July 8th, 2008
Gmail Adds Remote Sign-Out and Monitoring
By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
When I login to Gmail, I always leave the “Remember me on this computer” checkbox unchecked. Why? I don’t want to get into the habit of checking that checkbox, as what would happen if I would make that selection and leave a public computer with myself still logged in. That would be a problem. Until now, anyway.
Gmail is rolling out a new feature. Typical of such roll-outs, it will be gradual and may not be available yet on your account.
If it’s available, you should see something similar to the above at the very bottom of your inbox. You’ll see information about the last activity on your account and whether it’s still open in another location.
Obviously, this is a great way to find out if someone has hacked into your account (as has happened to me previously, though not with Gmail), but it doesn’t give you all that much info. However, click the Details link, all you’ll see a lot more (below).
You’ll be able to see the IP addresses of any activity, as well as whether it was browser- or mobile-based. You’ll also be able to sign out any other sessions, using the “Sign out all other sessions button.”
Of course, all this makes me wonder just how paranoid Google programmers are, because this “feature” never would have occurred to me.
LZW says:
I have gmail but rarely ever use it… Some days, gmail worked great and other days, not at all. Don’t think I’ve even checked it since last year because when I really needed it to work, I couldn’t even log in half the time!
Google may have started the giant in box (1gb+) craze but now lots of email providers do the same.
I never understood giant email…
If you want 100 years of email history online, you may have social problems. If people like to email you Linux ISO files, email is not is not the best way to distribute binary files.
I’ve no doubt there are people with extreme email needs, whether by circumstance or because they never delete old messages and spam. Yet gmail, nor yahoo, or any web site should be used as your primary email in my opinion.
Most ISP’s have a real email server (smtp/pop3) use it and only give the address to your close friends and family. Sign up for web mail (yahoo, google, or any) to do junk online like registering on web sites, posting messages and even ecommerce.
The goal is not to filter spam but to protect your primary email from ever receiving spam! (by keeping it secret from web sites)
Once I signed up on a web service just to register a shareware program and 24 hours later the inbox was nothing but spam! Yeah, I sent money and got back the registration code for a crappy program (I liked it at the time) plus hundreds of email spams!
July 8th, 2008 at 10:23 am
John says:
G-mail unreliable?!? I’ve never once had a problem and I’ve been using it for years. The SPAM filter and interface is far superior to Hotmail, although Googe’s design doesn’t allow for folders; something I’ve had to get used too. I see no reason to NOT use it as a primary e-mail. I do, and it works fine and I’m not tied to a specific ISP. People can contact me because I’ve had the same e-mail for over 10 years, in the case of Hotmail.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:22 pm