yahoo vs. gmail vs. hotmail

1911lover · 08-03-2004, 22:36

I was wondering which email servers GT prefer. I have an acount under all three and beleive that currently yahoo is best, but beleive that gmail will improve its service and beat yahoo. what are your oppinions?

ronin_asano · 08-04-2004, 08:37

hotmail blows just because of who provides it.

yahoo is pretty good for a webmail service.

gmail is average, and i don't like the privacy issues.

Dandapani · 08-04-2004, 09:03

Yahoo since 2001. I even purchased a premium account to remove most of the ads.

1911lover · 08-04-2004, 09:07

awww. some of the ads were neat, like the ones that you were supposed to keep the car on the road using ur curser and other interactive ads

Ned Ludd · 08-04-2004, 11:09

The premium version of yahoo mail is one of the great bargains. For $20 a year you get 4Gigs of storage, email you can access anywhere and pretty good spam protection. Unlike Hotmail, it works well all the time and has few limits on attachments.

-NL

1911lover · 08-04-2004, 11:26

why do you need 4 gigs? if your getting that many emails wouldnt a nice free pop3 acount work better

David_G17 · 08-04-2004, 12:01

hotmail, just b/c i've had it since hotmail was new.

my how they have changed.

ronin_asano · 08-04-2004, 12:08

Quote:

Originally posted by dmobrien2001
Yahoo since 2001. I even purchased a premium account to remove most of the ads.

wait, if you have a premium yahoo account you still have to look at ads?

AZMAN · 08-04-2004, 14:40

Quote:

Originally posted by ronin_asano
wait, if you have a premium yahoo account you still have to look at ads?

The following is from yahoo...

Yahoo Mail Plus

SpamGuard Plus
Simply by reporting spam, you train your personal spam filters to recognize similar messages in the future and divert them to your Bulk folder.

200 blocked addresses and 50 filters
Block mail from up to 200 unwanted senders. Use up to 50 filters to automatically sort incoming messages into designated folders or send them to your mobile device.

Virtually unlimited storage
The more emails you get, the more storage space you need. With Yahoo! Mail Plus, you get a whopping 2GB of email storage – it's like an online archive.

Virus cleaning†
Automatically clean infected email attachments to help protect your computer from dangerous viruses – whether you use our web interface or a POP3 mail client. More info.

No graphical ads
We've removed all graphical ads from the Mail pages, so your experience is even more enjoyable.

No promotional taglines in messages
Whether you send from the web interface or through a POP3 client, all messages you send are free from ad taglines.

AddressGuard
Create disposable email addresses to use when you don't want to give out your primary address. Messages sent to your disposable addresses will be delivered to your inbox or to any personal folder you designate. More info.

POP access
With POP access, you can download your Yahoo! Mail messages using your desktop email application, such as Outlook™, and then access them offline.

Mail forwarding
With Mail forwarding, you can automatically forward your email to another email account – even another Yahoo! Mail address.

Archiving
Back up your entire mailbox, or select specific folders and dates. After downloading and unzipping your archive, simply drag and drop the messages into Outlook Express™ for easy offline access.

Send messages from any of your email accounts
Now you can send messages under different email identities. When you write a message, just select the "From" email address you want to use.

No account expiration
When you subscribe to Yahoo! Mail Plus, you will no longer need to sign in periodically to keep your account active.

Stationery ‡
Personalize your email using a wide variety of backgrounds. Easily access your favorite stationery. More info.

only $19.99/year*
less than $2/month!
To order Yahoo! Mail Plus, you need
to have a free Yahoo! Mail account.

1911lover · 08-04-2004, 14:43

nice

SamBuca · 08-04-2004, 15:17

I don't like spam filters because of privacy issues. It's kind of creepy....I mean, some program reading my email to determine its contents? Come on.

Sounds dumb? Yup. So do the gmail privacy concerns.

1911lover · 08-04-2004, 15:22

i agree, but how often are you sending mail that has important info in it that shouldnt be read by COMPUTERS

ronin_asano · 08-04-2004, 17:51

Quote:

Originally posted by SamBuca
I don't like spam filters because of privacy issues. It's kind of creepy....I mean, some program reading my email to determine its contents? Come on.

Sounds dumb? Yup. So do the gmail privacy concerns.

it's not dumb at all. one big difference is the intention of the scanning, and the fact that a profile is kept related specifically to your id in order to target the ads. a spam filter does not track specific information in this way, nor does it set cookies on your machine.

SamBuca · 08-04-2004, 21:18

Quote:

Originally posted by ronin_asano
it's not dumb at all. one big difference is the intention of the scanning, and the fact that a profile is kept related specifically to your id in order to target the ads. a spam filter does not track specific information in this way, nor does it set cookies on your machine.

Bayesian filtering keeps a profile on what your email looks like. Gmail keeps a profile on what your email looks like.

A cookie is irrelevant since it tracks it by email address (as in, your account), not by a random cookie. If you dislike cookies, then just type your login/pass everytime you access Gmail.

The misinformation on this tech board is almost as bad as the other gun boards' representation of Glocks.

alpine18 · 08-04-2004, 21:54

Hotmail has gone down the tubes ever since Microsoft bought them. They tried several times about 5 years ago to unsuccessfully to convert their server system over to the Windows operating system, which promptly crashed and caused all sorts of problems for them. They finally did it, and they have sucked ever since. They used to have one of the better server clusters in the industry and were very stable. Since then their service has become mediocre. Avoid them like the plague.
Personally I use Yahoo mail. 100mb of free e-mail storage. You can't match that anywhere else.

ronin_asano · 08-05-2004, 07:40

Quote:

Originally posted by SamBuca
Bayesian filtering keeps a profile on what your email looks like. Gmail keeps a profile on what your email looks like.

A cookie is irrelevant since it tracks it by email address (as in, your account), not by a random cookie. If you dislike cookies, then just type your login/pass everytime you access Gmail.

The misinformation on this tech board is almost as bad as the other gun boards' representation of Glocks.

speaking of misinformation, cookies are required for one to use gmail, and cookies are not irrelevant as a privacy concern.

SamBuca · 08-05-2004, 12:09

Quote:

Originally posted by ronin_asano
speaking of misinformation, cookies are required for one to use gmail, and cookies are not irrelevant as a privacy concern.

To stay logged in, yes. Session cookies are not saved because they expire after that session.

Don't want cookies? Don't click the "remember me for 2 weeks" thing. They'll go away when you close the browser.

Anything else? ;Q

ronin_asano · 08-05-2004, 12:47

Quote:

Originally posted by SamBuca
To stay logged in, yes. Session cookies are not saved because they expire after that session.

Don't want cookies? Don't click the "remember me for 2 weeks" thing. They'll go away when you close the browser.

Anything else? ;Q

do you have a gmail account? cookies are required. i don't use the 'remember me for two weeks' thing. all that does is cache your password.

clear every google cookie from your machine. set the browser to prompt you for cookies. log into gmail, and watch what happens. deny the cookies and see if you can get in. even if you allow the one for the session, you will still be prompted for others, and you will get a message that you will need to enable cookies to use the site.

anything else? yes, as a matter of fact. guess what? they use the cookies to direct ads.

1911lover · 08-05-2004, 12:49

Dont you use cookies in GT??

ronin_asano · 08-05-2004, 13:00

Quote:

Originally posted by 1911lover
Dont you use cookies in GT??

yes. however, one thing the gmail cookies do is affect the rest of the google stuff. for instance, now if i go to google.com to do a search, i see text ads, where i didn't before. i used the adblock extension of firefox to block them.

the novelty of gmail has worn off. i don't even use it anymore. i just hold on to the account in order to get some invites to send to some friends that wanted one. so far, they have only given me two.

SamBuca · 08-05-2004, 19:08

Quote:

Originally posted by ronin_asano
do you have a gmail account? cookies are required. i don't use the 'remember me for two weeks' thing. all that does is cache your password.

clear every google cookie from your machine. set the browser to prompt you for cookies. log into gmail, and watch what happens. deny the cookies and see if you can get in. even if you allow the one for the session, you will still be prompted for others, and you will get a message that you will need to enable cookies to use the site.

anything else? yes, as a matter of fact. guess what? they use the cookies to direct ads.

Sir...

SESSION cookies expire when you close the browser. It is REQUIRED so that Gmail knows your login info....GT operates the same way. Gmail tracks ads based on EMAIL ADDRESS, just like any other smart business.

This cookie business is getting out of control. Cookies are not harmful, it doesn't matter if they "track you". You're just a number to them.

Specifically relating to Gmail, I *WANT* targeted advertising. I don't want to see "punch the money" ads. I want to see gun ads. I want to see computer ads. I want to see radio ads. Advertising is how they make money...if you don't want ads, then send them a check for their service.

These "privacy concerns" are nonsense....it's the sky falling all over again started by some wacko liberal jerks trying to get attention.

mzenzer · 08-05-2004, 19:52

Is gmail readily available yet? I thought it was still in beta. If it's still in beta, how does one go about getting on the list of beta testers?

frefoo · 08-06-2004, 00:56

Quote:

Originally posted by mzenzer
Is gmail readily available yet? I thought it was still in beta. If it's still in beta, how does one go about getting on the list of beta testers?

Question 1. gmail is still in beta stage.

Question 2. gmail will send out "invites" to current members allowing them to invite a non gmail user to join.

With 1 (7 possible AOL email accounts), 2 (7 possible) ISP email accounts, 2 corporate email accounts, 1 (Unlimited with in reason) domain email accounts, I use my gmail account for email when I dont really care about privacy. If privacy is an issue I will have the email sent to another account.

Blast · 08-06-2004, 01:24

Yahoo

hwyhobo · 08-06-2004, 01:30

I still prefer shell access to my email account. That gives me 100% protection from any weird stuff. But, I do have smaller emails without attachments copied to my yahoo account. Once I prune my emails on my server, I also use IMAP to download them to my laptop. Call me paranoid...