4 ms·

I have definitely noticed that YouTube is one of the few sites that causes my desktop to struggle when loading the page. Gmail is oddly heavy in this regard too

I have definitely noticed that YouTube is one of the few sites that causes my desktop to struggle when loading the page. Gmail is oddly heavy in this regard too. I worry that google might not be paying enough attention to load times or resource utilization.

keyle 9y ago
I had to revert to the 'old' gmail. I mean a MBP 2017 shouldn't drop frames when scrolling emails!!
- killbrad 9y ago
  The"new" Gmail is the slowest website I use. I'm trying to give it a go but honestly I'm gonna have to switch soon. It's nearly unusable.
degenerate 9y ago
If you've used the new version of Adwords or Analytics, or had to administer a GApps account in the past 2 years, you've already figured out that Google does not give 2 craps about speed or optimization anymore!
sitkack 9y ago
Which is really too bad because much of the world is on a connection far away from Google and a machine that most Googler's would have recycled already. I distinctly remember when Reddit rolled out the new "mobile site" because it took multiple seconds longer to load than the previous one and now crashes my IPad 1 and is janky on my IPad 2-ish quality Galaxy Tab. If these companies want to do something for the environment and their customers, they should make their sites blazingly fast through simplicity not lazily loaded this and that progressive client side whoochathings.
tgb 9y ago
So this is veering off-topic: I remember but cannot for the life of me find a blog post from Google about either the number of bytes in their front page or the number of words on the front page. Apparently there was some guy who would email them just a number "23" or whatever it was that gave the number of bytes/words on google.com every time they updated it. After being puzzled by these emails for a while they figured out what he was hinting at when he sent one that was like "58, getting a bit heavy aren't we?". And that was a lesson about keeping front pages simple - something that was and largely still is unique about Google. Ironic. But why can't I find this blog post? I just spent much longer than I ought to have searching for it and can't find a trace of it. You have to wade through a lot of SEO stuff that comes up with the search results, but restricting to older content helps (I think this happened at latest 2010 probably several years before that). The old google blog I think was google.blogspot.com or googleblog.blogspot.com but you need to search it on the wayback machine and I can't see a way to do that except by hand.
- just_observing 9y ago
  Here you go :) https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/what-comes-next-in-this-series-13-33-53.html https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/what-comes-next-in...
  - tgb 9y ago
    Thanks but how did you find this? I guess the fact that it was co.uk meant my site-restricted searches failed.
AckSyn 9y ago
I've taken to only playing youtube videos in VLC or outright downloading them with youtube-dl Their web interface went to crap with the redesign in the worst way.
JoshMnem 9y ago
Google Plus was so heavy that it barely ran on my old netbook with 4 Gb of RAM. I think that if it had looked a bit more like Craig's List it would have had a much better chance of success. (seriously) The Web needs an anti-bloat movement where animation is minimized and documents are mostly server-rendered.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  No to the latter. Instead please extend HTML with useful entries and stop using Javascript for layout and handling connections and refreshes. What you said suggest the use of migrated like Google AMP. Server side had no idea how things are supposed to be rendered. Trying to force it via JS is an extra crock.
  - JoshMnem 9y ago
    Google AMP is terrible for many reasons. Server side has an idea on how things are supposed to be rendered for content-based documents. Games and complex apps need JS, but readable documents don't. Not everything should be "an app". Animation is often not accessible and it's a problem that needs to be fixed.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

keyle 9y ago

I had to revert to the 'old' gmail. I mean a MBP 2017 shouldn't drop frames when scrolling emails!!

killbrad 9y ago
The"new" Gmail is the slowest website I use. I'm trying to give it a go but honestly I'm gonna have to switch soon. It's nearly unusable.

degenerate 9y ago

If you've used the new version of Adwords or Analytics, or had to administer a GApps account in the past 2 years, you've already figured out that Google does not give 2 craps about speed or optimization anymore!

sitkack 9y ago

Which is really too bad because much of the world is on a connection far away from Google and a machine that most Googler's would have recycled already. I distinctly remember when Reddit rolled out the new "mobile site" because it took multiple seconds longer to load than the previous one and now crashes my IPad 1 and is janky on my IPad 2-ish quality Galaxy Tab. If these companies want to do something for the environment and their customers, they should make their sites blazingly fast through simplicity not lazily loaded this and that progressive client side whoochathings.

tgb 9y ago

So this is veering off-topic: I remember but cannot for the life of me find a blog post from Google about either the number of bytes in their front page or the number of words on the front page. Apparently there was some guy who would email them just a number "23" or whatever it was that gave the number of bytes/words on google.com every time they updated it. After being puzzled by these emails for a while they figured out what he was hinting at when he sent one that was like "58, getting a bit heavy aren't we?". And that was a lesson about keeping front pages simple - something that was and largely still is unique about Google. Ironic. But why can't I find this blog post? I just spent much longer than I ought to have searching for it and can't find a trace of it. You have to wade through a lot of SEO stuff that comes up with the search results, but restricting to older content helps (I think this happened at latest 2010 probably several years before that). The old google blog I think was google.blogspot.com or googleblog.blogspot.com but you need to search it on the wayback machine and I can't see a way to do that except by hand.

just_observing 9y ago
Here you go :) https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/what-comes-next-in-this-series-13-33-53.html https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/what-comes-next-in...
- tgb 9y ago
  Thanks but how did you find this? I guess the fact that it was co.uk meant my site-restricted searches failed.

AckSyn 9y ago

I've taken to only playing youtube videos in VLC or outright downloading them with youtube-dl Their web interface went to crap with the redesign in the worst way.

JoshMnem 9y ago

Google Plus was so heavy that it barely ran on my old netbook with 4 Gb of RAM. I think that if it had looked a bit more like Craig's List it would have had a much better chance of success. (seriously) The Web needs an anti-bloat movement where animation is minimized and documents are mostly server-rendered.

AstralStorm 9y ago
No to the latter. Instead please extend HTML with useful entries and stop using Javascript for layout and handling connections and refreshes. What you said suggest the use of migrated like Google AMP. Server side had no idea how things are supposed to be rendered. Trying to force it via JS is an extra crock.
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  Google AMP is terrible for many reasons. Server side has an idea on how things are supposed to be rendered for content-based documents. Games and complex apps need JS, but readable documents don't. Not everything should be "an app". Animation is often not accessible and it's a problem that needs to be fixed.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]