Faster Loading Pages with Service Workers

Have you ever experienced this?...

You're browsing a website; you click on a link and you're met with message "Cannot connect to the internet”? You hit the back button only to see the same message. You can't do anything until internet connection is re-established.

You can prevent these scenarios with the help of Service Worker.

We at Virtuoso have always been on top of latest technology innovations to safeguard our clients from such scenarios.

What is Service Worker?

Service workers are specialized JavaScripts that work on browser in the background independently without user interaction and act as proxies between web browsers and web servers.

Service workers manage resource caching more efficiently so that users don't experience interruptions even if they lost the internet connection.

With the help of Service Worker, you can track network traffic of the page, manage push notifications and develop “offline first” web applications with Cache API.

This script works separate from the website and it can run even when the site is not open. It allows for the functionality of features, even if there is no network.

Benefits of Service Worker

• It's ability to support offline experiences. Retrieving data from the web always take more time compared to loading locally cached data.
• Caching your resources substantially improve load times for your returning visitors. It offers a smoother experience to returning users increases the likelihood that they'll keep coming back.
• As they work even if connection is lost, your users are not left to see those ugly connection messages on screen, they can continue browsing cached data pages.
• It can push notifications to users even if they are offline.
• It can also provide period sync for data backup.

How we used it in real scenario

Now-a-days, with decrease in user’s attention span, page speed is a critical measure to identify how quick your web application responds to user’s requests.

When it comes to page speed optimization or website performance; cache management of assets and resources is your best bet.

At Virtuoso, we use Service Worker to cache assets to achieve acceptable page speed for our web apps.

How to use service worker?

Installing a Service Worker: This includes registering a Service Worker so that browser can start installing it. Here you choose which files you want to cache.

Activating a Service Worker: When install is completed, “install” event is fired and then you can create a new cache which will take resources and assets you want to cache. “Activate” also helps in deleting old or unwanted cached assets.

Fetching from cache: To fetch assets from cache, a fetch event listener is registered.

How do you speed up rendering of pages for your web applications? Share your best bet!