Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#71

Post by seba_dos1 » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:42 AM UTC

mshenfield wrote: post #31

yesimahuman wrote: post #10

On Firefox it’s unusable for quick work (open, quickly manage emails, close). The interface is noticeably slower than the classic UI. It’s maddening. Not sure what I’m going to do when it switches over for our Google Apps account. Any alternatives people like?

This exactly. On Firefox Nightly, time to first interaction for me is 30 seconds. I've found myself going to gmail.com, searching for something, and then waiting 30 seconds for "Loading..."to transform to "Something's not right". I've just started doing all reading on the Android app. It's still easier for me to write at my laptop than on my phone, so this miserable experience happens to me multiple times a week. I'v…

Use an IMAP client.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#72

Post by AckSyn » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:43 AM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #16

I dislike Google's preference for making their experiences optimal on chrome. Gmail and youtube both seem to run faster on Chrome. It feels very monopolistic that their services run best with each other and poorly on the competition. It's probably not intentional, but very frustrating.

It's anti competitive and analogous to Microsoft's behavior in the 90s

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#73

Post by Wowfunhappy » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:45 AM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #37

I don't use Gmail, but Google Maps seems to be getting slower and slower all the time for me on some of my older boxes. I imagine that it's just the classic case of developers having good machines, and the market share factor meaning they just don't really have to care. I develop on a 12 core processor. If I make something user facing, I have to go out of my way to ensure that it's performant on other hardware; it's…

>I imagine that it's just the classic case of developers having good machines.

But, like, that's ridiculous! Developers should be testing the performance of their stuff, either by looking at system resources or by keeping some "crappy" testing machines around. Preferably both.

I wonder what the environmental impact is of users upgrading their hardware in order to run completely unoptimized stuff like this?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#74

Post by joshuamorton » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:45 AM UTC

macp wrote: post #48

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #14

I can’t stand the new gmail to the point where I check my email only once a day. Every time I open that interface I get enraged. I am a UX designer and the new UI is a total clusterfuck - something you’d expect to fire someone over. Big G really messed this one up and I suspect many feel this way. If they have any sense left at all they’ll add the old view option back or revert completely.

Agreed! I vote for this. It's not just an issue of speed. The new gmail design is very hard to read/understand. Red-on-pink is not the best contrast choice. The icons feel fuzzy without the button borders, are hard to decode, and are too tight together. Strangely, while the icons are all packed tightly, the email list wastes extra space vertically, and requires extra scrolling. Not the best design choice. The high-co…

You can make the email list more compact, (and in fact it tells you as much the first time you open the app).

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#75

Post by aikinai » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:47 AM UTC

throwaway140 wrote: post #54

Am a googler (hence throwaway account) & I can easily tell you why this shit keeps happening! Google featureless ZERO penalties for fucking shit up! Zero! Do you know what the people who wasted two years on Allo got after it was canned? Nothing! Some of them actually got promoted! Google GREATLY encourages "launches" - releasing something publicly. And keep in mind - no penalties if the shit is half baked, not workin…

Comment deleted since the parent was updated.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#76

Post by ndnxhs » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:47 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #35

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #23

Welcome to 2018, friend, where we have several orders of magnitude more computing power and somehow everything is less responsive. It's all accomplished through an advanced process called "Software Engineering".

More specifically, sluggish websites seem to result from the popularity of "responsive design".

Isn't responsive design essentially just CSS media queries?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#77

Post by the_af » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:47 AM UTC

throwaway140 wrote: post #54

Am a googler (hence throwaway account) & I can easily tell you why this shit keeps happening! Google featureless ZERO penalties for fucking shit up! Zero! Do you know what the people who wasted two years on Allo got after it was canned? Nothing! Some of them actually got promoted! Google GREATLY encourages "launches" - releasing something publicly. And keep in mind - no penalties if the shit is half baked, not workin…

Ah! I often wonder, how and why does Google decide to change the UI to well established products like Gmail? It's certain to annoy veteran users, so I'm particularly puzzled when the decide to shake things up, UX wise, for no apparent usability or feature gain.

I suppose your post is at least partly an explanation.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#78

Post by ndnxhs » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:47 AM UTC

yesimahuman wrote: post #10

On Firefox it’s unusable for quick work (open, quickly manage emails, close). The interface is noticeably slower than the classic UI. It’s maddening. Not sure what I’m going to do when it switches over for our Google Apps account. Any alternatives people like?

Thunderbird is real fast.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#79

Post by throwaway140 » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:48 AM UTC

aikinai wrote: post #75

throwaway140 wrote: post #54

Am a googler (hence throwaway account) & I can easily tell you why this shit keeps happening! Google featureless ZERO penalties for fucking shit up! Zero! Do you know what the people who wasted two years on Allo got after it was canned? Nothing! Some of them actually got promoted! Google GREATLY encourages "launches" - releasing something publicly. And keep in mind - no penalties if the shit is half baked, not workin…

Comment deleted since the parent was updated.

Was not sure if that was allowed here. Updated now.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else find the new Gmail interface sluggish?

#80

Post by ndnxhs » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 2:49 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #34

I get drastically different performance using Google's services between Firefox and Chrome. I had instant responses in Chrome for Gmail, Chat/Hangouts, Calendar, etc. In Firefox? 4-6 second wait for _every_ interaction. And I don't think the fault is with Firefox here...

There was a post recently about how YouTube uses depreciated web APIs and then polyfills them to every browser that isn't chrome so YouTube loads slow on non chrome browsers.