Peakhour.IO - Features

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

2023-09-11T13:00:00+10:00

Google has announced that Interaction to Next Paint (INP) will replace First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital as of March 2024. Introduced as a metric in 2022, INP covers gaps in FID by measuring more of what happens after a user interacts with a page.

To help site owners prepare for its introduction as a Core Web Vital, INP is already included in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). By analysing the CrUX data, website owners can see their current INP performance and make targeted optimisations ahead of the March 2024 change.

A better metric than First Input Delay

First Input Delay, as its name suggests, only measures the delay between an input, such as a keypress or mouse click, and the point where the browser begins to handle that event. It does not include the time spent processing the input. It only measures how long the browser was blocked before it could start handling it.

That leaves two issues: it only considers the FIRST event, and it does not measure how long it takes for the user to see the result of their input.

INP is designed to cover both issues. It measures the latency of ALL 'interactions' through to the visual response for that interaction. As explained by Google, an interaction like a tap on a touch screen device can consist of several input events.

"An interaction's latency consists of the single longest duration of a group of event handlers that drives the interaction, from the time the user begins the interaction to the moment the next frame is presented with visual feedback."

After measuring all interactions, the final INP score is the longest interaction observed, ignoring any outliers.

What Constitutes a Good Score

INP is measured in milliseconds (ms), with lower scores indicating better performance:

Good: < 200 ms
Needs Improvement: 200-500 ms
Poor: > 500 ms

How to ensure you have a good INP score

Minimise Main-Thread Work

Long-running JavaScript can block the main thread and increase INP times. Break these tasks into smaller parts and run them asynchronously to reduce delays.

Efficiently Use Browser APIs

APIs that trigger layout recalculations can be expensive. Use them sparingly and look for alternatives that put less pressure on the browser.

Defer Non-Essential CSS and Scripts

Postpone the loading of non-critical CSS and JavaScript. Use techniques like asynchronous loading to improve INP scores.

Monitor Third-Party Scripts

Heavy third-party scripts can degrade INP performance. Use asynchronous or deferred loading for these scripts to limit their impact.

Conclusion

Google estimates that 90% of a user's time on a page is after it has finished loading. FID focused on first impressions, with the assumption that a fast start meant the page would stay responsive. Interaction to Next Paint addresses that gap and gives a more accurate view of user experience. If you want to know your current INP score, you can use our free website speed comparison tool to view it alongside your other Web Vitals, and see how your website compares to your competitors.

CVE-2022-26134

2022-06-02T00:00:00+10:00

On June 2, 2022, Volexity announced active exploitation of Atlassian Confluence. The issue is a Remote Code Execution vulnerability via OGNL injection, tracked as CVE-2022-26134, and impacts all Confluence Server and Data Center versions greater than 1.3.0.

Atlassian has released its security advisory with patches and mitigation instructions.

Peakhour WAF clients are already protected. Since the vulnerability was announced on June 2nd, we have observed a 200% increase in OGNL-based exploit attempts.

Peakhour's Web Application Firewall helps protect applications against zero-day exploitation attempts such as CVE-2022-26134. Contact our team to secure your applications.

Setting Up A Chia Hobby Farm

2021-04-30T13:00:00+10:00

Here at Peakhour, when we're not making websites faster and more secure, we like new tech and we like a good scheme. We ran Seti@home while at uni, and mined some bitcoin back in its early days (unfortunately we don’t have them anymore). Just recently we decided to set up a Chia farm, not the super-food Chia, but the new crypto coin Chia!

What is Chia?

Chia is not just a cryptocurrency; it is a brand new blockchain and smart transaction platform that implements the first new Nakamoto consensus algorithm since Bitcoin. It was invented by the engineer behind BitTorrent, Bram Cohen, who set out to address the shortcomings of Bitcoin.

The Chia network is set to officially launch on May 3rd, and the crypto world is going crazy getting ready.

I thought Bitcoin was great, what’s wrong with it?

The major flaws that Chia sets out to address are:

The environmental impact

Without getting too technical, Bitcoin relies on very intensive computations to verify transactions (Proof of work). These computations are carried out by 'miners' who are rewarded for their efforts from an ever decreasing pool of possible bitcoin. As the blockchain gets older, the verification gets harder, and as a result the Bitcoin network is now consuming as much electricity as a mid-sized country like Argentina. Huge mining operations have been set up in China, and some even have dedicated power plants. One poster child for the environmental impacts of bitcoin is an Australian startup looking to reopen a decommissioned coal power plant to power its mining operations.

Possibility of manipulation

The huge energy requirements have led to massive server farms in cool regions near cheap electricity, concentrating mining in the hands of a few large players. This centralisation opens up Bitcoin to the possibility of manipulation as anyone with 50% of the network can effectively change the blockchain.

How does Chia address these issues with Bitcoin?

Chia has implemented a new consensus algorithm called proof of space and time. It relies on unused hard disk space, which lots of people have and can use free of charge. Again, without getting too technical, 'Farmers' seed unused space on their hard drive/SSD with 'plots' of cryptographic numbers. When verifying transactions, the network issues a challenge to the farmers, who then scan their plots for the closest answer. The farmer passes this answer back to a server on the network known as a 'timelord'. The farmer with the closest answer is rewarded with a coin.

The more 'plots' a farmer has, the higher the chance of winning a coin.

Setting up the Farm

We got excited about the idea of Chia being the next big thing and decided to hitch a ride on the bandwagon. We had a spare old computer lying around, so we decided to fill it up with as much storage as we could find and farm some Chia!

To set up a farm you need as much space for plots as you can get your hands on. The speed of this space is not critical, so you can use spinning drives. We found 12-terabyte NAS drives to be the sweet spot for bang for buck, and opted for 4x Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives from Scorptec. (Note: they’ve gone up $40 since we bought them!)

Seeding the plots, however, is VERY disk intensive, so you need speedy and reliable SSDs. Since they don't have moving parts you'd think that SSDs would be very reliable, but just like spinning drives, they wear out and eventually die. SSDs come with a TBW (Terabytes Written) rating which estimates the amount of writes you can do before the drive will die. Popular consumer SSDs like a 500GB Samsung EVO 870 have a TBW rating of 300. Chia recommends getting server-grade SSDs that have ratings into the Petabytes, but of course they come with a price to match.

We were limited by the age of our available motherboard, so we could only choose from SATA3-compatible drives. Appropriate enterprise SSDs were also unavailable, so in the end we settled on 500GB Seagate Firecuda 120s that are rated at 700 TBW (also from Scorptec). We decided on two so we could double the plotting rate.

Now we had our hands on the drives, we just had to install everything. Within a few hours of transferring components and wiring it up we were good to go and started plotting.

Our Chia Farm!

Final Thoughts

Our old hardware limits the speed of the SSDs and therefore the number of plots we generate. We're managing around 10 plots a day and will need close to 500 before we’ve filled the available storage.

When we bought our equipment (28th April) the chia calculator showed that we’d be earning around a coin a day when fully plotted. However, with the official launch of Chia imminent, the network has exploded in growth, passing 1 Exabyte (1000 Terabytes) just one day ago. It's now up to 1.68 Exabytes! So unfortunately our estimated time to a coin is down to one every 7 days. That’s still pretty good though, and if Chia does end up supplanting Bitcoin we might just make back the setup costs. It has been a fun exercise, even if we did spend too long on it, and if it does end up being a flash in the pan we can always use the drives for something else….