I'm proposing that the progress throbber should change visually after the main document has been loaded, so that the user can see that the browser is finished loading the main document and is now loading the objects that are referenced from the document. Suppose you have two pages loading in your browser, one which loads very slowly and one which loads quickly but references some object that loads very slowly. Looking at the progress throbber for each of these pages, you can not tell one case from the other, which is a shame, since the cases are quite different. A typical example is a newspaper site, which in itself may be fairly responsive, containing links to external advertising servers that may be slower or even not responding at all. But sometimes the newspaper site itself may be unusually slow or not responding, and it is desirable if the progress throbber could differentiate between those cases. Continuing the newspaper site example, suppose you have the main page loaded in your browser and you refresh the page. If the throbber doesn't stop throbbing, is that because the main document is still loading, or is it some referenced object being slow to load? You cannot really tell. How to reproduce: 1) Load http://www.autark.se/slow_gif_page.html in one browser tab. This simulates the case where a referenced object loads slowly. 2) Load http://www.autark.se/slowpage.pl in another browser tab. This simulates the case when the main document loads slowly. 3) Compare the visual feedback from loading the two tabs. Actual outcome: There is no difference in the feedback. Desired outcome: There should be a clear difference in the feedback.

Beltzner is working on improving the progress indicator state design in bug 604027. I'm duping this bug to that one, since this design would likely conflict with (or be part of) his design.