In reply to Dave Methvin.
Hi Dave,
You’re right, there is some duplication in the JavaScript, but this is minimised through the Brotli compression technologies we employ on the Content Delivery Network (CDN) when delivering scripts to browsers. Having said that, there are still things we can do to improve the speed of the site further, and we’ll continue to work to improve things.
We don’t fully support Internet Explorer 8 any more (see https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/designing-for-different-browsers-and-devices#browsers-to-test-in-from-june-2022) but a significant number of people are still using older browsers to access GOV.UK. The Design System team are currently working on improving the experience of our IE8 users by optimising the JavaScript delivered to this browser by only delivering the JavaScript that is essential for a page to work in IE8. This work will filter through to the GOV.UK platform once they upgrade to version 5.x of the design system.
Thanks, Matt and Andy