What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?

caluml writes "There is a humourous look at "What would happen if Microsoft had designed GMail". Gems include: "Another security measurement we'll add is that you won't be able to log-in with just username anymore but are required to enter the full [e-mail]. Furthermore, we will change the browser URL from 'http://gmail.microsoft.com/' to the more professional looking 'http://by114w.bay114.gmail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx?rru=home'.""

the reason you have to put the @

[SirSmiley]

The reason you put the [e-mail] is because there is also msn.com msn.ca for the ISP subscribers... hotmail.com hotmail.co.uk etc etc...would be rather limiting if you could only use your nickname and not have different domains......it is probably the worlds biggest web mail service...

why is this news? slllooww news day

Re:the reason you have to put the @

[Aladrin]

On GMail you have to add the domain name to the URL instead if you have a non-gmail.com address. While it's trivial for me to remember the URL, -all- of the non-techies in our company have issues with it and I have to just bookmark it for them. Having them remember their full email address would be quite a bit easier, since they already do.

Nothing beats the original

[apankrat]

Microsoft iPod [youtube.com]

Re:They have design a webmail site...

[MLCT]

They bought it 10 years ago - and I was talking about 4 years ago.

Re:Simple

[eknraw]

Can't you just uncheck the "Automatically check for Internet Explorer updates" to stop the redirecting? I think IE is missing some patching and it wants you to update. I remember running into this all the way back with IE 5.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222639 [microsoft.com]

Or you should be able to disable this in group policy: Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer -> Enable "Disable Periodic Check for Internet Explorer Software Updates".

Didn't see anything in the User Configuration but that doesn't mean that it's not hidden somewhere and I missed it.

Re:They have design a webmail site...

[ChrisMP1]

They scan your emails and show non-obtrusive targeted ads off to the side, whereas Hotmail floods your inbox with crap mail, obscuring the mail that you actually want to see.

Missed a few points

[tcoady]

Just had a look in my hotmail as I've been using httpmail until it was broken by Leopard and have not had the "pleasure" to discover what I've been missing. It's true the first page you see is full of flashing ads, but when you actually get past that you find your inbox full of spam, some even from various Microsoft departments. Then you look in your spam and find a bunch of mail that's legitimate. When you mark stuff as spam it goes in to "Deleted items" - no wonder hotmail never seems to learn what's spam and what's not!

When you finally get to read a message it starts warning that the mere act of opening it is dangerous, and offers links to self congratulatory advertising disguised as help saying stuff like "Sender ID is a technical solution started by Microsoft" and goes on to boast that "Windows Live Hotmail treats all messages that fail Sender ID and phishing tests as fraudulent" which is a bit excessive considering the world has yet to be convinced Sender ID is some kind of panacea for phishing.

It used to be that if the mail contained links it would open with an iframe displaying sponsorshop messages, but today I see that there are no hyper-links for something that clearly is that, not only with dots but preceded with http, but no, I have have to copy and paste this in to a new tab. I really can't think of any mail client that would deny a hyper-link when it saw one.

Next: at the top of the message there is a message saying "Attachments, pictures, and links in this message have been blocked for your safety. Show content" - when I click show content nothing changes except I don't see this warning. So I guess this warning is there just because it does not comply with MS Sender ID, hardly an intelligent algorithm for warning people about something that may or may not exist.

I expect I could go on and on, but I think you get the drift..

Windows Live Mail is pretty impressive

[blchoat]

Windows Live Mail has a very clean interface. After you log in it shows you the news highlights for the day and how much of you 5GB of storage that you are using. Once you click on Inbox the only ad that you see, note I said ad, is the banner ad at the top of the page. Unlike Gmail where there are ads down the side and the top of my messages. AS for the address you can get to Hotmail by typing http://www.hotmail.com/ [hotmail.com] or http://mail.live.com/ [live.com]. While it may redirect to http://by108w.bay108.mail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx [live.com] you certainly do not need to type that whole address.

As for logging in and having to use the @hotmail.com, that allows them to have more addresses than Google could ever hope to. They can use addresses for any of their sites: @msn.com, @uk.msn.com or any other site.

I would have to say that Windows Live Mail currently kicks the crap out of Gmail.

Re:They have design a webmail site...

[Titoxd]

1998 called, and it wants its FUD back. Hotmail does ask you whether you would like to get newsletters; however, you can always click through that page, and you never get anything. I've used Hotmail for at least five years, and Gmail for a couple, and I've never had a problem with neither one sending me crap I don't like.

FUD is bad, regardless of whether it is pro-Google FUD, or anti-Google FUD.

Blocked EXE attachments

[dinther]

...They would block you from sending exe files and even zip files containing exe files forcing users to rename the file and instruct the receiver to rename them back. Very user friendly.

Oh wait, GMail blocks those already. Glad to know .z files go through. Damn, I gave it away. Soon they will be blocked too.

Re:They have design a webmail site...

[ChrisMP1]

For this to constitute evidence, it would have to happen to more people than just you. I never get spam at my Gmail address.

Re:They have design a webmail site...

[freyyr890]

If google were selling email to spammers, it's kinda contradictory that they would include an excellent antispam feature. I've had my email address published in various places across the web, obscured. I get on average 20-30 spam messages a day as a result. They all go to the spam folder, and I've never had a false positive.

Re:They have design a webmail site...

[Ash Vince]

Thanks for the info, but the vulnerability you linked to would require me to go to a website that contained the cross site scripting attack. Almost every complicated site is vulnerable to XSS in one form or another if the user can be fooled in this matter. In order for you to read my email I need to click on a specially crafted link that you create that will take me to gmail.

The problem is that I already have link that takes me to gmail: http://www.google.com./ [www.google.com] As soon as you make it any more complicated I will probably smell a rat. Why would I trust a link to gmail from anyone apart from google? If you could get your link to the top of the google search results for "gmail" you might be in with a chance.

If you know anything about web development and hacking you know that XSS is a nightmare to prevent if you have users that really are stupid enough to click on every random link to your site that they find.

The Hotmail hack could be executed by anyone with very little technical knowledge and no action on the part of the user of the email box you were trying to snoop on (Apart from the obvious issue of going to hotmail in the first place).

Please tell me you understand the difference between these two types of attack or you have no place taking place in a discussion of internet security.

Re:They have design a webmail site...

[SuperQ]

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_privacy.html [google.com]

Unfortunately, this was the third link when I googled for "gmail retention policy", but it answers a lot of questions about gmail privacy. Hell, it's even written in English that I can understand.

To quote: "We will make reasonable efforts to remove deleted information from our systems as quickly as is practical."

Sounds good enough to me.