Improving browser tracing step by step

In the article "Improving browser tracing step by step," Lukas Stracke outlines recent enhancements to the Sentry JavaScript SDK aimed at refining browser tracing for better accuracy and utility. Key improvements include giving users explicit control over pageload spans, smarter handling of redirects, and the introduction of deeper timing data on resource spans. The updates address various user requests, such as allowing manual pageload reporting with the Sentry.reportPageLoaded() feature and maintaining active spans outside of callbacks using the new Sentry.setActiveSpanInBrowser API. Additionally, the SDK has implemented heuristics to differentiate between automatic client-side redirects and user-initiated navigations and introduced options to ignore specific spans to reduce noise in the data. The SDK also provides detailed network timing information for resource spans and updates to web vital measurements, detaching LCP and CLS from the pageload span to ensure they capture final values accurately. These changes are part of a broader roadmap aimed at further enhancing Sentry's tracing capabilities, with future plans to improve SSR traces and link frontend traces more effectively.