Internet
Users complain new Gmail version slow, crashes browsers
A major upgrade to Gmail is getting the thumbs down from users who complain that the new version is extremely slow, often fails to load pages and even crashes their browsers.
Discussion forums have been flooded with complaints since Google Inc. began “upgrading” users about two weeks ago to the new version, popularly referred to in the blogosphere as Gmail 2.0.
Ironically, Gmail 2.0, which features an upgraded contacts manager, is designed to be faster and more stable. Gmail 2.0 is based on what a Google spokesman calls “a major structural code change” upon which new features will be launched in coming months.
The most common complaint is that it is generally very slow, with delays of a minute or more when attempting to display the in-box upon logging on, to record keystrokes when typing text and to respond to mouse clicks. Often the tasks time out. Others report that Gmail 2.0 repeatedly crashes or freezes their browsers, particularly in Firefox.
If these users switch to the “old” Gmail version, the problems go away. However, these users say they have to switch manually every time they log on, because Gmail 2.0 automatically became their default version once they got upgraded to it.
Google didn’t immediately reply to a series of follow-up questions, so it’s not clear what percentage of people have access to the new version and how many are experiencing problems with it. It’s also unclear when Google expects to have everyone on the new version and when the performance problems will be solved.
What’s clear is that the problems have unleashed a storm of complaints. A search, sorted by date, for “Gmail slow” in the Gmail Help Discussion forum returns about 35 pages of results related to problems with Gmail 2.0.
