Hotmail & outlook javascript broken over satellite

January 1, 2013 10:52 AM

Outlook.com / Hotmail.com now unusably slow over satellite

I can login but can't always read the emails, especially if there's a break in the connection.

It's all the javascript trying to preload everything.

There used to be a WAP or basic html version but I can't find it now.

I also think it might be possible to view it through Google's WAP service or change AgentID? But what string to use? None I'm trying are working.
Also, perhaps another webmail service that can connect to hotmail via pop3? I tried my own but I use hotmail only for spam and so Squirrelmail tries to pull all 500,000+ messages I have in the inbox.

I can forward some emails to another account but still it would be nice to be able to access direct sometimes.

posted by jago25_98 to technology (7 answers total)

If you have access to another computer somewhere with a faster connection, at work for example, which you could Remote Desktop into that might be more useable.
posted by XMLicious at 11:04 AM on January 1

See if you can connect by plain http rather than https. The latency of satellite means that, in the best case, the SSL handshake takes at least four round trips - which with a ping time of 450ms means every stupid little icon and script and stylesheet (not to mention the actual content) takes 1.8 seconds; and because it encrypts the traffic, your satellite modem can't combine the requests, so the page takes that much cumulative time to fully load (and half the things on the page will time out before they finish loading).

FWIW, I started seeing the same problem in late winter of last year (not specifically with Hotmail, though), and "solved" it by switching to a 3G hotspot as my ISP. Same price, same bandwidth, a bit lower monthly cap (but monthly, not daily, so I actually don't hit it as often as I got FAP's by Hughesnet), but the latency basically matches "real" broadband so SSL works just fine over it.

If you have a decent 3G signal anywhere in your area, you might look into that - And keep in mind that you can get high-gain external antennas for it; I have one mounted in my attic, and it works to give me a nice solid signal most of the time. The biggest caveat - Most of the 3G hotspots suck suck suck, and hard. Do your homework on the available models before picking one, and don't pick based solely on price - After a month of doing daily firmware resets on a MiFi 4510, you'd gladly pay any price for something a little more stable. ;)
posted by pla at 11:32 AM on January 1

Works fine for my on my android browser. Try: http://www.hotmail.com/m/

If that doesn't work use an agent switcher app on your browser and pretend to be an android phone.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:35 AM on January 1

FWIW, I started seeing the same problem in late winter of last year

Just confirming pla's observation about Hotmail/Live.com/MS weirdness and overall slowdown. While I don't use them for my stuff, I do deal with a person who does and has been complaining for about 2~3 months about changes in the site. Everything from slowness to layout changes.

If in the least, it is not just you having problems.

If I hear anything, I will report back to this thread.
posted by lampshade at 11:39 AM on January 1

I tried accessing it on an older machine recently and it kicked me over to a mobile version, so it is possible to get that under some circumstances - have you checked of it is possible from the profile page?
posted by Artw at 2:03 PM on January 1

Try using Firebug to determine which particular request is getting stuck. If it's non-critical you could ignore that host with a hosts file redirect.
posted by odinsdream at 2:08 PM on January 1

You can use the following URL:
https://mssl.mail.live.com/m/?bfv=wm
(discovered by using Firefox + User Agent Switcher pretending to be IE6)
posted by Sharcho at 12:17 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]