If a web page is taking an age to load, it’s almost certainly because it’s stuffed with large, high-resolution images, which not only test your patience but guzzle your data.
You can prevent this from happening by installing a new Chrome extension called Bandwidth Hero, which compresses all pictures on web pages to save you both time and data.
It works automatically, downloading images to a proxy server, converting them to smaller files and returning them to your browser (this happens much more quickly than it sounds).
By default, the add-on reduces the file size by around 50%, but you can reduce the compression level in its settings and stop it making images black and white.
Bandwidth Hero can be disabled on specific sites to leave their pictures intact, and usefully keeps a record of all the images it’s compressed and data it’s saved. It’s also available for Firefox.
Enjoy!
