I’m guessing that the major web sites, particularly the ones devoted to disseminating scientific or academic information, have already got this covered.
Last time I was in Africa, google worked terribly, especially Gmail, Gdocs, and so on. You had to wait for a while before even being given the option of switching to the html version. And I had a legit wireless internet connection. 20$ a month, allegedly 2Mbps.
changing the browsers to mimic a mobile device would go a long way toward solving bandwidth issues.
Oh, you’re talking about using web apps and such. I’d expect latency would be the biggest issue. Even so, I’m surprised about the load time issue you saw. But they have to load the library for the app, don’t they? (Built into chrome?) Maybe a chrome versioning issue? Update issue? And you were using chrome, right?
Might be better to install android/chrome on the desktop and use the app from there.
And better still to use a native android/chromeOS device.
I use a Chromebook, man, and my phone is a Nexus. You can’t get more chromey and googley than that.
Heck, sometimes the network gets crappy at my home, here in Spain, because of interference or because too many devices are anchored to the one router; even with a 50Mbps optic fibre connection, sometimes gmail will take five full minutes to load if I’m in my room. Networks can get slow anywhere.
I do believe that optimizing for low bandwidth and low CPU and RAM usage is universally useful. Slow-network problems can pop up anywhere. Plus, not everyone has the wealth to buy more than low-end machines.
It’s just that the issue is exacerbated to the extreme in third-world countries, and one can’t tell them “you should buy more expensive stuff” and “you should get more googley gear”.
sometimes gmail will take five full minutes to load if I’m in my room.
On my 6 year old desktop, Gmail takes 5 seconds in chrome in my browser (which actually seemed kind of slow), and basically instantaneous on my nexus 5.
On my chrome book, it was a surprisingly horrible maybe 30 seconds on first load, and maybe 15 on subsequent loads. That is from the gmail link with chrome browser running, so it’s bringing up the browser too.
So, gmail isn’t the issue if you’re waiting 5 minutes. Or maybe it’s syncing all your email ever, and you have a lot more than I do? It’s not my primary email.
The chrome web store has “gmail offline” which might be better for you? I find it annoying that it seems I always have to tell it whether or not to store email offline when I open it. But it opens quickly after that,
But it looks like the real trick for a chrome book is getting android apps to run. There are instructions on how to do this now. If you really need gmail, it might be worth it. In general, I think we’ll have to just wait until Google works out android apps on chrome os.
But back to the overall point, I thought the issue was about information availability, and not really personal apps. Do you have a major information site that is a problem?
I’m just reporting my own problems the way they happen.
But back to the overall point, I thought the issue was about information availability, and not really personal apps. Do you have a major information site that is a problem?
Pretty much any site that employs graphic ads or that is otherwise graphic-heavy; wikias, news sites, fora… even dictionaries like thesaurus.com, wordreference, or leo.org can be a pain to load. The little menus that appear when one is making a search are especially sensitive to network lag. Thankfully there are offline, command-based equivalents to several of these dictionaries, but you have to look for them.
Plus, personal apps are extremely useful tools. To give just one simple example, why spend phone credit on calling or SMS when you can What’s App? I’m sure we could come up with several app ideas that would have excellent time-saving or resource-saving capacities… and, once they learn how to code, who knows what the local whiz kids might come up with?
Are you running ad block? That might help with the graphic ad loads.
Again, I’d guess it’s latency and not speed that’s causing you problems with menus. Looks like interaction is the issue, not bulk data download. For general browsing, I don’t know that you can do much about latency, but for particular apps. sites, if they’ve got an android app, you use it.
Seems like android apps are much better about all that stuff, and they’ll be more generally available for chrome os soon, and I see some windows methods for this as well.
There are serious and well funded grownups working on this at Google.
Interesting to hear about the issues, though. You encouraged me to test out the chrome book I’m working on for my mother. Still slow by my standards, but I think it will be fine for her.
I agree with Ritalin, and I suggest you try the internet in developing countries firsthand to get a taste of what it’s like. It doesn’t have anything to do with the browser version.
Last time I was in Africa, google worked terribly, especially Gmail, Gdocs, and so on. You had to wait for a while before even being given the option of switching to the html version. And I had a legit wireless internet connection. 20$ a month, allegedly 2Mbps.
Sounds like a great idea.
Oh, you’re talking about using web apps and such. I’d expect latency would be the biggest issue. Even so, I’m surprised about the load time issue you saw. But they have to load the library for the app, don’t they? (Built into chrome?) Maybe a chrome versioning issue? Update issue? And you were using chrome, right?
Might be better to install android/chrome on the desktop and use the app from there.
And better still to use a native android/chromeOS device.
I use a Chromebook, man, and my phone is a Nexus. You can’t get more chromey and googley than that.
Heck, sometimes the network gets crappy at my home, here in Spain, because of interference or because too many devices are anchored to the one router; even with a 50Mbps optic fibre connection, sometimes gmail will take five full minutes to load if I’m in my room. Networks can get slow anywhere.
I do believe that optimizing for low bandwidth and low CPU and RAM usage is universally useful. Slow-network problems can pop up anywhere. Plus, not everyone has the wealth to buy more than low-end machines.
It’s just that the issue is exacerbated to the extreme in third-world countries, and one can’t tell them “you should buy more expensive stuff” and “you should get more googley gear”.
On my 6 year old desktop, Gmail takes 5 seconds in chrome in my browser (which actually seemed kind of slow), and basically instantaneous on my nexus 5.
On my chrome book, it was a surprisingly horrible maybe 30 seconds on first load, and maybe 15 on subsequent loads. That is from the gmail link with chrome browser running, so it’s bringing up the browser too.
So, gmail isn’t the issue if you’re waiting 5 minutes. Or maybe it’s syncing all your email ever, and you have a lot more than I do? It’s not my primary email.
The chrome web store has “gmail offline” which might be better for you? I find it annoying that it seems I always have to tell it whether or not to store email offline when I open it. But it opens quickly after that,
But it looks like the real trick for a chrome book is getting android apps to run. There are instructions on how to do this now. If you really need gmail, it might be worth it. In general, I think we’ll have to just wait until Google works out android apps on chrome os.
But back to the overall point, I thought the issue was about information availability, and not really personal apps. Do you have a major information site that is a problem?
I’m just reporting my own problems the way they happen.
Pretty much any site that employs graphic ads or that is otherwise graphic-heavy; wikias, news sites, fora… even dictionaries like thesaurus.com, wordreference, or leo.org can be a pain to load. The little menus that appear when one is making a search are especially sensitive to network lag. Thankfully there are offline, command-based equivalents to several of these dictionaries, but you have to look for them.
Plus, personal apps are extremely useful tools. To give just one simple example, why spend phone credit on calling or SMS when you can What’s App? I’m sure we could come up with several app ideas that would have excellent time-saving or resource-saving capacities… and, once they learn how to code, who knows what the local whiz kids might come up with?
Are you running ad block? That might help with the graphic ad loads.
Again, I’d guess it’s latency and not speed that’s causing you problems with menus. Looks like interaction is the issue, not bulk data download. For general browsing, I don’t know that you can do much about latency, but for particular apps. sites, if they’ve got an android app, you use it.
Seems like android apps are much better about all that stuff, and they’ll be more generally available for chrome os soon, and I see some windows methods for this as well.
There are serious and well funded grownups working on this at Google.
Interesting to hear about the issues, though. You encouraged me to test out the chrome book I’m working on for my mother. Still slow by my standards, but I think it will be fine for her.
I agree with Ritalin, and I suggest you try the internet in developing countries firsthand to get a taste of what it’s like. It doesn’t have anything to do with the browser version.
Experiencing poor internet speeds isn’t high on my list of reasons to take a trip.