Extra: Record data a page sends/receives
Not Graded: This activity is not required and is not graded. It may have self-reflection questions, but they are there only for your own learning.
Modern websites are built from many different souces. In this activity you will be using your browser’s functionality to record a sequence of web browsing activities and then look at the result.
Software: Chrome or Firefox recommended
Steps
Capture your own traffic
- Visit any news website such as:
- Open the developer console by pushing F12
- Switch to the Network tab
- Reload the website and wait a bit for most content to load
- You can now see all the pages that are being fetched and all the content being sent back and forth between your browser and the various servers. The interface will also let you filter, sort, and dive into anything you find interesting.
- Download the resulting Har file:
- Firefox right click on any network line and select “Save all as HAR”
- Chrome Click on the down arrow icon below the Networking tab to download the HAR file.
- A HAR file is just a Jason object, it can be opened in any programming language that supports HAR files or anything that can open Jason.
See map of website connections
Firefox is required for this one.
- Add the plugin Lightbeam on Firefox
- Visit a couple of pages on different websites
- Click on the Lightbeam icon to open the page, and wait because Lightbeam is slow…..
- Look at the connections between websites and the pages they load
- Uninstall Lightbeam. It is a fun tool, but it also records every page you visit.