I wish GMail would quit F***in "improving

ergophobe · March 05, 2011, 07:22:16 PM

Remember when Google was fast and light?

Every time they "improve" they add more Javascript, more this more that. I spend a lot of time on a satellite connection which, apart from low bandwidth has high latency.

this means that it is becoming impossible for me to use more and more Google products.

GMail is the worst. With the latest rollout, I can no longer send messages over satellite except on the very best of days. I can still read email, though I expect to lose that ability in the next "upgrade". So I have to use the Basic HTML interface now since the latest update.

Even before that, it *hates* high latency. On a high latency connection, you are in this limbo. It sees you as "connected" so it blocks you out of "offline" but yet sees your connection as not working. So if you want the normal interface, you have turn off your netowrk card so it sees no connectivity, restart the browser, do your work offline, then start it back up.

Arrgghhhhh.... just venting.

inbound · March 05, 2011, 08:00:58 PM

I'm with you, but on the bloat in general.

Whay can't companies offer max and mini versions (I'm not talking mobile, just a low bandwidth option) - or better, a customsable UI that allows you to select what features you can live without. This is especially valid when a product morphs from slim and fast to something resembling Jabba the Hutt.

ukgimp · March 06, 2011, 04:41:04 PM

getting slower and slower for me. Sucks really

Rumbas · March 06, 2011, 05:36:03 PM

With a sucky connection everything is slow - today is really bad for me.. ZzzzZZzz

ergophobe · March 06, 2011, 09:22:54 PM

Quote from: inbound on March 05, 2011, 08:00:58 PM
I'm with you, but on the bloat in general.

Agreed. But not long ago, Google was so fast and light, that I used to use it check whether or not I had a connection. If Google wasn't loading, nothing would.

Now it's almost the opposite. Google properties are among the slowest, most bloated locales on the web.

Now I tend to ping Webmasterworld, because its design has hardly changed in a decade and still responds fast on the slowest connection. I think that accounts for 50% of my visits there! It used to account for a decent proportion of my visits to Google, but no more.

Gurtie · March 07, 2011, 08:54:47 AM

and google docs frequently won't let me update things even when it lets me open them.

</whinge>

bill · March 07, 2011, 08:58:04 AM

Didn't they used to have a GreaseMonkey powered offline version that you could use to backup Gmail and then use on your desktop even without a connection? I used to have Calendar and Gmail icons on my desktop for that.

ergophobe · March 07, 2011, 05:30:19 PM

Yes, GMail has an offline mode (with Gears, not Greasemonkey, unless you're thinking of something else).

On a high-latency connection (satellite) you're in this weird limbo. It seems that as long as I'm connected to my local network (fast ping times), it won't treat me as being offline, but as long as I have the high latency of the satellite (slow ping times), it won't treat me as online. So I can't do jack if Google AJAX/JSON/whatever is involved.

I can just use the Basic HTML version, but what I really want to do is use GMail as it existed one year ago, when everything worked fine... back before the "improved" it.

I think one general issue is that Google engineers work on incredibly fast connections. The one I know is only allowed to work from home if he has the fastest connection he can get from a standard DSL provider in the Bay Area. So I expect there is almost no testing or awareness of the problems of slow connections. Or perhaps there is awareness, but it's become such a small market segment, it isn't worth engineering with them in mind.