Fake Progress Bar for Instant Reports

Worked as a software dev for Carfax about 9 years ago. Their software for producing history reports was so fast (could get a report in less than 10ms) that users didn't believe it actually "crunched the data" so the frontend team added a fake progress bar that waited a short random time. I believe this fake bar is still there today.

A Reddit post describes Carfax software that generated vehicle history reports almost instantly, so users distrusted the result. The frontend team added a fake progress bar with a random delay to make the process look legitimate, and the joke is that this meaningless bar may still exist today. EN: A Reddit post describes Carfax software that generated vehicle history reports almost instantly, so users distrusted the result. The frontend team added a fake progress bar with a random delay to make the process look legitimate, and the joke is that this meaningless bar may still exist today.

• @eternalclassic / 77516 2025-10-20