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Yeah, Google web apps must have some scary Javascript bloat going on. I remember when GMail was lightning fast; now it takes 5-10 seconds just to load the first page of my inbox and chat windows.

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I've switched to the Basic HTML version full-time. It's way, way faster, even having to reload the entire page for most actions (remember when the whole point of AJAX was faster webpages?). I miss a few features, but it's not even close to being worth using the many-times-slower interface and associated higher system load to get those back. Some of those features (inline "track this package" links in Amazon emails in the mailbox view, for instance) shouldn't require javascript/AJAX at all, but are simply absent, which is frustrating, but again, it's still worth it.

Plus I can, you know, close the tab. One of the worst things about these enormous "javascript applications" is the high startup time (remember how much we hated Flash intros with loading screens?) that leads to leaving the tab open, which means that tab's disgustingly-high memory use is a constant rather than only occasional cost (I'm looking at you, Asana!)

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