Squarespace. If so, they even note your website data is stored “in Tier III data centers across the United States… via multiple geographically distributed content delivery networks (CDNs)… to ensure that the data in each page view is served from the data center closest to the visitor’s location.” What CDN do they use, you may ask? Fastly.
Organizations choose to work with CDNs because they help provide their customers with a standard level of service. No matter what device someone is using, and no matter where they are accessing their information from, they can be expected to have the same service from one device or location to the next - especially from a new device (or location) that has never used the service or accessed the site before.
Along with all of the good CDNs offer, there are also downsides. Since they see the traffic coming and going, there are privacy concerns. And since they help with moving traffic in general, there are concerns about censorship and/or security. If vulnerable, they could send you to another website even after you typed in the exact site you wanted. Or they could simply block it outright. I will admit, they could also correct any site you visited. Meaning, if you typed in BankofArnerica.com, they could correct it and replace the “rn” with an “m” for you.
Recently, you may have seen a few articles in the news about websites and services being down or having an outage because their CDN had issues. Two such headlines include: Cloudflare restores services after outage impacts thousands of internet users, and AWS outage: A complete list of every site and app that went down. Tons of sites and services were down for a few hours each time, but that can be enough to cause major disruption and even have monetary concerns in the economy. Hopefully, this didn’t cause any physical damage to anyone or anything, but the CEO of Eight Sleep posted that “the AWS outage has impacted some of our users since last night, disrupting their sleep.” Interesting…
All in all, there is a common theory from the banking world that could be brought over to these background services of CNDs we’re all but forced to use — are they too big to fail?
Whether these systems truly are “too big to fail” is up for debate, but one thing is clear: the internet is, in fact, an information superhighway weaving webs across the globe. CDNs have quietly become the backbone of the modern internet, cementing their foothold in more and more services. We rarely think about them until something breaks, but it’s important to discuss the issues around privacy, security, and reliability.
Knowing all this, does that change how you think about the apps and websites you rely on and use on a daily basis?
🗞️ ICYMI: Android Updates
If you’re on Android for your mobile phone, there’s an argument to be had that you should consider a Google Pixel, especially if you prefer the latest in features. The new Android 16 QPR2 update includes some interesting features, although most are only available on Pixel (for now). Arguably, these updates will be coming more frequently, too. These include: better multitasking support, circle-to-search updates, HDR intensity adjustment, and home screen updates, including widget view updates, custom icon shapes and theming, and a new way to remove home screen icons, along with a long-press quick access update for app icons.
On the hardware side of things, Samsung revealed their Galaxy Z TriFold. For close to $2,500 when launching in the US in early 2026, it looks like a tablet with a phone attached. It’s three screens combine to make a 10” internal screen with one of the thinnest phones ever manufactured, too (at 4.2 mm).
🗞️ ICYMI: Waymo Expands
As Waymo quietly expands and adds more cities to their lineup (including Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Tampa), they are also dealing with software ‘bugs.’ First, they issued a recall after reports of self-driving cars illegally passing stopped school buses in Texas. Then, the Wall Street Journal reported that Waymo’s Self-Driving Cars Are Suddenly Behaving Like New York Cabbies. Apparently, they “are adopting humanlike qualities, making illegal U-turns and flooring it the second the light goes green.” It’s important to note that there still needs to be a lot of legislation put in place before AVs should be allowed free roam, especially when safety is involved. Even though, when compared to human drivers, they have “had 91% fewer crashes involving a serious injury or worse.”
🗞️ ICYMI: Streaming Updates
Your streaming packages may be changing again. For better or worse, who knows? The more options there are, the more of a hassle streaming becomes. However, the more they combine, the more expensive and cable-like it becomes. What gives? It’s now Netflix’s turn to grow as they agree to buy Warner Bros. in a $72-billion deal.
A cord-cutting service you probably aren’t too familiar with, DIRECTV, offers fairly large packages and is comparable in price to YouTube TV, Hulu, or Fubo. And now, they have Added Seven New Multiview Mix Channels. It doesn’t look like you can pick just any set of channels, but the lineup of channels it does appear to work with is pretty extensive.
😎 POTW: Fing
About a year ago in Weekly Wheaties #2449, I talked about some WiFi security tips you should practice to help keep your WiFi secure and stable. I recently ran across this post: Five WiFi Fixes That Take Minutes And Double Your Internet Speed that includes some of the same tips but a few extra that may be of use. However, they also shared an app I’ve used for years and never listed here: Fing! It is available on Android and iOS and helps you do a few things within your network (among others):
See who or what devices are connected to your network
See those devices’ MAC and IP addresses
Kick devices off your network
Complete a speed test to verify your speed
And view other useful information about your network
📦 Featured Product
Planning to give or receive a bunch of electronics this Christmas season? I’m sure you’ll need batteries for at least something. Have you considered rechargeable batteries? What about batteries that charge via USB-C? One of the more popular brands on Amazon, paleblue, offers these batteries in either AA, AAA, 9V, and many others.
