I've been using GMail since it first came out. I remember getting it and having TWO invites to send to friends. This is back when Gmail invites were going for $100.00 a pop.

Through the years its been a great service and I've love every single second of it. Its truly the best at keeping track of conversations, and this works wonders for insanely active groups like ALT.NET.

Over the last couple of months its seemed that Gmail has gotten progressively slower and slower. Through using Fiddler I was able to determine that larger chunks of JavaScript was coming down the wire. The amount of AJAX and DHTML going on behind the scenes brings Gmail to a crawl.

How to overcome it?

On the top right hand side of your page, click "Older Version".

This will load the UI without all the bells and whistles and its about 5 times as fast in regards to response times.

Unfortunately there is not an option in the preferences to make this stick. As soon as I log in, I immediately click "Older Version". Alternatively you can also switch to "Standard HTML View" at the bottom. But with this, you don't get any smooth AJAX. Its regular HTML page post backs.