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Gmail

Martin

Martin

Active Member
Does anyone here use the new e-mail provider from Google, Gmail. A friend recommended it to me, and I signed up for an account, and it looks quite nifty to me.

You have 1 gig of storage, meaning that you'll never have to delete anything again (mind you, you can delete, if you want to).

Plus, it 'remembers' all the previous messages, so when someone replies to your mail, it shows the entire discussion you've had with that person, much like the threads on the boards here.

Very nifty - I'm a convert, I think.

Oh, by the way, it's not possible to sign up yet unless you've gotten an invitation from an existing member. So no sense in lookng for the sign-up page.

Cheers, Martin
 
Yeah, heard about it ages ago. As you say, it's still in the test phase with no date for launch yet. It's sounds really good :) I won't sign up for it though as I already have 4 email addresses and that is quite enough :D lol
 
sounds interesting but there has been some controversy about the privacy issue, and anyway yahoo updated this week to a 100 mb so i guess im gonna stick with it
 
Yeah, I've tried Yahoo - didn't like it all that much. I have two existing email accounts (three now, with this one), and I'm seriously considering using this Gmail thing as my primary.

I'll give it a couple of weeks, see what happens, and then I'll decide.

Cheers, Martin
 
I already have two free accounts, a work account and two subscription accounts. I have all the storage I could hope for really. Also got a few forgotten accounts from places I had to sign up with to use other services.

Hasn't Hotmail been bouncing the Gmail invitations so that people never receive them anyway?
 
I got one.

At hotmail.

There's a lot of fairy tales going around about Gmail, I know that.

Cheers, Martin
 
I think it was on either Yahoo or the beeb. And I did hear something about the privacy issues too, but if privacy was really that important you wouldn't be sending your sensitive information out via a free email service. Unless it was Hushmail I spose.
 
Martin, do you know if you can forward your Gmail to another e-mail account automatically? Just curious as this was something Yahoo allowed for awhile and then took away a few years ago. I'm looking for a replacement for Yahoo that will forward to my regular e-mail (so I can access my e-mail through Outlook), so I'm just curious.
 
Tig, I signed up, literally an hour ago, so I honestly don't know. I don't even know where to look, because I've never used that feature, not at hotmail, not anywhere.

I'll see what I can do for you.

Cheers, Martin
 
And about the privacy - it does show adds to the right of the screen (not obtrusive or annoying, by the way), and those adds kinda correlate with your messages, so there is probably a kind of program skimming through the text so that it can find some relevant adds for you.

It's not like there's this guy hired to sit around reading all the email sent through their servers all day.

Cheers, Martin
 
That's not it. There are targeted ads all over the net.

I belive the issue is: that it's using googles search tech and stored in their database. So, this means it's searchable. So I can enter "martin emails" and read what you are writing.

Though, as the lady pirate says, If you are using a free email account and sending private messages on it then that's kinda silly anyway :D
 
Martin said:
Tig, I signed up, literally an hour ago, so I honestly don't know. I don't even know where to look, because I've never used that feature, not at hotmail, not anywhere.

I'll see what I can do for you.

Cheers, Martin
Click to expand...
Thanks! Much obliged. :)
 
Martin said:
Does anyone here use the new e-mail provider from Google, Gmail. A friend recommended it to me, and I signed up for an account, and it looks quite nifty to me.

You have 1 gig of storage, meaning that you'll never have to delete anything again (mind you, you can delete, if you want to).

Plus, it 'remembers' all the previous messages, so when someone replies to your mail, it shows the entire discussion you've had with that person, much like the threads on the boards here.

Very nifty - I'm a convert, I think.

Oh, by the way, it's not possible to sign up yet unless you've gotten an invitation from an existing member. So no sense in lookng for the sign-up page.

Cheers, Martin
Click to expand...
I've not heard about it, but I'll just stick to my Hotmail and Yahoo email accounts :p
 
I'm not overly interested, as I already have three email accounts...two via my two universities and one from our internet provider.

I also keep a junk email on yahoo, which I use when I have to submit an email addy on the net...keeps me from getting too much junk mail.
 
Been using it for a few weeks and have had no problems yet.

No, you cannot forward gmail elsewhere. Luckily I use one generic email address from my site so I can redirect mail anywhere I like, which means the transition to gmail was painless.

I have had no problem with inappropriate adverts for my pages. If the message is short and there are no real keywords, no ads are displayed. I sent an email mentioning The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Van Eyck and received two very helpful links on the topic. As Martin has mentioned, nobody sits reading your email all day - it's all done technology wise with google adsense.

You can not google 'murphyz gmail' and read any of my messages. This is a myth. There are concerns over the future privacy as google realistically can do what they like with information stored on their servers for over 160 days. You'll find the likes of hotmail and yahoo has the same issues, only they force you to remove the emails because of the limited space and gmail encourages you to keep it stored.

The ECPA also won't give as much support to gmail as with actual email services. You must remember that gmail is not really just another email service, by signing up you give them permission to store and scan your messages. You give them permission to target your messages with adverts and thus, by clicking the ads, you give the merchant rights to view which IP address clicked on that advert. In return you get a huge amount of space, a wonderful interface and a very nifty search function.

Personally, I don't see what the big deal over privacy is. If I had the option to let an automated system scan my incoming text messages or [paper based] mail in order to filter out the junk stuff - I would sign up for it. All manner of personal information is stored on your own PC, which is easily accessible to those 'in the know' and many people already store their personal information with a third party server, such as banks and Amazon with their 1 click shopping.

At the end of the day gmail is no more secure than hotmail or yahoo and, to some extent, the outlook express on your home computer. Sure, they could look towards encrypting the information, and I'm sure they will get around to doing so. Take a closer look at the hotmail and yahoo ToC and see if you feel completely safe after that - or better yet, consult a privacy lawyer who is likely to be one of the only people who truely understand the issues involved.

You get what you pay for, and there's a reason these email services are free.

My email is all boring, especially if you don't know me and it's meaningless conversations. I don't really care if people find out what books I have ordered from amazon, or what DVDs I am getting from play.com.

If you're not comfortable using it, then don't. If you are comfortable, then gmail offers an excellent service that looks to be the way forward for all free email providers.

The decision, as they say, is yours.

Mxx
 
Yeah.gif

Cheers, Martin
 
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