A few days ago (maybe a week or so?) Gmail posted saying they were modifying their code to load faster and work better in all browsers.  I thought Gmail was very snappy as it is, but obviously someone didnt.  They just launched the new Gmail Version (thus, the big "Older Version" and "Newer Version", depending which you're using, in the top right of the page).  I think the newer version is far slower and overall less visually pleasing (it looks like a matching style isnt even used on parts of it).  As of this post, no official announcement has yet been made.  Opinions anyone?

the newer version feels alot faster and the new greasemonkey api is leet (http://code.google.com/p/gmail-greasemonkey/wiki/...lGreasemonkey10API)

they are still activating it for people afaik. mine got changed to the new version a couple of days ago, but it was announced a few weeks ago ;o

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/code-change...are-gmail-for.html

The newer version takes more time to load but once it has done that, the mail handling part is faster. It must be said though that on the new gmail, the inbox width (the part showing the mail details) is small then a fraction after I open up the tab (I open gmail and a few other sites at a time and then come back wen gmail has loaded).
This snappy quality and the increase in initial load times are points of concern for me. Other than that, its quite good

IMO, it loaded faster here and navigation is a lot faster too

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Originally posted by -dt-

the newer version feels alot faster (Smilie) and the new greasemonkey api is leet (http://code.google.com/p/gmail-greasemonkey/wiki/GmailGreasemonkey10API)

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quote:

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Originally posted by http://code.google.com/p/gmail-greasemonkey/wiki/GmailGreasemonkey10API
Greasemonkey is an integral part of the web experience for many experienced users. Google acknowledges that some people are going to change their own experience of our web applications regardless of what we do. Resistance, as they say, is futile. It would also be somewhat hypocritical. After all, a Google employee wrote Greasemonkey in the first place, another wrote these scripts to add functionality to Gmail, and a third wrote two books on the subject (and these docs).

Instead, we would like to provide a little help to make such scripts more robust. Instead of finding elements by XPath or DOM traversal, this API provides accessor methods for getting common screen elements. Instead of forcing you to monkey-patch (ahem) our internal functions, this API provides callbacks to call your functions when specific events occur.

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Opening mail seems to be a lot faster for me - i think it precaches it or something like that?

Although i agree with Dane - it takes longer to load initially, some GUI elements don't seem to be consistent or match, the new contacts pane (which i rarely use anyways) takes forever to load, gtalk on the left hand side takes ages and ages to load and i just get this buggy unresponsive feeling about it sometimes! I'm sure they'll fix all the problems soonish but yeah its definitely not perfect!

Working faster on my end too I love it

As a side note, GMail now also offers IMAP, which is better than the old POP3 support if you like to use a real email client instead of webmail (or both).  With the ability to use it for your own domains (Google Apps) it's has become pretty much the ideal email solution.

Same as always for me, i can't really say if it's slower or faster...
IMAP is really slow to use, though I prefer the web version.

It seems everyone around me is getting the new version.

* linx05 waits impatiently

I haven't got the option to use the new version either

I still don't have IMAP or the new version. I'm like the fat kid in gym class =(

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Originally posted by alex
I still don't have IMAP or the new version. I'm like the fat kid in gym class =(

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I still don't have the new Gmail. There's no link at the top saying "Old Version" or "New Version". Hasn't changed at all.

Try going to your google mail inbox then going to http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2

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Originally posted by albert
I wouldn't suggest using IMAP quite yet anyways, it is very very very slow. My outlook keeps on freezing for about a minute everytime i start it since I switched my configuration to IMAP. =(

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what does the new one look like?

i've got an account but never really use it so can't figure if mine's updated or not based on how it looks

the change is barely visible here, on the top right there's this text that says old version, djdannyp

IMAP Access:
(access Gmail from other clients using IMAP)
Learn more       
1. Status: IMAP is disabled
    Enable IMAP
    Disable IMAP

2. Configure your email client (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, iPhone)
Configuration instructions

ill try IMAP access on my outlook 07

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Originally posted by john-t
Try going to your google mail inbox then going to http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2

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new version
woot
seems a bit quicker
i have no use for imap or pop-(happy using flock)

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Originally posted by john-t
Try going to your google mail inbox then going to http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2

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http://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1

Try using that link

That didn't work either. Funny thing is, my parents have the new interface already, and they use their account much less than I do. They've gotten other features early in the past as well.

Could just be to random people to test it out. Like secret beta. You could always ask them.

Personally, I'm very disappointed with this new gmail. Several times Firefox crashed (with all gmail plugins disabled due) when going from my inbox to my Spam box. Gmail also crashed when sending an email, so it was really hard to tell if it had sent it or not. I'm very dissatisfied.

I found out why it wasn't working for me. They haven't updated the UK gmail by the looks of it, so I changed the language to US and its the new version. No big difference though.

The new interface was used when I reloaded today. It's no good though, it was unresponsive in Opera, even the "Older version" link didn't work, it just reloaded the newer version. I have to go direct to http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1 to use Gmail now.

The look of the newer version was a bit different as well. In the older version, in Opera things were spaced closer together (compared to Internet Explorer). In the newer version, it's not like that anymore though I like the way the older version looks.