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Old 19 Nov 2003, 11:22 PM   #1
Prognathous
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Lightbulb The web interface has the potential to be faster than email clients, here's how:

It should prefetch links before users actually click them.

From the above link:

Quote:
What is link prefetching?
Link prefetching is a browser mechanism, which utilizes browser idle time to download or prefetch documents that the user might visit in the near future. A web page provides a set of prefetching hints to the browser, and after the browser is finished loading the page, it begins silently prefetching specified documents and stores them in its cache. When the user visits one of the prefetched documents, it can be served up quickly out of the browser's cache.
Typical prefetching candidates in the FM web interface:

- Inbox screen -
* Subjects of all unread emails. Starting with the most recent one.
* Upper link-bar (Compose, Addresses and Notepad)

- View message screen -
* Goto links: "<", "Mailbox", ">"
* Delete links: "<", "Mailbox", ">"
* Upper link-bar (Mailbox, Compose, Addresses and Notepad)

- Compose screen -
* Upper link-bar (Mailbox, Addresses and Notepad)

The speed improvements that we could get from prefetching are enormous. Much of what users are likely to click would already be loaded by the time they finish reading the current page

One important note: link prefetching is supported by Netscape, Mozilla and other Gecko-based browsers, not by ones that use yesterday's rendereres like IE6/MSHTML. Nevertheless, users of the latter won't suffer any limitations, they just won't enjoy what current web technology can provide.

As for the additional band-width consumption, this would be negligible for holders of Full and Enhanced accounts (my BW count is now at 5.5M/750M...), as such, this feature could also be a great incentive for users to upgrade to such accounts.

Prog.

Last edited by Prognathous : 19 Nov 2003 at 11:26 PM.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 12:10 AM   #2
fhapgood
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Re: The web interface has the potential to be faster than email clients, here's how:

Quote:
Originally posted by Prognathous
It should prefetch links before users actually click them.

Sounds like a terrific idea.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 01:50 AM   #3
flashbang
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Sounds like an excellent idea to me.. Have to say though.. It sure would be an incentive to upgrade to Full or Enchanced accounts.. Call it something like FastLoad or something of the like.. Although it seems as if only Mozilla based browsers support it.. so it'd be only about 5% of marketshare..
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 02:05 AM   #4
DrStrabismus
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I wouldn't want this without the option to turn it off.

It might speed things up if you are on a fast-connection, but for dial-up users it could slow things down a lot. It all depends on your pattern of use.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 02:19 AM   #5
Prognathous
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Quote:
Originally posted by flashbang
Although it seems as if only Mozilla based browsers support it.. so it'd be only about 5% of marketshare..
<OT>

So that would also be an incentive to try Mozilla, which is just fine with me (an avid Mozilla fan...)

Everyone that I know who tried recent releases of Mozilla, never wanted to look back afterwards. Today, three years after the release of IE6, it is an outdated browser whose huge market-share is mostly due to ignorance and due to users who are too lazy to try something better when their current software is adequate for their immediate needs.

</OT>

Quote:
Originally posted by DrStrabismus
It might speed things up if you are on a fast-connection, but for dial-up users it could slow things down a lot.
Why would it? link prefetching only works when your browser is idle. I don't see any good in wasting those seconds doing nothing.

Prog.

Last edited by Prognathous : 20 Nov 2003 at 02:22 AM.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 02:35 AM   #6
DrStrabismus
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Quote:
Originally posted by Prognathous
Why would it? link prefetching only works when your browser is idle. I don't see any good in wasting those seconds doing nothing.
That assumes that Mozilla is the the only application using the internet.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 02:46 AM   #7
XB77
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Ignorant and Complacent

Count me among the ignorant and complacent. Prognathous
where do I get a clean and recent copy of Mozilla? Is it Freeware? What about other issues in it's use versus IE6--security, compatibility, conflicts w/ dual installation, etc.?

As to the preloading idea, as I run broadband at home, I'm not sure how much faster the web interface would be, but any amount faster is better except in as much as implementation would delay other improvements. The problem with many of these improvement ideas, mine included, is that the coding resources are limited and there is already a long list of projects and improvements committed to. So the trade off as with all these things is which comes first, if ever?

For me, this kind of thing would, if not for the ubiquity of IE, be most useful when accessing FastMail from overseas. While traveling in China and Japan earlier this year I was at a severe disadvantage to my fellow travelers who were accessing their mail at Hotmail and Yahoo, due to their worldwide servers. In some spots, it was almost as if I didn't have any connection to FastMail's servers, it was so slow--and this wasn't dial up, but at surf cafes. In fact, maybe I should start a thread on this--how speed of access to the FM servers varies over the globe.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 03:35 AM   #8
Prognathous
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Re: Ignorant and Complacent

Quote:
Originally posted by DrStrabismus
That assumes that Mozilla is the the only application using the internet.
If you're streaming media and downloading multiple files during surfing, you really do need more than dial up. Anyway, I agree that this feature should be optional.

Quote:
Originally posted by XB77
Count me among the ignorant and complacent. Prognathous
where do I get a clean and recent copy of Mozilla? Is it Freeware? What about other issues in it's use versus IE6--security, compatibility, conflicts w/ dual installation, etc.?
The latest stable release of Mozilla is v1.5. You can find it at mozilla.org and it is completely freeware.

It is definitely more secure than IE6 (for various reasons). In terms of compatibility, it supports every platform you can think of, including Windows, MacOS, Linux and others. It is more compatible than IE with open standards, but it doesn't support proprietary extensions such as IE-DOM. This means that support for non-standard websites is less than that of IE, but still very high (it automatically switches to Quirks-Mode). I haven't encountered any conflicts with dual installation. In fact, I've been running Mozilla on several OSes installed on the same machine and had a great experience.

The only thing I would suggest after installation is to open the Preferences panel (under Edit) and switch all the Tabbed Browsing options from their wrong (IMO) defaults.

Quote:
The problem with many of these improvement ideas, mine included, is that the coding resources are limited and there is already a long list of projects and improvements committed to. So the trade off as with all these things is which comes first, if ever?
I agree. This and under suggestions do not take into account priorities, as only J&R can decide about that. Nevertheless, I don't think it hurts to come up with fresh ideas that might some day be implemented, do you?

Prog.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 04:17 AM   #9
NumberSix
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Quote:
Originally posted by Prognathous
Today, three years after the release of IE6, it is an outdated browser whose huge market-share is mostly due to ignorance and due to users who are too lazy to try something better when their current software is adequate for their immediate needs.
Still OT (sorry)

Let's not forget either pure, innocent ignorance of a deeper sort...

I was recently talking with a woman I work with, and told her that the problem she was experiencing might have been due to the browser, and asked her which browser she was using.

Her response: "What's that?"
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 04:32 AM   #10
XB77
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Hear's my $5 toward project X

Prog--
I agree and I probably shouldn't even have mentioned that as it might (theoretically) make some folks not bother airing their suggestions. I guess it is implicit (or should be) that anyone suggesting another feature knows that there is already a large coding queue.

Obviously it is up to J&R to set the priorities, but I wonder if some sort of bidding system where people could "contribute" to certain projects or feature suggestions would be useful (in addition to the two cents typically offered in this forum and at the Wiki). I've noticed a couple of times posters writing that they would be willing to pay extra for this or that. Predicates would be 1) agreement on the details of the thing to some extent; 2) obviously J&R's acceptance; 3) some sort of agreement that contributors do so without guarantee of any return on their investment. Despite this forum and their openness, this ain't no Co-op, afterall. This really would give a good measure of market interest in various of the multitude of suggestions.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 09:26 AM   #11
Prognathous
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Re: Hear's my $5 toward project X

Quote:
Originally posted by XB77
...This really would give a good measure of market interest in various of the multitude of suggestions.
An open Bugzilla-like bug tracker system would not only let users report and search for bugs, it would also allow them to suggest and request for enhancements (RFEs) and vote for them, in turn providing FM with a very simple way to find what users really want.

See Bugzilla Voting for more info on this Bug/RFE voting system.

Prog.
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Old 20 Nov 2003, 01:01 PM   #12
bitequator
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Quote:
Originally posted by NumberSix
Her response: "What's that?"
Heh, like when I set up my family members with their email own-domains. They keep asking what their email address is supposed to be, I'm trying to explain that they own the whole domain (right side of @)

Now I'm trying to explain why ZoneEdit's forwarding troubles is affecting emails for another family member. He doesn't understand the concepts, so finally we just settled on this explanation sentence: "email address has virus"
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Old 21 Nov 2003, 02:19 PM   #13
XB77
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LOL
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Old 21 Nov 2003, 08:50 PM   #14
bitequator
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Re: Ignorant and Complacent

Quote:
Originally posted by XB77
be most useful when accessing FastMail from overseas. While traveling in China and Japan earlier this year I was at a severe disadvantage to my fellow travelers who were accessing their mail at Hotmail and Yahoo, due to their worldwide servers. In some spots, it was almost as if I didn't have any connection to FastMail's servers, it was so slow--and this wasn't dial up, but at surf cafes. In fact, maybe I should start a thread on this--how speed of access to the FM servers varies over the globe.
That would be an interesting topic! Is that why a family member has sometimes complained about slow performance accessing FM email when he's in Southeast Asia? (He uses OE client)

Then again, all the FM people are in Aussieland, isn't that a direct neighbor of Southeast Asia? How do they find FM's NYI server performance to be, where they are?
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Old 22 Nov 2003, 03:45 AM   #15
aha
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Re: Re: Hear's my $5 toward project X

Quote:
Originally posted by Prognathous
An open Bugzilla-like bug tracker system would not only let users report and search for bugs, it would also allow them to suggest and request for enhancements (RFEs) and vote for them, in turn providing FM with a very simple way to find what users really want.

See Bugzilla Voting for more info on this Bug/RFE voting system.

Prog.

That is an excellent idea. It would be easier for us to keep track of what we have asked for!

I am sure FastMail already uses an internal issue tracking system, but there is nothing out here in the public.

PS - Did my good deed for the day. Got some one to sign up for an Enhanced account!
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