Do the IMAP or SMTP/POP3 options still work in GMail? If so, maybe it's time for a proxy WebMail UI hosted on a tiny VPS that simply acts as the mail client for you, whilst gmail still does all the heavy lifting of spam filtering and trusted sending.
Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
101–110 of 283 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#102I don't mind the look that much, but it's painfully slow. When an application gains a animated splash screen I know that it's time has come. I'm using a Chromebook, so in a way a Google blessed device and it's annoyingly slow. I'm switching to basic HTML view. If it will disappear I will get off gmail for good.
Head to AOL now. Please leave Gmail.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#103Xoogler here, but I guarantee:
1) This conversation (and complaints) already happened, repeatedly and in-depth, months ago on various internal lists
2) The response - the Decision is made, you're change averse/not a representative user
3) Whichever PMs/leads/designers involved had an OKR to do Something, so Something had to be done
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#104Amen. What really bugs me is it loads instantly in Chrome but in Firefox is does it's loading animation and refreshes once or twice usually taking a few seconds just to load the page.
I just tested it in both Firefox and Chrome on an older Win7 system and my subjective judgement of the loading time was that it was essentially identical in each browser. Certainly the animation is shown in each.
Is maybe the new Chrome login thing related to this. I'm starting to feel like new GMail and the Chrome auto-login thing are somehow connected. Maybe the whole GMail thing only tested with logged-in Chrome so they never noticed the problem.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been using GMail since 2004 and I'm not having any trouble, even in Firefox.
Same. I’m actually at google but I’m not going to tell the gmail team about this post because 1. I don’t agree with it, and 2. Gmail team is already painfully aware that any given change will be unappealing to a subset of users. 3. They are probably already here, taking note, considering. Unfortunately we can’t all have a custom UI written exactly to our specifications. Gmail team has to try to do what they think is…
IMHO, you can never win the UI war, because habits.
If they improve the speed and make it work as fast as the previous version did, I think most users will learn to live with the new UI.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#106Amen. What really bugs me is it loads instantly in Chrome but in Firefox is does it's loading animation and refreshes once or twice usually taking a few seconds just to load the page.
Interesting. I usually use Chrome and I get the loading animation every time. The old one had an animation too, but this one takes 2-3x longer.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#107Here's how I had been using the old Gmail UI or HTML view for several years now. Simply login to your Gmail account. You should see a URL similar to https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/.. . in your browser address bar, just simply change the mu to h and hit enter. You will be taken to the old UI or html view.
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Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been using GMail since 2004 and I'm not having any trouble, even in Firefox.
Same. I’m actually at google but I’m not going to tell the gmail team about this post because 1. I don’t agree with it, and 2. Gmail team is already painfully aware that any given change will be unappealing to a subset of users. 3. They are probably already here, taking note, considering. Unfortunately we can’t all have a custom UI written exactly to our specifications. Gmail team has to try to do what they think is…
There is absolutely, 100%, without qualification, no circumstance whatsoever where a regression is good for most users.
The fact that you think so makes it hard to take anything else you've said seriously.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#109For me (I'm in Italy) the best part was the request: " would you like to switch now or in two weeks?". I use the same with my kids: "would you like one portion of broccoli or two portions?". This approach gives the perception of being able to choose.
Exactly. And without the standard x in the corner to just dismiss it. I don't want to update now or in 1 week (my options currently). If you are going to force me to do something, then just do it already and don't play these games.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Google here? The new Gmail UI is painful
#110Is it really that bad...? It looks about the same as the old with a material coat of paint.
The hover effects are atrocious.