Hi snugs!
I think it’s more like most web sites have gotten faster. Free Republic software was revolutional—the database and features offered, but newer technologies not employed on FR have focused on fast page loads, etc.
It’s like using a circa 2001 PC after getting used to something made this year.
I head a group that receives people’s old, used PCs and refurbish them and give them out to the poor, etc. All have Windows XP on them (in most cases, the old hardware cannot support Vista or Win 7). After I reload everything I’m thinking, “Dang, this thing is so slow! How did I ever manage back then?”
Back to FR; I think if Jim and John Robinson tweak the FR software they could make it faster, but they’d have to do a lot of changes that would change the look and feel of what we’re used to. I don’t think they can scale up. Perhaps they could scale out (use more servers to share the load) so that could potentially speed things up, but that would cost a lot more.
Actually, I’m amazed at what an efficient site Free Republic is, especially since they are non-profit and operating on a dime.
We have had threads that people were posting to every other second ... like last night ... the the site kept up and worked like a charm.
Also the features on this site are quite remarkable in that one can go and look at previous posts of another poster, really sophisticated stuff.
Okay, now I’ve done it. The site sometimes crashes on Sunday and probably will now that I’ve bragged.