It is ironic when G's own tool shows you the speed penalty of their own ads.
I pull the ads, I get a score of 99.
I put the ads back, and it drops to 70.

I wonder what G thinks what WE THINK, when we notice this?
Daily for years?

On the one hand, we should pull all AdSense ads, to improve speed, if we listen to the search folks.
On the other hand, who wants zero revenue?

Looks like we must tippy-toe on the tight rope, and hope not to fall off.

Regarding doubleclick, I constantly see "waiting for ads.doubleclick" in my status bar.
This observation indicates to me that doubleclick is not very fast.
.

It is ironic when G's own tool shows you the speed penalty of their own ads.

This is another example that Google Search is NOT Google Adsense.

When you look at Google Adsense recommendations, most are against Google Search guidelines. For example, the vignette ads (interstitial?) Adsense proposes it as great, but if I don't make mistake, Google Search penalizes sites which are showing this kind of ads. The In-feed/article ads, might be perceived by Google Search are hidden advertising, etc...

But clearly Adsense could make more efforts in optimizing their ad serving, this would be profitable for everybody, advertisers, publishers, and users.

I constantly see "waiting for ads.doubleclick" in my status bar.

I never see that at my sites. Using Chrome both desktop & mobile, although Firefox was slower at loading ads (one of the reasons I switched.) I just use the normal async code but I preload in an independent div then float to position.

I do however see slow loading ads from various sources at other sites; usually the ones who over-stuff ads every place they can. Unfortunately I need to visit some of those sites often or I'd avoid them entirely.

I use Firefox. Killed all autoplay using add-on.
I abandoned Chrome, because I was unable to kill everything "autoplay".
I will not tolerate it.
Either as content or ads.
I determine what I look at, not SOMEBODY ELSE, using guesswork.

When I get bored, waiting for something to happen, I glance down at my status bar.
Certain items tend to stand out, because you see them more frequently.
Also, you can see really *questionable / suspicious / interesting" access requests.
.

I abandoned Chrome, because I was unable to kill everything "autoplay".

Oh there's a Chrome extension that kills autoplay. Been using it for about a year, works great: [chrome.google.com...]

I used Firefox for many years, until responsive layouts became required. IMO I need to use the browser that the majority of my visitors use, that's Chrome. Chrome, via the Android browser, is default to over 70% of the world's mobile devices and of course all the Chrome books. Then comes Edge for the Windows systems, then Safari. So I build in Chrome & test with Edge & Safari.

Aside from us techies, very few use Firefox. Besides, Firefox adds extra space in several CSS fields. Chrome is more exact so I know exactly what the markup will display.

Besides the Adsense Publisher Toolbar [chrome.google.com] (which is great if you publish Adsense) Chrome is soooo much faster than any other browser :)

Google should bring the AMP ads to normal web pages as I assume it loads without affecting the site speed? They are probably better than normal ads, I guess?

Yeah having adsense certainly slows a site down.

Do people find that the speed difference between adsense and double click is greater or lesser than the difference between no adsense and adsense?

Or do people find little difference between adsense and double click.

Also has anyone found any particularly fast ad networks.

if I remove ads and social buttons, a lot of my sites have near instantaneous display (especially after having viewed one initial page, loading all the main js/css/img files in the cache). I find HTML5 ads to be so bloated nowadays, but I won't bite the hand that feeds me.

@keyplyr

Firefox adds extra space in several CSS fields. Chrome is more exact so I know exactly what the markup will display.

Can it be related to the CSS property "box-sizing" ?

@koan

if I remove ads and social buttons, a lot of my sites have near instantaneous display

This is obvious, since you are drastically reducing the number of external requests. As for ads, you can't really do anything, beside using async code, and eventually AMP. As for social buttons, you do not have to rely on external script, you can hardcode links into your pages.