The Google 'Gmail' debate

[Liu Yuante]

I'll repeat again the sentiments I wrote two years ago (my God have I really been here for almost 3 years?):

The ads are a non-issue, they don't show up in the body of your mail - unlike those sent by some users of other email services - and obviously they are not generated by someone at Google actually reading your mail. Spam is a complete non-issue - I've never had an email service provide such quality spam filtering. I've always preferred web-based email to a POP3 account or the like - I've only ever had a POP3 account once, when I was in college in what feels like a million years ago. My family's first internet access had a POP3 email account but this was appropriated by my father, so I had to set up Hotmail. I used that for years, then when I used Netzero for awhile - back when it really was zero dollars - I killed Hotmail. Neither stack up to Gmail though so when I got an invite from an old friend a few years ago, I took the oppurtunity. As far as web-based email goes, Gmail is better than anything else.

I have also now had occasion to use large attachments, and had no problems sending James a very large scan of an original Destiny Of An Emperor ad from an old comic. I've also used it to email large files to myself in order to transfer from comp to comp without the hassle of floppies and file-splitters, or burning discs. Draft autosaving is also wonderful - overall I don't see any reason why you wouldn't want to use it.

Adrian

[Adam]

I was stuck with good old Hotmail (sarcasm anyone?), but to make a long story short, I have 332 unread messages in my Hotmail account, and about 30 pages of total mail. The worst part is, I've only had it for about 5 months.
The great thing about GMail is the, for lack of a better description, forum like way the emails appear in the inbox. If I send an email, and get a reply, it's all in one place, even if I get 394585 emails from the person - so long as they are replies to the first email, and not new ones.
I haven't received 1 piece of junk mail since I started using it either, which I can't say about any mail service I've ever used, even my AOL email, which I've never even given out anywhere.

[James]

I haven't received 1 piece of junk mail since I started using it either, which I can't say about any mail service I've ever used, even my AOL email, which I've never even given out anywhere.

I get plenty of junk mail at GMail, and I have never given my address (addresses) out. This may be due to very aggressive blind data mailing in the domain. Regardless, GMail’s junk mail filter has worked so <i>insanely</i> well that I never have to deal with a single one of them. And I have never lost a legitimate email to it.

[Rhiannon]

Indeed. Although my general gmail account (I have 3) has 500 some spam messages in its filter each week, on average, no more than 2 slip by each month into my regular mail box.

My non-public gmail addresses get less than 10 spam messages a month - all caught by the junk mail filter gmail has set.

I never find real messages in my junk mail folder, either.

And like Adam, my favorite feature is threading emails... although I am very fond of the googledoc support that's been introduced.

[Liu Yuante]

Blatant necro post, but I just wanted to say how quaint it feels to read a thread where everyone is debating whether Gmail - with its embedded ads (oh no!) - would be worth using or not.

[ky9ersfan]

I've used gmail for years, and never really had any major issues.

[James]

"Google is launching a new free email service (called Gmail) [...]"
Haha... that feels like ages ago.

These days I rather disdain Google. They wen’t from a sort of “don’t be evil” style company to “let’s be aggressively evil” over the past decade or so and have pushed basically any boundary regarding privacy I can think of. Their products are pretty much inherently designed to harvest user information and keep some control over markets where they harvest user information, and they sacrifice security to ensure they can continue harvesting user information.

But...

I still use a Google email address for a lot of things. Heck, I have even routed some email addresses behind-the-scenes through purpose-built Gmail accounts specifically so I could use their spam filter.

Although this might be the only Alphabet product I use. Other than some Google. And in some specific cases, Google Maps. For that I tend to use Apple Maps these days.

I've used gmail for years, and never really had any major issues.

Seems like the only “issues” I have had with it were related to their various security changes. Things they did behind-the-scenes to limit and manage third-party account access, such as changing the required authentication model and the support for and eventual mandate of app-specific passwords in some cases.

I used to have a number of clients I helped with tech stuff, and this ended up being a bit of a theme in terms of some problems Google accounts could create. At least the service has been quite reliable over the years otherwise.