browser progress bars.. when they become useless?

progress bars are a great way to .. well.. indicate progress!! especially when i click on a button and have to wait for more than a say five seconds. but they can be frustrating when we can't tell if there is any progress.

one of the side effects of Ajax is that, it has made the progress bars associated with browsers "useless".

here is an example.. i am uploading a large file at filecrunch. as soon as i click on the upload, i am given a screen with "upload progress". i wait and wait and wait.. but the progress bar never progressed..



i look down to the browsers progress bar and it seems stuck. this page is sending a lot of requests in the background, so the browsers status message always displays "sending..." and progress bar is always "incomplete.."

looking at this screen, i don't know if my request is being processed.

ok.. now after that i found another file upload site mediafire, which actually indicates progress. along with a lot of details.. like how much time is remaining, how much of the file has been uploaded and what are the tasks involved in uploading a file. and the status changes.. every 3 to 5 seconds..



again.. note that the browser progress indicators are useless to indicate the progress of users actual task.