diff --git a/newsfragments/1496.change.rst b/newsfragments/1496.change.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..12ac7345
--- /dev/null
+++ b/newsfragments/1496.change.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Set Chrome's page load strategy to ``eager``, so that navigation does not
+wait for images and third-party scripts which no operation in this
+package needs.
diff --git a/src/vws_web_tools/__init__.py b/src/vws_web_tools/__init__.py
index 6c9e88c7..7c319b20 100644
--- a/src/vws_web_tools/__init__.py
+++ b/src/vws_web_tools/__init__.py
@@ -71,6 +71,13 @@
 def create_chrome_driver() -> WebDriver:
     """Create a headless Chrome WebDriver."""
     options = ChromeOptions()
+    # Return from ``driver.get`` once the DOM is ready, without waiting
+    # for sub-resources. Every element this package looks for is behind
+    # an explicit wait, and ``wait_for_logged_in`` asks for
+    # ``document.readyState`` where a full load is what matters, so
+    # waiting for images and analytics scripts to load only adds time
+    # and turns slow third-party requests into timeouts.
+    options.page_load_strategy = "eager"  # noqa: V101
     options.add_argument(argument="--headless=new")
     options.add_argument(argument="--no-sandbox")
     options.add_argument(argument="--disable-dev-shm-usage")