Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-34326521-20140802131839/@comment-452-20140802140115

As far as I'm aware, they're one and the same.

When you click the "follow" link, you're actually sending the command "action=watch" to the server.

If you mean "Can I can email notifications without following/watching a page" - I think the answer is still no.

See Help:Watchlist and wikipedia:Help:Watching pages for more info.

However, Special:Watchlist should be no slower than Special:RecentChanges, so you should report that problem to Special:Contact.