Gmail or not Gmail?

B

Bill Marsh

Joined
Mar 26, 2002
Messages
1,861
I am thinking about getting a more permanent email service that will let me change ISP providers without having to change my email from Bill@bellsouth.net to Bill@earthlink.net. or Bill@comcast.com.

I feel tied to my provider limits me.

So I am looking at some free services that are not tied to a particular ISP, like Gmail.

I think that Google is here to stay and I don't have to worry if I have Bill@gmail.com. I should be able to keep this addy and change ISP providers if I like.

But I just got an email from a friend that Gmail may have privacy problems. They analyze your email and target advertisers for the banner ads to you. I don't think I have a problem with this if they want to change the banner ads which I don't look at anyway and they have to support the freemail somehow.

I guess this privacy issue could go deeper, but is it any different than other ISPs?

I get some strange email that seems to come specifically from Bellsouth (my current provider), but the spam filter has begun to recognize and trash it.

I'd like to go with some service that has an established name behind it and will likley be here tomorrow.

Opinions on Gmail and similar services?
 
Hum. I have an gmail account, but whenever I try to use it with my standard browser (Netscape 7.1), my system crashes. Thus, I dont use gmail. I havent heard about privacy issues, but I'd definately like to hear more on that issue!

Keno
 
There is precious little privacy in any email. Remember, those messages bounce around from network to network, server to server, in plain text. Anyone with appropriate access to those networks and servers can read everything. Presumably, that would only be technicians and administrators, and you main hope for privacy is that their too busy to read your stuff.

Google has robot programs that read your email for key words and toss advertisments up. Your ISP has robot programs that read your email and try to detect spam. The FBI / NSA (?) has robot programs that read your email to try to figure out if you are a potential terrorist. (Some people suspect that "potential terrorist" is defined way too loosely.)

Privacy? Sheesh. People invade their own privacy by posting way too much information on their blogs, in forums, myspace, etc.
 
Back to the original question: I like gmail. Lots of free space; I can get to it from pretty much any browser; I can get even get to it from a POP client on my phone (Yahoo doesn't do that except if you pay for the premium stuff); it's got some good searchability; I'm not getting much spam on it.
 
Gmail has a pretty good spam filter. I really like gmail, and have been using it with my pocket pc. I fully intend to quit using my ISP mail sooner or later and go completely to gmail, but I haven't done it yet.

Gmail also has a fairly decent set of applications that are built around gmail, calenders, photo storage, document sharing etc. I believe that one day it will be the way people remote compute.
 
Doesn't seem to allow you to create a mail list, though: so far, I've had to go back to my updates, for instance, and copy all the addresses if I want to mail to every one simultaneously again.
 
Spectre: Create a "group" under contacts. That'll let you create a mail list.

(Some people like to use bcc when sending to large-ish groups to keep from passing all the email addresses to everyone. I suppose this provides some privacy and prevents really annoying "reply to all" situations. It also provides some safety in case one of your recipients has had their computer compromised by some kind of spyware or virus that likes to spam everyone in their address book.)
 
I had heard of the privacy issues, there was quite a bit of talk about big brother google when gmail was being introduced, I had avoided Gmail until about 6 months ago. As mentioned no email is terribly private, so if it’s that sensitive encrypt or use other methods. After my ISP of ten years merged yet again and service took another drop I went with a yahoo email address as a stop gap, now I have yahoo upgraded to beta, gmail, and university email accounts. I am sold on gmail now, I even have my university email forwarded to gmail, although for “official” things we are supposed to use the university’s email. I get effectively no spam with gmail and the ads are quite unobtrusive, sometimes I do look at them for fun, I’ve noticed that email from one instructor is always accompanied by coffee adverts for example. Maybe not as good as a company or school address, but Bill@gmail.com looks better than yahoo, or hotmail, etc., especially as your name may already have been taken at older free email services and you may have to add numbers, play with spelling and so on.

Todd
 
The 'groups' option works well, you can upload your contacts fairly easily to gmail.

Again, in my experience, and I know lots of you have a great deal more experience, the best thing about gmail are the other apps that surround it.
 
1) Its free and accessible almost anywhere.

2) Everyone should have a 2nd crapola e-mail for handing out to the great unknown and listing when signing up for whatever catches your fancy that day.

3) Did I mention it was free?
 
Here are some excellent reasons Not to have a Gmail account IMO!!!!
I got rid of mine several months ago after I couldn't get it to do some things connected with my POP3 email account that I felt involved my security...
Then to top it off they wouldn't remove my account by me sending them emails from Hotmail and I had to send the order with my ISP account and then they deleted it promptly.
If you have Gmail and are comfortable with it then I have no problem, but it may be something you want to seriously think about if you value your privacy as much as I do mine......
With Google keeping said email literally forever that gives me the "Willie Nillies" as I can hardly remember what happened last week let alone years ago if I should ever need too...
Please check out the links as and if you have time. The first link has all the other links at the bottom of their page but I gathered them all up so as to save you the time... It has never been safe out there and it's sure not going to get any better IMO!!!!

Creepy gmail...
http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

Gmail FAQ's
http://www.epic.org/privacy/gmail/faq.html

Thirty One Privacy and Civil Liberties Organizations Urge Google to Suspend Gmail.
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/GmailLetter.htm

Google Covets Your Email...
http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/gcook.html

Google's Gmail: spook heaven?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/15/gmail_spook_heaven/

Privacy? Who cares about privacy?
http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/cgi-bin/sergey.htm
 
I really like Gmail, but I'm just an average guy that doesn't know much about computers. The spam filter is good. I think that it is VERY user friendly - it stores your emails as "conversations" - if you write back and forth to the same person 15 times, you just open up the one email, and the previous ones are listed below it. That is nice. You can also search your email. There is a chat function built in and it shows what other gmail users are online. I talkto my brother on that sometimes, it works well. Overall, I think that Gmail is great.
 
I've changed servers at least 7 times in the last 9 years, i've hardly EVER used server provided email. I know some forums (like spydercos forum) don't want to let you in unless you provide a server ("real") email address but thats totally bogus. A few of the servers i've used don't even exist anymore but yahoo and hotmail still keep chugging along. Which then is more "real"? To me hotmail, yahoo, gmail are the "real" thing. I've had yahoo accounts for most of the 9 years i've been online without any problems. Hotmail is my secondary junk email account, gmail is supposed to be good also. Really they are all free so why not get all three?
 
diceman said:
(I thought that it was BS that I couldn't register here w/ my gmail account also.)
Click to expand...
I had no problem with that.

FallingKnife said:
Back to the original question: I like gmail. Lots of free space; I can get to it from pretty much any browser; I can get even get to it from a POP client on my phone (Yahoo doesn't do that except if you pay for the premium stuff); it's got some good searchability; I'm not getting much spam on it.
Click to expand...
Ya, what he said. I use it as my primary email address. I can access it even when I'm deployed and have to depend on a military network to check my email. I've been using it for over 2 years, with only a few problems. (caused by super slow, or super busy, military networks in Iraq)

Bill
 
Instead of gmail, why don't you get a yahoo email address. All you need is a current email address that they don't even check. If you forget your password you answer a series of questions and they give you a new one. Yahoo give you one Gig of email and allows you to make all the mail lists that you want.
 
I've had several "cover" accounts with usa.net, yahoo.com and now gmail for many years. I dropped usa.net when they started charging $60/yr. Yahoo was good, but a clunky interface and rather heavy on the self-promotion and ads, gmail less so, the little google adsense ads less obtrusive. Gmail was light years ahead of Yahoo until Yahoo introduced their new "Beta" interface. In my opinion, Yahoo's new direction is even more user friendly than gmail. I figure gmail will catch up soon though. Google is already the next Microsoft, so I'm not worried about it going away anytime soon...or Yahoo for that matter.

I use Yahoo for most of my public registrations and sites I don't care about. I use gmail mainly for personal stuff, the address on my resume, etc. The gmail spam filter is awesome. I get about a thousand spams a week and none of them make it through.
 
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