September 17th, 2005
Yahoo! Unveils New Webmail, Firefox Users Second Class
By Dave Zatz
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Earlier this week Yahoo! Mail Beta was released to journalists and a subset of users.
Yahoo! Mail Beta is a web-based email application that combines the rich, responsive interface of a desktop program with the available-from-anywhere convenience of your existing Yahoo! Mail account. The tabs are there for you to read or compose on a message but still have the ability to get back to your inbox and other messages in case you need some information from your mailbox. It works using Dynamic HTML, XML and SOAP, technologies built right into the browser. You don’t need Java or any plug-ins at all. There’s no download and you can still access your account from anywhere. Source: Yahoo!
The Good: Multi-paned interface similar to desktop app. Drag and drop functionality. Message tabs. Automatic and unobtrusive data/page refresh. Keyboard shortcuts.
The Bad: Inconsistent use of internal tabs versus pop-up windows. Spell-check not yet available in Firefox/Mozilla browsers.
Overall: Yahoo’s evolutionary offering surpasses Gmail as the best free webmail client - even as a Beta.
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Rob says:
Looks incredibly slick. It makes me excited to see web apps like this. It bodes well for what the future will hold. Especially nice if Yahoo is your only email account and/or you don’t use a local mail client.
September 17th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
David Johnston says:
Yahoo has always been one of the best webmail providers if not the best. GMail has a ton of space, but Yahoo definitely has better features and usability.
September 17th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
crunch says:
Nice timing for Yahoo, but, I’ll probably still distance myself from Yahoo. Helping get jounalists jailed because its the law of the land (in China) doesn’t endear them to me. I’ll stick with Firefox/Thunderbird.
September 17th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
Sudar says:
Just can’t wait to see the response from GMail.
One thing is sure as long as the competition is maintained between them, we the users are going to get benefited and lots of new features are on the way.
September 18th, 2005 at 3:07 am
S says:
The fact that they are still being “traditional” by favouring ie over firefox proves to me that the mail service can’t be that innovative.
September 18th, 2005 at 4:04 am
Mesoed says:
It still doesn’t have the awesome conversation sorter Gmail comes with. The interface doesn’t look much different from the current Yahoo Mail interface outside of the drag-and-drop and refresh.
September 18th, 2005 at 5:14 am
Bucolic says:
all the more reason to use my old Yahoo again. looking good there
September 18th, 2005 at 5:19 am
Mard says:
The interface looks nice but Yahoo still has inherent problems such as spam and the fact that the login is insecure by default and even though 1GB is nice and all for the free mail, IT history will show us that you can never have enough space. Pretty and all but still can’t match up to why many users use Gmail
Oh and not to mention that many spam messages are generated due to free yahoo accounts, they should implement some method of account control like gmail, otherwise they’re contributing to the problem
September 18th, 2005 at 5:53 am
www.digg.com says:
www.digg.com
September 18th, 2005 at 6:10 am
Ash says:
“The fact that they are still being “traditional” by favouring ie over firefox proves to me that the mail service can’t be that innovative.”
No it doesn’t. It’s just common sense to get things working for the most common (by far) browser first.
September 18th, 2005 at 6:12 am
mr. shark attack says:
real tech news. such a well-known publication! i can’t help but believing yahoo, i mean real tech news.
September 18th, 2005 at 6:16 am
rmccs0x says:
drag and drop.. noyce…..
September 18th, 2005 at 6:32 am
David Johnston says:
I’ve never had many problems with spam on my Yahoo mail account. In fact, the few (perhaps a couple a month) pieces of spam I get are always moved to the spam folder before I read them anyway. Add to that the fact that the spam folder doesn’t count toward your quota. I definitely can’t complain about spam in Yahoo.
September 18th, 2005 at 6:42 am
seoul_scurry says:
You can read… right? It’s beta and the fact that they released for both browsers shows their overall plan (support for both). Hold your marbels, it’s beta and full support is coming.
You boob!
-scurry
The fact that they are still being “traditional” by favouring ie over firefox proves to me that the mail service can’t be that innovative.
September 18th, 2005 at 6:57 am
Leandro Ardissone says:
Great, Yahoo! is fantastic, I can’t wait to try it new face!
Any idea when it should be applied to all accounts?
September 18th, 2005 at 6:58 am
SnS says:
Don’t have access to the Beta site yet, but from what I’ve read, the wait seems to be worthwhile!
September 18th, 2005 at 8:21 am
ann says:
well as cool as ths might be gmail will improve… and if they dont then i will be switching to yahoo.
September 18th, 2005 at 8:28 am
Mirag3 says:
Looks exactly like Gmail. Ooo they have drag and drop, big deal it still looks cluttered and not as slick as gmail. Also, did anyone else notice that the thing has a huge fucking ad sitting right in the corner of your screen? Right now its displaying yahoo ads, but you can bet they’re gonna put up others, and it’s gonna get annoying. Oh, and if they STILL don’t fully support Firefox then its just shit. I know, they say its Beta, but so is GMAIL!
September 18th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Omar Upegui R. says:
What I don’t understand is why is Yahoo so anti-Firefox. They are always giving their goodies away to IE. No HTML features in actual e-mail, no speller. The same trend is followed in Yahoo Mail Beta.
As Firefox’s users increase, Yahoo will have to make an about face. We are not Second Class Users. I prefer to use Mozilla’s Thunderbird, a lot better than Yahoo’s mail. Who needs Yahoo’s mail?
September 18th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Slick says:
Free POP? No? Gmail wins…
September 18th, 2005 at 9:22 am
nuffGigs says:
Nice to see this type of competition between two web service giants. No matter who loses, we benifit.
I have email accounts with both yahoo and google. I think I might end up using yahoo more since I had that email for years and they don’t keep you deleted emails. I still don’t understand why gmail holds on to your emails after you delete them but its a enough to make me want to switch.
my 2 cents
–nuffGigs
September 18th, 2005 at 9:29 am
DB says:
Failure to adopt 1 feature for the Firefox version does not mean Yahoo! dislikes/disrespects Firefox. Yahoo! has developed an excellent Firefox toolbar that I use all the time.
September 18th, 2005 at 9:32 am
Complexium says:
Nothing can turn me away from GMail!
September 18th, 2005 at 10:15 am
Erica says:
Looks like Yahoo mail has a lot of spam… while GMail does not. I love no spam in my GMail account
September 18th, 2005 at 10:15 am
viper_iii says:
Sorry to point out that google has made a lot of points and $ for simplicity. Not only does Gmail filter spam more effectively than hotmail & yahoo it also has a simple and effective interface that is advanced yet extremely easy.
Again showing their ability to make it look simple with still providing a lot of functionality.
Good Job yahoo but competing with google maybe not a good idea for business. Take your own path and don’t compare it to google. MSFT is having trouble competeing right now…
September 18th, 2005 at 11:42 am
Matt says:
It looks real slick but I’ve never liked the three pane interface. I’ll definitely try it out but I really doubt I will leave Gmail.
September 18th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Perros says:
I use GMail, and I get drag and drop, a calender, conversation tracking and flagging, fast access…
…because I use its free POP3 service!! And then use Outlook (other mail clients are available) to read my mail.
That way you have more of a choice on how to read your mail.
-Perros-
September 18th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Mard says:
As I said early Yahoo’s spam filter sucks, the fact that you get a multitude of spam at all in your bulk mail folder is bad. I get an average of 100 spam messages in my bulk mail folder a day, with at least 1 every week seeping into my inbox. And mind you I’ve been using yahoo mail since around ‘97. I’ve only been using gmail for a year or two and so far I’ve seen 1 spam message ever. Not to mention google is taking steps to make their mail service not a target for spammers by forcing the sign up process to be a little bit more difficult (phone sms or invites). Secondly, yahoo offers some features for their free version and then has pay-for versions which give you extra space and minimal extra features. Overall an interface alone won’t help Yahoo compete against google. Before working on their gui they should work on the features they offer. And for the writer of this article to take a clear biased stance on the subject is just unethical and unprofessional altogether.
September 18th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
Sarah says:
Too cluttered…no threaded conversations…and, how much storage? A gig? Please.
September 18th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Joe says:
Unfortunately the yahoo mail account I have gets about 500 spams per day (most are caught, but not all)…
They better have their spam catcher working 100%, cause I’m not re-signing up with joe3939234023423477585a@yahoo.com
September 18th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
troy says:
The features sound cool but it looks cluttered and only one of storage. I think i will stay with gmail
September 18th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
Greg says:
While I do hope gmail does respond with some better enhancements to their email, I still don’t have to pay a dime for gmail, and I get far more storage and POP mail access to boot.
September 18th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
Jon says:
Yahoo still doesn´t have secure POP access. And it costs to have POP access. And neither Yahoo/Gmail have secure sessions for reading mail. Why?
September 18th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
Bryan says:
Please, God, Please make this beta not require the use of the LAST Command when checking external POP mail.
I recently moved servers, and the server itself no longer uses the LAST command for retrieving messages via the pop server, but Yahoo still requires it…so I am stuck.
I hope they let it go, or at least allow for those who don’t use it to get around it.
September 19th, 2005 at 7:37 am
Bart says:
Webapplications becoming more rich and desktop-like. The underlying OS is becoming less and less important. Look at del.icio.us to see what is or will be important.
Mr. Balmer raving about top-techies leaving Microsoft. I just bought an Apple (man, if only I made the switch ten years ago).
To put it shortly… we live in interesting times!
September 21st, 2005 at 2:42 pm
John says:
OK, true YAHOO MAIL may rock in the interface, but the names to choose for our email is severely limited so something new like gmail coming out is a fresh start for a new and simple email name… for example smithjkz18838218, get the picture. However thats the only real benifit i see from gmail and there huge space.
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:22 pm
Drew says:
I love the new Yahoo Mail Beta as much as the next person, but y’all are thinking that Yahoo came up with the idea all on their own. They actually bought a small company called Oddpost. They just integrated the oddpost interface with the new yahoo.
September 28th, 2005 at 5:02 am
webmaster@mysearchisover.com says:
Where do I get this???
October 10th, 2005 at 9:16 am
CJE Culver says:
“Yahoo’s spam filter sucks”
I’ve been quite impressed with the spam filters at Yahoo!. Of the 1000 or so spams I get a month, perhaps a half dozen get past the filters. And I doubt more than two legit e-mails in the last six months have gotten caught. How much better could Gmail do?
“the fact that you get a multitude of spam at all in your bulk mail folder is bad.”
Huh? This is Yahoo!’s fault? You don’t want spam, don’t publish your e-mail around. Don’t like spam in your bulk folder? Instead of griping, GO CHANGE THE SETTING. Took me all of 15 seconds to change it to “delete upon receipt”. But I personally LIKE being able to check now and again.
“… and then has pay-for versions which give you extra space and minimal extra features.”
Well, one man’s “minimal” is another man’s “satisfied customer”. I’ve had a premium Yahoo! account for nearly three years and have so far bee satisfied with the price/feature ratio.
November 4th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
Lee Kaiwen says:
“for the writer of this article to take a clear biased stance on the subject is just unethical and unprofessional altogether.”
You mean for the author to come to a conclusion as to which he likes better is unethical? Or would it have been more professional if he’d agreed with your bias?
November 4th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
Peter Payne says:
To be honest, I like yahoo! mail the way it is. I don’t want a super-fancy interface because there is a danger that it becomes unweildy, and non-functional on various platforms.
Yahoo’s strength has always been cross-browser compatibility, something hotmail could never ever achieve.
The only downside to the current yahoo! mail is that in the text-mode lynx browser I can only read email, I cannot send e-mail (gmail lets me do that).
Please always leave us the option for a non-slick interface
November 10th, 2005 at 3:35 pm
SueWit says:
Really enjoy the drag and drop capability. Wish I could get it on my home PC as well! Nice Job Yahoo!
January 15th, 2006 at 2:11 am
Smacky_Wolf says:
Yahoo = Very No.
Really, Gmail is always going to be my favourite. Free = win
January 15th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Marc says:
I like gmail, but it’s been real unreliable lately. I had to go back to using my old ISP, Comcast, complete with its sucky web interface.
Gmail’s web access hasn’t been working well for about a week, and the POP interface goes up and down on my two gmail accounts. But not at the same time. As of right now, gmail.com doesn’t even respond.
And I like Google quite a bit as the anti-M$. I guess they’re the anti-anti-christ. Maybe when Gmail comes out of beta it’ll be consistent. Also - I can’t find a way to feed back to Google. What good is a beta “test” if they don’t have a way to get the results?
January 17th, 2006 at 6:51 am
jawad says:
Oh good Gods I’ve been hanging out for this day for so long. As a subscribing Oddpost user, the big win for me is Firefox support. Finally I can ditch IE forever.
Oddpost was such a compelling experience that I actually kept using IE for the sole purpose of Oddpost!
May 11th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
mary smith says:
Greetings In The Name Of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am mother mary Smith, a widow to late Richard A. Smith, I am 60 yrs
old, I am now a new christian convert, suffering from long time cancer
of
the breast, from all indication my condition is really deteriorating and
it’s quit obvious that I won’t live more than ten months, According to my
doctors. This is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage .
My late husband killed during the U.S raid against terrorism in
Afghanistan, and during the period of our marriage we had a 23 yrs old son who
died in an auto crash three years ago.
My late husband was very wealthy and after his death i inherited all
his business and wealth. The doctor has advice me that I may not live for
more than then months, so i now decided to devide the part of this
wealth, to contribute to the development of the chruch in
africa,America,Asia and also in europe.
I prayed over it. I am willing to donate the sum of nine million
United State Dollars( USD$9,000,000) to the less privileged. Please I
want you to note that this fund is lying in a security company and upon
my instruction, my attorney who presently is in Asia distributing relief
materials to the victims of the bombblast in Hong Kong, will file in an
application for the transfer of the money in your name.
Lastly, I honestly pray that this money when transfered will be used
for the said purpose, because I have come to find out that wealth
acquisition without christ is vanity. May the Grace of our Lord Jesus the love
of God and the fellowship of God be with you and your family. I await
your urgent reply.
Yours In Christ.
Mother mary Smith
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