Get 10X Faster Hotmail With HTML5 On Latest Browsers

Windows Live team detailed their efforts they did recently to speed up Hotmail for the users. When you are using Hotmail on the web using a browser, you may have experienced delay in opening a mail or deleting a mail, etc. That won’t be the case anymore, thanks to latest browsers like IE9 and their HTML5 support. Here are some of the improvements in Hotmail made behind the scenes,

Caching

The old Hotmail requested fresh data from the server every time it was needed. For instance, when you signed in to the inbox, Hotmail would ask the server for the latest message list. When you opened and then closed a message, we would make you wait while we asked the server for the message list again. Similarly, if you opened that same message again, we would make you wait while we retrieved the message.

Pre-loading

Our analysis of usage patterns of Hotmail showed that when customers sign in to their inbox, the first thing they’re likely to do is read the subject lines of new mail to decide which messages to open. In the new Hotmail, we use that time to download and cache the first few messages so they’re ready when you need them. That way, when you choose a message to open, you don’t have to wait for the download.

Our analysis also showed that when customers open an email message, they’re very likely also to view the one that follows it. So, in the new Hotmail, while you’re reading one message, we automatically download and cache the next one in the list.

Asynchronous operations

The old Hotmail used to wait for server responses before updating the UI. For example, when you deleted an email message, Hotmail would call the server and tell it to delete the message, and then wait for a response from the server before updating the message list. This made Hotmail feel slow, because you felt you had to wait for the operation to complete before you could continue working.

The new Hotmail no longer waits for server responses for most operations before updating the UI. In the new Hotmail, when you delete a message, Hotmail updates the message list instantly, and you can resume working right away. In the background, client code queues up actions and calls the server to delete the email. So email still gets deleted, but without the wait.

So the results of these above have made Hotmail 10x faster than old Hotmail.

Watch the video below to know what it will be like,

Read more on it here.