I just noticed an odd thing about the Ticketmaster and Telecharge websites.
It appears (after about ten long minutes of noodling around), that the Ticketmaster site does not use "https" in all their browser addresses, while the Telecharge site seems to use it for all of their pages.
"Https" means that you have a secure connection, while "http" (without the last 's' for security) indicates a non secure connection.
The Ticketmaster site reverts to "https" when you log in to your account, but only seems to offer "http" when you are browsing through the site, checking out availability, dates or events. I would hope that "https" is used when actually making transactions, and I presume so.
The Telecharge site seems to make use of "https" for every page on the site, even if you are not logged in.
In and of itself, there doesn't seem to be any real problems for users with either of these set ups. Even the non secure connections on Ticketmaster don't present a problem, because no sensitive information is being transmitted on those particular pages.
The "https" pages are secure because those connections use an encryption protocol that shields sensitive information like credit card info and other identifying data. These connections require extra bandwidth for what's known as the "handshake" between the browser and the site serving information to the browser. That might make for potentially slower connections.
Idiot internet chat boards periodically complain about the speed and usability of the Telecharge website. I can't and have no way to verify those claims, but I wonder if the use of "https" connections exclusively by Telecharge play into these claims.
A lot goes into determining the speed of internet connections. The ISPs of the users and the websites, other traffic, time of day and types of connections. User error is often a source of problems.
I noticed no significant difference in the sites' response time, on a Sunday night with no major new productions going on sale (to my knowledge, anyway), using the Chrome browser.
The only conclusion I can state with absolute certainty is that I really have too much time on my hands.
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