Started a new job, with Windows 11. notepad.exe now takes 3 to 4 seconds to load on my work system... (even after closing the last tab and reopening the program).
Hah, it even has in-app purchases, for AI writing...
My company recently switched from Google Suite to Office 365.
Both are web apps.
It’s NIGHT AND DAY. Google did everything instantly. Outlook
doesn’t.
This morning Outlook decided to spin for 30+ seconds (at which point I gave up) showing a folder. I get a modal pop-up telling me I have to “refresh” teams multiple times a day. Search always fails the first time. Always. Then it works. Some.
The problem with web apps isn't that they're slow but that they enable the Room 641As of the world to spy on you, just by virtue of making network connections. Encryption doesn't even matter. Just behavior patterns are enough.
And to think that the "old" Outlook's splash screen is there for a reason: it used to take a while to open before SSDs became commonplace! Windows in general used to be usable on HDDs; SSDs would blow everyone's pants off making everything open instantly. These days we have 20+ Gbps SSDs without the AHCI latency tax and they're no longer enough to open an e-mail.
Personally that's why I think 'async' in most languages is a farce - it could've never occured to 90s programmers, as back then applications frequently swapped out parts of their program code and state onto the disk - and there's no 'async' to save you from that.
Nowadays disks are fast, but a lot of apps are heavy - your Electron-based webapp is hundreds of megs of binary - there's no saving you from having to load that the same way. In fact most likely your app will have less assets to load than the sum of binaries.
No, that's a very uninformed take, and contradicted on two fronts:
1. Microsoft's other native apps have gotten unusably slow lately, too.
2. There's definitely plenty of fast web apps.
I don't mind snark, but make it factually accurate.
This is just Microsoft's poor strategic decision to try to drive as many as possible to Linux. Hell, weren't they bragging recently about managing to make opening the start menu take only a tenth of a second? It should be instant.
Maybe they think we'll replace users with AI, too. AI is the only thing slower than Microsoft's UIs lately.
They so screwed Outlook. The stupid thing refuses to respond after switching to a diff network or SSID till it’s completed some synchronization of some kind. The stupid app refuses to come into focus.
I really don’t need the freshest view at once. Maybe I just need to look at an open email you dog of an app!
Why did they castrate Outlook? Does MS hate itself? What in the name of shit are they thinking? Who does this make happy?
The "free" version of outlook that replaced Mail is so bad that it made me finally switch to Thunderbird and I don't see myself going back anytime soon.
The only thing I'm missing sometimes is the Copilot integration, but copy and paste with Thunderbird is still faster than using Copilot in Outlook...
The biggest issue I have with new outlook is meeting notifications (reminders) on Windows.
I see a freaking loading screen with the Outlook logo for 5 seconds before the window is updated with the meeting name along with a button to dismiss it. Yes that's everything in there.
its faster to use an LLM + MCP (chatgpt or claude integration cloud integration) to search your email than to use the search field in the web browser now
its also possibly cheaper than the monthly licence fee for the desktop app suite
that people still buy this, businesses still rely on their infrastructure, and their stock is somehow world-class is outstanding for the fact that its operating system can't do what middle school level coders can accomplish
The Outlook web app breaks browser navigation, I thought we had that figured out in SPAs like, more than a decade ago. But it does load almost-instantly (less than a second) so that's nice at least.
Just a classic example of bloating degradation that happens to any software which has saturated all basic needs decades ago.
The issue is, as the product continues to generate revenue, the product team continues to get funding and they are forced to add bloat as new features.
Same with security and compliance standards at companies. You keep pouring more money, and you keep getting more fort walls and dungeons, without any regard to productivity and performance impact.
Calculator taking measurable seconds to load was the last straw for me for Windows 10. Exclusively Linux at home for a couple of years now, and there's a relatively steady stream of headlines to remind me of how good a decision it was to switch away.
Literally was just googling yesterday about why Windows File Explorer genuinely takes longer to boot up than microsoft edge. Insane how fast they are enshittifying.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] threadHah, it even has in-app purchases, for AI writing...
[1] https://github.com/ProgerXP/Notepad2e
17 seconds. I timed it.
The old Win32 applications still launch instantly on the same computer.
> Hah, it even has in-app purchases, for AI writing...
That's disgusting, even by Microslop standards.
Fastmail also has a web based email client, which is as fast as (if not faster than) Outlook Classic.
The new Outlook is just bad. Load order is wrong, it renders everything on every window, loads unnecessary data, etc. Plain annoying.
Both are web apps.
It’s NIGHT AND DAY. Google did everything instantly. Outlook doesn’t.
This morning Outlook decided to spin for 30+ seconds (at which point I gave up) showing a folder. I get a modal pop-up telling me I have to “refresh” teams multiple times a day. Search always fails the first time. Always. Then it works. Some.
I agree. It’s not web tech. It’s MS not caring.
It needs to render custom content, and the HTML renderer is much faster than I'm able to make it myself using the native API.
THAT'S how low the ball has been dropped.
No SSDs would be allowed anywhere except in the "does going fast break it" test room.
Anyone above VP would be required to have 5400 RPM rust.
Nowadays disks are fast, but a lot of apps are heavy - your Electron-based webapp is hundreds of megs of binary - there's no saving you from having to load that the same way. In fact most likely your app will have less assets to load than the sum of binaries.
No, that's a very uninformed take, and contradicted on two fronts:
1. Microsoft's other native apps have gotten unusably slow lately, too.
2. There's definitely plenty of fast web apps.
I don't mind snark, but make it factually accurate.
This is just Microsoft's poor strategic decision to try to drive as many as possible to Linux. Hell, weren't they bragging recently about managing to make opening the start menu take only a tenth of a second? It should be instant.
Maybe they think we'll replace users with AI, too. AI is the only thing slower than Microsoft's UIs lately.
I really don’t need the freshest view at once. Maybe I just need to look at an open email you dog of an app!
Why did they castrate Outlook? Does MS hate itself? What in the name of shit are they thinking? Who does this make happy?
The only thing I'm missing sometimes is the Copilot integration, but copy and paste with Thunderbird is still faster than using Copilot in Outlook...
I see a freaking loading screen with the Outlook logo for 5 seconds before the window is updated with the meeting name along with a button to dismiss it. Yes that's everything in there.
How does Microsoft think this is ok?
Kudos to the team. I think this is same team that maintains Office Suite for Mac.
I hope to see Teams for Mac in the future. Current Teams app is dogshit.
its also possibly cheaper than the monthly licence fee for the desktop app suite
This is the company that invented the term dogfooding and forced everyone to use Exchange until all the bugs were worked out.
I’m building a next gen web mail app at work and there are a ton of UX edge cases but the performance of the core UI is not rocket science.
I’m looking for help play testing to squash bugs, improve the last mile of performance, and to add Outlook support.
https://housecat.com/
The incentive is the mail app is “malleable” so you can craft custom workflows and UI widgets to help you get to inbox zero.
that people still buy this, businesses still rely on their infrastructure, and their stock is somehow world-class is outstanding for the fact that its operating system can't do what middle school level coders can accomplish
https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/06/13/whatsapp-is-eating-...
The issue is, as the product continues to generate revenue, the product team continues to get funding and they are forced to add bloat as new features.
Same with security and compliance standards at companies. You keep pouring more money, and you keep getting more fort walls and dungeons, without any regard to productivity and performance impact.