drain on website

[westerneagle]

If I leave continually, say in a tab in chrome, a web site, like eileenslounge or others, does it cause a drain on that web site?

I have 6 tabs all open with different sites and have then open all day.

One of them is a small personal web site of a friend. Am I causing a drain on his resources even though I am not doing anything on his site.

Just wondering.

[JohnH]

In normal circumstances, your web browser is just displaying a downloaded document. So the answer to your question is No.

When you first open the website, your browser sends off a request and the web server responds by sending you the web page. The webserver then immediately forgets all about you.

The exceptions are websites that incorporate code to automatically refresh themselves, or sites where you need to log in to create a session.

[westerneagle]

Thanks John for your answer...

But as to your statement "or sites where you need to log in to create a session."

....so since I 'log' into eileenslounge...if I leave it open in a tab, what is happening??

[JohnH]

I am not sure. I don't think it is much of a drain.
Eileen's Lounge maintains a list of who is currently logged in. But I suspect that all this means is that it adds you to the list when you log in, and takes you off the list if you don't do anything for a specified period of time.

There is much more overhead with sites where you use a shopping Trolley, or Internet Banking.

[Bigaldoc]

One of the Admins can check me here, but I think Eileen's "remembers" you for 10 minutes and if you don't "do something" during that time, it forgets about you. But even during that time, as already mentioned above, if you aren't actively performing some action, you're not draining resources once the last page is downloaded to your computer.

The one exception that I'm aware of is the Who's Online screen which auto-refreshes every 60 seconds (unless they've changed it).

Hans? Leif? Stuart? ... Have I got it close?

[Leif]

Have I got it close?

Pretty much so. The board software is running continuously and logs any activity. Any users - registered, guests, or robots - active within the previous 10 minutes are listed when you look at the 'Who's Online' page, assuming the user has not not logged out and you have scripting enabled in your browser.

Once you have finished downloading a page, the information is stored in your browser cache, and any animations are displayed by your browser. You could disconnect from the internet and the page would remain displayed.

....so since I 'log' into eileenslounge...if I leave it open in a tab, what is happening??

Nothing as far as the Lounge is concerned unless you refresh the page or navigate to another in the Lounge.

[westerneagle]

....

Learn something everyday

[BobH]

In old 'poll and select' networks, there was a continuous process of each end checking to see if the other was still there even if no work traffic was being sent in either direction. Although I don't know if Internet connections are in any way shoulder tapping to see if links are still open for any reason. I can imagine where that might be the case in some applications requiring browsers if the links were highly interactive and functions depended on the state of each end, but I believe that is NOT the case in most browser applications using the Internet. With packet switched technology used by the Internet, there is no need to assure the continued connection between points as there was in poll/select technology. The existence of carrier on a line is sufficient knowledge for packet switching and that can be detected without actually sending signal.

All of that is by way of saying that the traditional knowledge that maintaining a link put load on a circuit was valid for older communications technology but not for the technology used by the Internet.