Just over a year ago I posted the results of my research about Mobile Browser cache sizes. At the time, there was general consensus mobile browser cache was small, but a lack of concrete numbers to support it. I created some cookie-based measurement tool, which helped confirm mobile browser cache sizes were indeed far smaller than desktop browsers.

A lot has changed since then. Google shipped Chrome for Android, which explicitly stated it addressed the small cache size. Android’s native browser has also improved dramatically, as did Apple’s Mobile Safari. In addition, Firefox released an Android browser, and both Google and Yahoo released hybrid browsers for iOS (Chrome for iOS and Yahoo Axis), which mix Apple’s UIWebView with some of their own software.

With all those changes, plus some probing from Steve Souders, I figured it’s about time to rerun my tests.
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Last week I posted the first part of reviewing the architecture aspects of Front-End Optimization, and their impact. The purpose of that post (and this one) is to give you better insight into how FEO tools work, so you can make a more informed decision when considering using one.

If you haven’t done so already, check out last week’s post to learn about inline vs. offline analysis, central vs. local analysis, and optimizing close to the client vs close to the server. In this post, I’ll discuss the remaining 4 items in the table below.
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