Google's Gmail Goes Into Beta for Blogger Users 350
deadpixel writes "Gmail, the 1gb webmail service offered
by Google, has gone into beta. Blogger
(owned by google) users have first crack at the service. Besides the massive
storage, the free service boasts a sophisticated spam filter, no
pop-ups/banners, and gives you search results relevant to the emails you receive
automatically. Bring on those attachments!"
Details? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Details? (Score:5, Informative)
Not all blogger users have been invited. And people who are joining blogger now after the announcement are not getting accounts.
Re:Details? (Score:5, Informative)
As their announcement says:
As an active Blogger user, we would like to invite you to be one of the first to try out Google's new email service, Gmail.
Would you like to give it a whirl? YES / NO
Re:Details? (Score:3, Funny)
I hit NO.
Then it said the invitation would remain there for couple of days should I change my mind.
In other words, either Yes or No won't make it go away for couple of days.
Re:Details? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Details? (Score:4, Informative)
SpyMac: An Alternative free 1 GB e-mail account (Score:4, Informative)
1 GB e-mail account, 350 MB combined storage, personal blog, forum, gallery, auctions and more
Of course, They are primarily mac-oriented, but I can deal with it.
Not for all Blogger users... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not for all Blogger users... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not for all Blogger users... (Score:5, Funny)
How the hell should I know?! I'm still trying to work out what I'm going to do with this stupid slashdot account!
Not me... (Score:2)
You need to be an active blogger (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You need to be an active blogger (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmm, it doesn't work with Opera, so I told Opera to fake being IE, but it needs ActiveX enabled on IE.. oh well, better load up Mozilla.
Re:You need to be an active blogger (Score:2)
Re:You need to be an active blogger (Score:2)
Re:You need to be an active blogger (Score:2)
Re:say it ain't so! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the latest versions of browsers can do DHTML quite nicely with similar results. I've been making a small tool using DHTML and the only problem so far has been with IE which always complain "There is a problem loading the page" despite the fact that it loads it successfully.
See... (Score:3, Interesting)
Kjella
Re:You need to be an active blogger (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, I've moved to LJ.
But yes, haven't blogged in a while, merely logged in to get a GMail account, and the ad was there.
Re:You need to be an active blogger (Score:2)
1gig? (Score:3, Interesting)
says google. [google.co.uk]
Other way round from google (Score:4, Insightful)
Bang on and correct
Cheers,
rob.
Re:1gig? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:1gig? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:1gig? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:1gig? (Score:2)
Re:1gig? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I haven't seen any indication that anyone has adopted 'gibi' and 'mebi' as anything but ridiculous and pedantic terms, but best of luck on your crusade. I agree that it would be nice to see some kind of distiction, but 24 bytes here and there when you're measuring in megs or gigs... not a problem!
A suitably respected authority, as requested (Score:3, Informative)
If you want an authority for this you don't need to look very hard, just hit the Jargon File. [catb.org]
quantifiers
In techspeak and jargon, the standard metric prefixes used in the SI (Système International) conventions for scientific measurement have dual uses. With units of time or things that come in power
Re:Well, when you put it like that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks. It's rare to see someone actually follow through on a statement like that here on slashdot.
The problem the committees tried to solve with their new terminology is a real one, and I don't want to minimise that. Most people using computers these days don't even know what binary means, and as the powers go higher, the difference between the binary and the decimal interpretation increases. The potential for confusion is great. And if their terminology had been used from the start it would make sense.
Re:1gig? (Score:5, Informative)
Be bold and be proud of your geekdom! Say "mebibytes" and "gibibytes" in public!!
Re:1gig? (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone uses "mega" and "giga" and they sound fine. There's no need for new terms that only make people look ridiculous. Anyone who thinks those terms are correct needs to take note that no one uses those terms and they will only result in confusion.
I'll say "1024K" before I ever say that word which I da
Re:1gig? (Score:2)
Re:1gig? (Score:4, Informative)
True, it'd be nice if MiB and GiB became standard. For the record, this link [nist.gov] explains the actual SI standards and binary multiples.
Re:1gig? (Score:2)
Re:1gig? (Score:5, Informative)
Privacy is not my main concern with Gmail (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have concerns about Google scanning your email to place unobstrusive, sometimes-actually-useful text advertisements next to your email, then there is a solution. DON'T FLIPPING USE IT! That's all there is too it!
The thing that I'M concerned about is if they pull a similar move that Apple did with mac.com accounts. "Oh yah they'll be free forever", then two years later, once everyone is hooked on free @mac.com email addresses, they turn around and say they're going to charge $99 dollars per year. Excuse me? I dont think so. My mac.com email was my main email for nearly two years and as soon as they pulled that shit, I cancelled my account, bought my own domain, and now have free email for life. Apple was hoping that users would pay because they had been using that email address as their main email and wouldnt want to switch. Well it didnt work on me and yo should have read the mac message boards when this happened. People were pissed!
I do think Gmail is a cool idea. Being able to store a gig of email so you (as an average user anyways) never have to delete email and have the best search engine in the world to search through old emails is awesome. But what if their idea is to get you hooked so you wont ever want to give it up, then start charging a fee for it? Even though it is worth probably $100/year, I would tell them to shove their bill up their ass and move on. This is why I won't use Gmail.
Re:Privacy is not my main concern with Gmail (Score:5, Insightful)
>then start charging a fee for it?
Duh. When Google has its IPO it officially becomes evil. Very few corporations adhere to their founding values when they must answer to shareholders. Google should just remain private. After you have 5 to 10 or 20 megs of e-mail stored on Google servers, are you just going to get up and walk away if/when they decide to bill you?
Re:Anti-IPO is trolling now? (Score:2, Insightful)
"When Google has its IPO it officially becomes evil. Very few corporations adhere to their founding values when they must answer to shareholders. Google should just remain private."
Ranting about how money is evil is troll-like.
And I'm sure more than a few moderators are offended by the viewpoint that no one should ever make money, and everyone should give everything away for free. That's not how the world works.
Re:Anti-IPO is trolling now? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what if moderators are offended by my viewpoint? Disagreement = invalid? It's an abuse of the moderation system to mod people down simply because you disagree.
Re:Anti-IPO is trolling now? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is widely known that when a company goes public it gives up independence. The fact that shareholders expect profit is a side issue you're using for distraction. The issue is a company giving up control. When I say "evil," substitute the word "stupid." Anyone who has worked at a sinking company that is doing stupid things to gain shareholders knows what I'm talking about.
If, per your example, Google
Re:Anti-IPO is trolling now? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's hardly arguing semantics. If someone says, "Killing is a bad thing," to which you reply, "Not all violence is bad," you have misunderstood and twisted his argument. When he corrects you by saying, "I said 'killing' -- not 'all violence'," he is hardly arguing semantics. He's correcting you.
If, on the other hand, you replied, "Not all murder is bad, e.g. murdering someone to k
Not everyone is as evil as apple (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Privacy is not my main concern with Gmail (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have concerns about Google scanning your email to place unobstrusive, sometimes-actually-useful text advertisements next to your email, then there is a solution. DON'T FLIPPING USE IT! That's all there is too it!
Seriously. A friend of mine went into a rant about this the other day, and I pointed out that he has a hotmail account. It boggles the mind that people would trust Microsoft, which is KNOWN to have questionable (if any) ethics and morals, and yet be suspicious of Google, which is known to have good ethics and morals (ie: refusing to accept payment for search result ranking, and penalizing folks who purposely try to manipulate the results for personal gain).
But MSFT is less likely to seek revenue from ads (Score:2)
Its about incentive - who has more financial incentive to violate your privacy? Google is the BigBrother(tm) company as a key aspect of its survival. Microsoft need not be.
Re:Privacy is not my main concern with Gmail (Score:5, Insightful)
And honestly, as my dad was quick to admonish me in my younger days, "email is like a postcard." There's nothing to stop a bazillion people from reading it somewhere between the initial and final servers. So if you don't want your email to be read, you should already be enciphering it. It's that simple. Anything I have to send to someone that I seriously do not want anyone else to read, I encrypt -- and if they don't have PGP, I make 'em get it (generally, the people I truly need security with understand the desire for security and are willing to cooperate).
So am I surprised that Gmail can/will scan your email? No. Does it bother me? No -- because they won't be able to scan my private messages anyway.
--0x4A6D74
1GB of porn ads? (Score:5, Funny)
So Google is going to show me penis enlargement and nude cheerleader search links every time I receive spam?
Re:1GB of porn ads? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:1GB of porn ads? (Score:2)
RTF Abstract: "the free service boasts a sophisticated spam filter"
So basically, you'll not be getting much spam, if any.
Re:1GB of porn ads? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:1GB of porn ads? (Score:2)
Re:1GB of porn ads? (Score:2)
Got this yesterday (Score:5, Informative)
Click yes, answer yes to all of the questions that follow, and you have your very own GMail account.
I have had this for what, 24 hours now I guess, and GMail is the best webmail interface I've ever seen.
The one thing I don't like so far is that links, elinks, or links2 don't work with it. They do support javascript AFAIK which is what GMail is basically comprised of, but that's my only gripe.
Can't wait for POP or, preferably, IMAP access. Even more preferably, IMAP over SSL.
Re:Got this yesterday (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Got this yesterday (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Got this yesterday (Score:2)
What's in a name? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's in a name? (Score:4, Funny)
Possibilities (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think anyone knows yet what Google does with a new account that holds a single mail with a very large, PGP-encrypted attachment that curiously is accessed and downloaded from a wide range of different IPs, but if so, please tell.
10 mb attachment limit. (Score:2)
Re:Possibilities (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if something like t
Re:Possibilities (Score:4, Informative)
How about those ad? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've got a gmail account (thanks to Blogger), and also have a Google AdWords account.
I've been sending mail to my gmail account from another account, and including things that I thought *should* trigger a Google text ad - one of mine, no less and keywords that certainly do trigger a text ad from the main Google search page - dont. I haven't seen one yet.
During the Beta are they inhibiting the textads?
Anyone see an ad in the wild yet?
They're there (Score:4, Interesting)
Using the text of an entire message for ads requires a bit more computing than just a search query, so maybe they're trying to keep those down while in beta.
They're about as good as the ones for the regular search engine. I'm looking at a conversation i'd been having about jobs and internships and the ads it displayed were related to those.
Re:How about those ad? (Score:3, Interesting)
Gmail vs. Spymac (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gmail vs. Spymac (Score:2)
Re:Gmail (legit) vs. Spymac (illegit) (Score:5, Informative)
People think there's concerns with Gmail and privacy - yet YOU would trust your email to a site that HAS NEVER backed away from the iWalk PDA being a fake, that consistently breaks MUG rules (they claim to be a MUG, yet moderators post rumors - a no no).
THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD TRUST SPYMAC with any password, email address, home address or any other information
SpyMac is just the shiniest car in the parking lot. Be careful though, there may be flood damage under the hood.
The other thing that bothers me about SpyMac is that their moderators troll the web and forums looking for ANYONE that says something bad about the site.
Re:Gmail vs. Spymac (Score:3, Informative)
The ad (Score:5, Informative)
There's an image header - http://blogger.com/g-logo.gif
As an active Blogger user, we would like to invite you to be one of the first to try out Google's new email service, Gmail [google.com].
Would you like to give it a whirl? YES / NO
The YES link opens up this page [blogspot.com]
The NO links pops an alert box saying 'Okay, this notice will be here for a few more days, should you change your mind.' or similar.
Re:The ad (Score:2)
What is the ACTUAL address to the YES page? Check the HTML source if you can.
Thanks.
Re:The ad (Score:3, Troll)
Is the link.
I signed up and read the TOS (Score:4, Interesting)
As much as P2P has been demonized, there is one content that I can think of that is legal, and distrabution is encouraged, and thats concert recordings of bands that allow taping (see etree.org for more info). Each show typically runs between 700MB-> 1.5GB since its done in a lossless compressiong scheme.
So whats stopping me from having people get GMail accounts and then doing a CC to everyone who wants a show and doing a mass mailing (even if its broken into chunks).
I'm not looking for a technical answer, I'm curious about a legal one. (and thus,
Re:I signed up and read the TOS (Score:3, Informative)
The Gmail scanner... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Gmail scanner... (Score:4, Informative)
If a PGP encrypted message is sent with a PGP encrypted attchment bearing the file extension
In both cases, the subject was a line cut from the ciphertext in the body of the message.
Does this mean that Gmail scans attachments as well as the body of an email?
Safari not supported? (Score:4, Interesting)
Conflict Of Interest (Score:2)
No, just sophomoric fnaboy rhetoric (Score:2)
First impressions (Score:5, Informative)
I tried registering some short usernames, the username has to be 6 characters or longer.
So I have a leet 6-character name@gmail.com.
Transit time for sent and recived mail is near-instantaneous.
The interface is trademark google utilitarian. Two thumbs up.
I sent some test spam from my spam folder, they got into my inbox (and not to my 'spam'
folder on gmail). So they have some tweaking to do there.
For those who are curious... (Score:5, Informative)
Inbox [citking.net]
Example message w/ text ads present [citking.net]
The only thing different is the "@gmail.com" e-mail addy at the top...I cut mine out just to avoid any potential issues...sorry.
My Blogger account (Score:2)
How about an account for Slashdoters? (Score:2, Funny)
Smart approach by Google (Score:5, Insightful)
In essence, they have an ideal test base - testers who will give great feedback, and testers who will plug GMail to those who read their blogs. Great word of mouth advertising...
How long until (Score:2)
Expectation of Privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
"Reasonable expectation of privacy" is a legal term which, among other things, influences what the courts allow the government to do when snooping on people without a warrent.
For examples of this, look for instance at the case law surrounding trash [floridadetectives.com].
The courts have ruled that it's perfectly OK for law enforcement agencies to pick through your trash because people do not have an "expectation of privacy" when they throw things away.
The danger with Gmail is that it starts to erode the generally-held idea that it is wrong for anyone to read someone else's email. Sure, it's just software and sure, no one is actually reading it. But the contextual ads may give the impression that the mail is read, therefore allowing the courts to rule later that there is no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in email, and allowing the government to snoop through your mail at will.
This isn't coming tomorrow, but it's one of the main objections privacy advocates have to Gmail. Similar sentiments from other privacy advocacy groups are expressed in this article [msn.com]
Just signed up (Score:3, Informative)
Gmail impressions and 10 screenshots (Score:4, Informative)
The only complain I have so far is that by default, it didn't catch any of the spam I received. However, I've reported all of it as spam, so it will be interesting to see if it improves based upon that. So far though, its spam filter doesn't seem quite in line with filters such as the one in Apple's Mail client. Speaking of Apple, it does appear to work pretty well in Safari. There are a few quirks compared to loading it in Firefox, but nothing show-stopping.
If they can work out the spam filter and polish everything up, which I'm sure they can, they've got a true winner here. I'm copying over all of my regular POP3 e-mail to my new Gmail account so that I can access it anywhere and perform more in-depth searching on it. After all, if there's one thing Gmail tops all web and application-based Mail clients on, it is definitely searching.
I urge you to check out these screenshots for a better look at Gmail than the two or three screenshots others have posted by clicking here [modblog.com].
Gmail is as good as the hype suggested
Re:Official? (Score:2)
It's posted in an ad, visible to registered users.
Yeah, I know, ihbt..
Jealous? Are you serious? (Score:2, Interesting)
So far the only perk I've heard is 1GB storage. My computer has that, and when my broadband goes down, I can still access my stored mail. I'm getting by fine with the <1GB storage my existing free web mail account offers.
What other perks? Ads inserted into e-mails? No thanks. I don't need that intrusion.
heh.. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see why people think gmail's spam filter is all that great - so far (and this may be due to beta issues, a lack of training etc) its allowed about 50% of spam to my account through. I've got a couple spam infested accounts forwarding to gmail to test this out.
as for the ads, on most messages they're not even there and when they are they're very small and placed to the side of the page like google's search engine text ads. I don't even notice them. So its not like they're inserted into your mail really. And at least google doesn't attach "get your hotmail address now!" to the bottom of every outgoing email.
So while it is cool (the best feature is the seamless conversations), it's not going to be for everyone, or cause a mass exodus from existing mail services.
Particularly when the competition rolls out the GB (Score:2)
Meanwhile they can watch Google take the heat for its ad angle. Its amazing Google has clinged to the ad issue for this long - its bought them bad PR when they still need their lilly-white "we're on the users side" cred. Strike one for Google marketing. Sorry guys, you should have caved at the first hint of public backlash.
Re:Particularly when the competition rolls out the (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you think a spam filter works? It 'reads' every single word in your e-mail. Any e-mail service employing one is 'reading' your mail.
If the other players are going to take anything from this, its that they'll start targetting ads to your email content as well.
Re:Jealous? Are you serious? (Score:2)
plus, if i get to use my m2 (opera's email dingy) then i can have my emails stored on my machine during access blackouts. since it leaves it on the server, any n
Re:Jealous? Are you serious? (Score:2)
I didn't say I don't use web mail. It's just obvious (to me) that Google isn't doing anything groundbreaking with web mail, and certainly nothing that anyone else couldn't copy. This seems to be a lot of dot-com hype because everyone loves Google Search, so Google Mail will surely somehow be 110% better than regular e-mail. Uh huh.
Re:Jealous? Are you serious? (Score:2)
2) My mail client already does threaded view.
3) My mail client is clean and fast (and free).
4) Why is Google's spam filter any better than the rest? Oh yeah, blind faith.
5) My mail client, and web mail, is free, too.
All you bring me is hype and faith in God, er, I mean Google.
Re:Out with the old (Score:2)
Re:Opera, please? (Score:2)
Although personally I use Firefox and so should have no problems that's no good for those that prefer to use Opera or something else.
Out of interest I know some post in an earlier slashdot discussion said they'd tried to set opera to identify as IE but it used some ActiveX when you did that (can you confirm that), have you tried setting it to identify as Mozilla and post your res
nope (Score:4, Informative)
how do you think a spam filter works? (Score:3, Insightful)
The only difference between that and what gmail does is at the same time gmail runs the word through an inverted index of advertisers, picking one out every now and then to be displayed - on the side, in a tiny text ad that most people wont notice.
Re:I Have a GB of Hard Drive Space on My Computer. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I will grant you that there are a lot of advantages to keeping