MSNBC.com is probably a special case. Since I have a very slow dialup connection I get to watch what loads, and it definitely does NOT flash by too fast to read on the bottom bar in my IE7.

More than 90% of each page load at MSNBC.com is advertising and tracking data exchanges, and remote loads of ads that insert into the page. A page with "news content" of 15KB (300KB if there's a BIG picture) often sends me 1.5MB or more of trash.

Pages often "stall" for a while if a remote server that's supposed to provide an ad insert doesn't answer immediately, even though the MSNBC server is ready to continue.

(Or so it seems to me.)

John