Overall I don't mind Discourse, but I would definitely love for it to:

- not hijack my scroll or do that infinite page thing. Please load the entire thread or at least let me use classical pagination.

- not hijack CTRL-f for its own built-in search. I want my browser's on page search, and I know what I'm doing.

> - not hijack CTRL-f for its own built-in search.

Just in case you(or others) don't know, you can press Ctr-F twice to get the native browser page search.

Helpful, thank you!

Why did they use infinite scroll in the first place? Is there any scientific research behind this? What are better alternatives?

I .. guess there are different standards or point of views what counts as clean and fast?

I experience it as very slow and bloated, even though it somewhat improved.

I experience it as fast compared to traditional, pre-SPA-era web forums; the use of JavaScript speeds up a lot of interactions that would otherwise require a full page load. The live Markdown preview is also a heck of a lot better than having to click “preview” and wait for a page load to see your BBCode rendered. Having live updates for new posts/edits without having to refresh contributes to a snappy feeling. And I think the visual theming is nice and clean.

Still, compared to a good email client, it’s not so fast. Which is why I personally read Discourse forums mainly via email, only visiting the actual site for long threads or when I want to reply. It’s not perfect, since Discourse allows editing posts but doesn’t notify email users of edits. But it’s fine. I actually like it better than real mailing lists, because I prefer Discourse’s composing interface.

>fast

Discourse is definitely not fast. Whenever Google sends me to a discourse page I just end up giving up on waiting for it after staring for over 8 seconds at a blank page.