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Gmail Has Become Faster & Slower  (View post)

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

Monday, November 12, 2007
16 years ago8,233 views

I think the Gmail team has attempted to speed up the most common operations, at the expense of everything else.

There's one thing I find quite off-putting. A few seconds after my Inbox is displayed, there's a visual disruption as the chat-contacts box (in the left-hand column) is displayed and resized, which also moves the items below it ("labels", "invite a friend").

But they've also fixed a bug which was bothering me on Firefox Linux. After I deleted all my spams, the next click on "Inbox" didn't work.

Overall, it's a slight improvement for me. Very slight.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

(Repost from here: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/112687-full.html#id113590)

<< Having used it for a while now, it always seems much slower to load the initial page. Once it's loaded, it seems much faster to do the usual frequent tasks, like read emails, but much slower to open the settings page, etc. And I seem to get these alerts every so often when I try to leave Gmail:

http://ruscoe.net/blog/uploads/gmail-newer-version-alert.png

I guess they're now queuing requests rather than doing them immediately. >>

Viewing settings pages and creating filters also seems slower now too. But generally, things seem to be faster – especially if you don't have much mail in your account.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Here's another bug I've noticed: Web clips don't update when you switch between views. For example, if you click "Spam" perhaps you'll see a Spam recipe. Now click "Inbox" and the Spam recipe web clip remains the same (although the colour changes).

By switching between various views, I think you can get a good idea of how the prefetching and caching of conversations is working.

(And while testing this just now, it literally took a few seconds to display my drafts even though there are only three in there...)

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Maybe Gmail should prefetch stuff in a more clever way (only some of the messages) or prefetch them in the background while you can still read a message. For example, Firefox pretches the top Google search result only for navigational queries. I don't think it makes sense to prefect the spam messages when you know that most people don't read them.

phatsphere [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

well, it seems like the address autocomplete is the same as in the email-forwarding option in google reader. there it doesn't work very well either.
maybe this is whole update is just the first step for a google gears integration, which should – in my option – store javascript and mail-data loacally and after opening the page, everything is already locally available and a delayed update starts for new mails immediatly. this would give by far the best experience.

Wim Lockefeer [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I hate the way it stops Better Gmail from functioning (esp. the html sig funtion & the skinning). I haven't seen that much difference, though, in layout or in speed.

kmike [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

It also seems to be more CPU hungry for me than before.

Iuri Fiedoruk [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Loading mails is much faster and pleasant, but all the rest is really bad.
I can't use gmail very well in my home computer, a Duron 1.6 Ghz linux box with 512 RAM, it's way too slow!!
My problema are:
- loading takes much more time
- it use more machine's resources
- scrolling is really slow

I'm already starting to think into using some email client with IMAP :-P

gene chew [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I like the new version. Don't really care about it getting a few seconds slower at loading up.

And the chat popup – I have Gmail 200% zoomed in my browser (nosquint firefox addon). And unlike the previous version now letters in that chat are as well zoomed. (In the older version I had to pop it up into a separate window and then zoom in).

Mrrix32 [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Why does the spam link shove "in: Spam" in to the search box? It didn't do it before did it?

Alex Leonard [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

It's been a kind of strange upgrade – there doesn't seem to have been a lot of changes, but the worst thing is that I've had two complete Firefox crash outs as a result of something going screwey with gmail!?

Pri [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

I agree with Tony. Changing views has gotten much slower and the wait is noticeable. However, more common task, such as viewing mail is faster. The longest wait I have seen is in viewing the new contacts layout. I've tried in accounts both with large and small contact lists and Gmail takes at least 5-6 seconds to show.

Scott [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

When is this coming for Apps?

Mac Beach [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I can't tell much difference in speed.

I sure like the cleaner contact list management though.

Thomas [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

i can not hide the chat box anymore. this increaes the initial loading time for some seconds. and i dont want chat with google-talk.

the new not native "more actions" box needs two seconds to open with 15 lables. its really "ätzend ..." for everday "mark as read"-work

GuillaumeB [PersonRank 9]

16 years ago #

i got a pretty huge amount of emails, I do not find the new version THAT faster overall. However one thing is pretty clear, i had to downgrade Gmail Mobile 1.5 to 1.1 because 1.5 is uber slow

Alex Ksikes [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Why would you want to change something that was already so good? I don't like the new gmail. There are only a few differences and it is really slower. I aleady did not like the web chat but was happy I could turn the feature off. But this time there is no way standard way to turn the new interface off. I switched the language to Enlish UK to keep on using the old gmail.

J. McNair [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Faster things for me:
Browsing individual messages (Newer/Older) that's lightning fast.
Chat
Back/Forward on browser
Apply/Remove Labels
Changing/modifyingReplying individual messages
Conversation View

Slower:
Switching labels
Switching Views (Inbox -> All Mail)
Initial startup (I could put up with this)
Contacts (even though it's much nicer – I'll keep it thanks)
Browsing long message lists (my preferred setting is 50/page)

Oddly, after you do this for a while (1-2 minutes), the prefetching kicks in truly and the slow functions get faster, but everything uses more processor than before it seems. Must be all the JavaScript tricks to get the browsers to behave.

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

While I love the instant opening of messages, I don't understand why it should slow the initial load of Gmail if the background fetching is truly asynchronous.

And the autocomplete issue is annoying too. I've had it happen on Google Maps frequently. When you try to bring up a saved location by name, sometimes it doesn't work because the script hasn't loaded yet.

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/114660.html#id114674

Well, it's not really related to computer speed, it's your internet speed that counts

GuillaumeB [PersonRank 9]

16 years ago #

as long as I am not THE ONLY manager of my contacts Gmail will never be perfect IMO

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

<< Well, it's not really related to computer speed, it's your internet speed that counts >>

That might not be strictly true. Depending on how much client-side stuff they're doing, it's quite possible that older computers could be struggling to render things more quickly than before.

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I actually don't see any lag you mention Philipp. Could it be that the page was stuck on 'Updating...' somehow?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Sohil, it happens everytime. It also does load, eventually, only that to know *when* it loaded you have to constantly type something, even when you already ended your typing!

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

<<it's not really related>>

Well, it's mainly to do with internet connection, right?
His computer is maybe only 1 or 2 years old, so this statement is tru

Freiddie [PersonRank 7]

16 years ago #

Seems OK to me. I'm used to the slowness since my connection isn't particularly fast, but I like the overall interface.

Art Nagy [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I don't like the new version at all, as it is. Firefox crashes every single time I attempt to use it (P4 3GHz, 3GB RAM, VERY fast cable connection). It happens when switching from one view to another. Very annoying.

Juan Pablo [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

crashed a lot of times on firefox, and slower background tasks, when Im trying to close the window, a js alert ask me to wait or i will lose some things.

Josue R. [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

in my opening, the new Contact Manager doesn't any good and i believe its gotten slower.

Pri [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

I just downloaded the the new Firefox 3 Beta and Gmail seems to be running quicker. I'm not sure if it's becuase so many of my addons are disabled or because the new Firefox/Gecko engine is optimized to use the 'quicker' Gmail.

Can anyone else confirm?

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I'ts because you got the old Gmail back! New Gmail only runs on IE7 and FF2

Pri [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

nope. I see the link for 'older version' on the top and my contacts view is the new updated one.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Update: Neat, this issue with auto-completion lags during Gmail's startup seems to have been fixed now.

Bill Mac [PersonRank 9]

16 years ago #

Yes, I noticed this as well, although the dynamic contact list seems to be absolute positioned. I can no longer use the "compose in sidebar" bookmark method in Firefox. Too bad, I really like[d] that hack.

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