Google Mail - What I like and what I don't like

Some of you (if you don't have your own domain and SMTP, POP3 servers) - like us freebie fanatics like me, probably have Google Mail, or gmail as they like to call it. There are some things I like about the web access and what I don't like. In this little blog I will be posting some unusual and rather interesting things about Google Mail that make (and break) the program.

First I'd like to start off with the pros, since I like to start with positives. The first thing I really like about gmail is that it favors Firefox and Chrome over IE. Being in a Firefox window right now myself, I despise IE and all of it's add ons and vulnerabilities In my opinion and in a somewhat factorial sense, IE is falling behind the pack in terms of support and compatibility -- which Microsoft promises to fix with Windows 7 and the bundled IE 8. I have never actually tried the beta, myself, but I've been with Firefox for a while, and I'm sticking to it.

Another pro I like is keyboard shortcuts, because I've had those days when I've had to access my e-mail without an optical mouse, and I've got an HP laptop here at the parental home, so it's got that funny joystick thing stuck in the middle of the keyboard. I won't knock it. It's extremely good for FPS games, but we're not reviewing laptops now, are we? ;)

A very pro pro pro is the Google Labs options, which provide a number of extra add ons to the web interface like Chat customization, Tasks, a funny thing called E-Mail Goggles that forces you to do simple math before submitting an e-mail (prevents drunk, Saturday night e-mail), customization for labels, and ways to make your screen look more "presentable" to the wandering eye.

And yes, I love filters and labels. LOVE THEM. Instantly I can see if an e-mail is from my old account, or which website it is from in color-coded goodness, I can select a label from the label list to get all of the e-mails, select All, and delete them without any problems and ease.

Okay, now it's time for the stuff I don't like.

Google Mail Web does not work behind certain firewall configurations, or is extremely slow at times if you are using HTTPS for security reasons, such as what I do when browsing my mails at the library, which can sometimes cause gmail to spend almost the time out period authenticating a page. A couple times, I lost my page all together and had to re-load, but gmail likes cookies and handles them well, so I don't have to re-enter my password in doing so -- you just see the little loading bar and you are dropped back into your Inbox.

Another thing that I don't like is its handling of Chat, which needs a lot of work. I think they should enlist Meebo for some amount of money, because Meebo does an excellent job of HTTP chat, handling multiple clients at once, history, away messages, status messages, and much more, though they have blocked Meebo due to the recent amount of spam at the library, it's sad to see it go, because it was a safe haven for us library computer minions. Google Mail offers support with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), which is insecure and quite spammy if you've used the actual god-awful client, though most of us are running Trillian or something (and once I used bitlbee for a time just for the heck of it, but I enjoyed pairing it with mIRC for some interesting tracking chat scripts. I knew where everyone was at any given time, it was great. Aaaaanyway...)

Chat refreshes every minute of Google time, which is a pain in the rear end. It's features are limited, don't even get me started on auto-formatting, which is a pain in the total rear end. It acts like Microsoft Word in a way when you enclose something in asterisks or underscore. There is no way to turn that off, which leaves a lot of "why are your actions in bold, dude?" (after you wait 1 minute for his message). Yes, if you RP or even lightly add actions to your IMs to indicate expression or emotion, you'll have to deal with this feature.

And I hate graphical smileys
The last thing I am going to mention is that some of the options like Label editing are buried. Some of the options are secret. I suppose Google likes the idea of "discovery", which if you're like me and were sending an SMS message 2 years ago from Google, you know what I mean -- some people might find it fun, but a full run-down list of shortcuts would be nice and handy. They give you some, but most are hidden or you have to go through and search to find them.

But all-in-all, Google Web Mail has my vote over Yahoo and *shudder* Hotmail, plus options provided by those other services aren't free, like IMAP and the vacation responder in gmail (which are totally free). Check out gmail, it's free, and better than the other ones!

Google Mail (gmail)

~Loopy

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15 Comments

Comment by Karla Zuloaga on January 14, 2009 at 12:39am: I'm very happy with gmail its awsome!! I was trying to get rid of hotmail and Gmail was the perfect choice. I love how it minimize the spam mail and how easy it is to find an old mail. I also discovered recently a skin of some fox that's really cute and moves around the screen depending on the time of the day ^^ I hightly recomend it , I use it for recieving the school mail because its very fast-opening and easy to organize

Comment by LupineDream on January 13, 2009 at 6:08pm: Thank you all for the wonderful responses. Widely agreed, gmail is the superior of the e-mail clients. I find it's simple layout perfect, as noted a few times, some think it could be better, though simplicity is my bag. I wouldn't change the layout a bit, aside doing something like they have here to drag and drop modules rather than using Labs mods, which could make it more user friendly for customization.

Comment by Michael SanAngelo on January 13, 2009 at 5:46pm: I love gmail. It's simple and can even double as file storage. :) I use gmail and yahoo everyday.

Comment by Margarita on January 13, 2009 at 5:29pm: I use Gmail quite often, and I find it quite useful other than it's boring layout.
It is professional, yet I think they could make it more sophisticated, may be create a personalized business version? (I loved the notepad idea)

Now the question is.. why am I writing on here if I know at least 2 people from Gmail who write code for G-mail ))? haha!

Comment by Cananito on January 13, 2009 at 5:22pm: I love all :)

Comment by Yolospat on January 13, 2009 at 4:54pm: I love gmail. It was my first introduction to grouping emails by conversation. At first I hated it, until I started using it more and more and then it got to the point that I couldn't live without it. I love the integrated chat and the video option is great too. I love gmail labs and themes so it's not the same ol same ol. Can't exactly do that in Outlook. Altho I have my own domains and such, gmail is my "main" email. I don't even use my domain email. Like, at all. Gmail is number one in my book. I can't get enough!

Comment by Geenome on January 13, 2009 at 4:50pm: i haven't used Outlook/Outlook Express for 3-4 years. It was just too much work to set it up every time I had to reinstall Windows.
I have been with Hotmail from day one of my online life. I then ventured into Yahoo Mail when I started using Yahoo messenger, for which I hardly use these days(messenger that is). I still use my YMail account, but mainly for emails from sites I am subscribed to.
In the early days, I did used to use Netscape mail, but gave up on it (though I think I still have my account, lol)
Then I found GMail. Brilliant. For what I use it for, it's brilliant. I like the ease of use in labeling my mail and archiving it. The Search mail function is just great, it's fast, intuitive and easy to find my mail.
I havent come across any bad karma with Gmail, it's just great.

Comment by David Stark on January 13, 2009 at 3:03pm: Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Somewhere in the IP Universe I read that Gmail was rated 3rd for anti-spam. They are crazy. Absolutely crazy. I think they've got the best anti-spam filter on the planet. And my clients that are switching from hotmail to gmail or yahoo to gmail think so too.

Oops, gotta run. My wife just called the "Whaaaambulance" again.

Comment by David Stark on January 13, 2009 at 3:00pm: Using Gmail labs, signatures are what needs the most work. You are unable to have formatting within signatures. So every email I send requires that I highlight the 2 different lines of my signature and make them bold.

If they can fix that, I don't think I'll be able to complain about anything in Gmail. And my wife can stop calling the "Waaaahmbulance" every time I complain.