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The Internet

Yahoo Boosts Email Space in response to Gmail 707

Posted by CmdrTaco from the battle-of-bits-and-bytes dept.
coleslawjoe writes "This article at New York Times explains that Yahoo has decided to boost their E-mail space (Soul sucking registration required) from their current 4 megabytes to 100 in response to Gmail. They are also planning to offer 2 gig mailboxes for $19.99(USD)."
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Yahoo Boosts Email Space in response to Gmail More

Yahoo Boosts Email Space in response to Gmail

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  • not all accts upgraded yet? (Score:5, Informative)

    by polymorpheus ( 748411 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:57AM (#9428520)
    Looks like only 2 of my 3 Yahoo! accounts got the boost overnight? Anyone know more details about the rollout? polymorpheus

  • 100mb? WOW! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Apage43 ( 708800 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:57AM (#9428530) Homepage
    Why ever would I want a whole gigabyte? I'll just go to yahoo and get one-hundred entire megabytes of wonderful inbox space, on a page riddled with graphical advertisements. This is so much better than a gigabyte of inbox space, on a page with text ads. I'll tell all my friends about Yahoo!'s new, awesome offer.

    • Re:100mb? WOW! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dracolytch ( 714699 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:04AM (#9428614) Homepage
      All superficial jabbing aside... The 100 megs is here ~today~, coupled with some of the best spam-filtering available, and without some of the privacy issues that will cause problems for gmail overseas.

      I'll take "Free existing cool service" over "Free theoretical awesome service" any day.

      ~D

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:51AM (#9429087)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:100mb? WOW! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by A55M0NKEY ( 554964 )
        So true. Their spam filtering is the best, and bulk email doens't count against your quota. The 4 mb limit isn't even really an issue now unless you want to send a file that is bigger than 4 mbs. 4MB goes a LONG way if you restrict yourself to text and links.

        The article said they are going to allow people to download mail to third party email clients. This is great! Yahoo seems to be saying: We don't care about the pittance we make off email banner adverts, we are willing to TRUELY GIVE you a larger m

        • Re:100mb? WOW! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Dracolytch ( 714699 )
          Another advantage of going to a web page: It is MUCH better against virii. Even if they didn't have built-in virus scanning, it takes additional steps to dowload/execute malicious code.

          ~D
    • No one is happier than I that Yahoo is increasing my quota. I'm just about out of space, and don't want to irritate my friends by bouncing back their messages. My mom can get pretty pissed too.

      How long before spam starts including multimedia files that eat up the extra allocation? Now that so many people have broadband, there's no reason to stick to smaller messages. Emails may start to include much more advanced/annoying graphics, sounds and maybe interactive ad-games.

    • Re:100mb? WOW! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MonTemplar ( 174120 ) * on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:06AM (#9428632) Homepage Journal
      Of course, everyone and their dog can apply for a Yahoo! Mail account right now. GMail is still in beta at the moment. Yeah, I know, kind of spoils your joke, and you put so much effort into it too... :D

      -MT.

    • Re:100mb? WOW! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sapped ( 208174 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `nevohnegnalm'> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:09AM (#9428655)
      Actually, for paying customers they have removed the adverts as well.

      Thus, right now, today, I am sitting with a 2 gig mailbox with no adverts. Google will have to get their product out the door sharpish to overcome the inertia that Yahoo is creating right now.

    • Re:100mb? WOW! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mard ( 614649 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:28AM (#9428816)
      There were other changes to Y! Mail today that weren't announced, including an updated interface and an increased message size limit (was 3MB, is now 10MB).

      Yahoo also recently decided that any messages that get filtered to your Spam folder no longer count towards your maximum email limit - a change that had a HUGE impact on how often I have to check my email. I have a 6mb free yahoo account, for some reason, but would have to check my mail daily to prevent any legitimate mail from being blocked when my box filled. Since the change, I haven't seen my limit go up by 1% :)

      With 100MB and this new rule, I definately wouldn't have to leave Yahoo! Mail for lack of space. However, there are plenty of reasons I'll be moving to gmail upon release anyways. Yahoo, if you're listening, here goes:

      1) Large and Obnoxious flash ads. These should have died with the dotcom era.

      2) When switching accounts, for instance when my mother checks her email, I have to first click the [Logout] link, then I have to click your "Return to Yahoo! Mail"-link in order to enter the new login info. Of course this page has many ads, all of which I ignore. I'm not changing logins so that I can save 25% on car insurance, or whatever you seem to think I'm interested. I've never intentionally clicked on a single one of your ads, btw.

      3) I have to enter my password once a day? My computer is secure, so feel free to save my password for the next 30 years if you'd like. Or at least give me the option to do so, because that's what I would like.

      4) The stability this morning was crap :) Not sure if that is from them updating or what, but it was annoying enough.

      5) The new color scheme on the front page is, for lack of a better word, gay (it's light purple, ffs). The rest of the 'new' UI is... pretty, but I don't see any changes besides rounder triangles.

      All of this aside, the one major improvement that would make me consider switching to any mail service is an improvement over my current spam detection rate. It's at about 95% blocked now. If any other webmail services can improve on that without more false-positives, I'm sure they'll make plenty of devoted fans.

  • hrmmm 2 gig for $20 or 1 gig for free? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hot_Karls_bad_cavern ( 759797 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:58AM (#9428534) Journal
    Hrm...tough choice, i'd say. Heh, they are all going to be playing catch-up to Google for a bit anyway; hopefully we can see more (and better) deals in light of google bringing us such great things (like so many other company's have decided not to do, instead money-grubbing and pulling and biting and lying to get another dollar from you.

  • no registration needed link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:58AM (#9428535)
    no registration required [nytimes.com]

  • Yahoo! is missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ponds ( 728911 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:58AM (#9428539)
    What makes Gmail incredible and revolutionary is the search features, the amazing interface, the threading, the labeling, and the tried and true "google minimalism."

    Getting 1000mB's of space is just a side effect, that's there because gmail makes it desirable to archive multiple entire mailing lists.

    Yahoo! is missing the point.
    • I will have to take your word for it.

    • Re:Yahoo! is missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jdreed1024 ( 443938 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:34AM (#9428872)
      What makes Gmail incredible and revolutionary is the search features, the amazing interface, the threading, the labeling, and the tried and true "google minimalism."

      Getting 1000mB's of space is just a side effect, that's there because gmail makes it desirable to archive multiple entire mailing lists.

      Yahoo, once upon a time, was also search engine. (Yes, yes, it was called the Yahoo directory, but it did eventually do crawling) And a pretty good one, too. (I'm talking back when it was still a Stanford project, like another search engine [google.com]) It's not inconceivable they had a project like this on the back burner that's getting ramped up to compete with Google. Granted, I don't think they have a chance, just because of the way Google works, their strong desire for simplicity, and the desire to keep the ads out of the search results.

      What's most notable, however, is that Yahoo is doing this right now. And we don't even have a firm release date for Gmail. It's still in beta. If Yahoo is already scared of a beta service, that's saying something.

      • Re:Yahoo! is missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Malc ( 1751 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:49AM (#9429060)
        Before the web became so large, Yahoo had the best search engine too, beating all those like Lycos and Hotbot. Because of it's hand-crafted directory, it provided the best context for each site returned in a search, and it provided an easy way of finding other sites of the same type. What couldn't be found that way could be with a little more effort on Altavista. Of course, Yahoo still has their directory, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as useful today - perhaps that's credit Google and the quality of their search engine.
    • The 2GB option for paying users features search.

  • big Surprise (Score:4, Interesting)

    by joshsnow ( 551754 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:59AM (#9428547) Journal
    Big surprise there. Yahoo need to do something to remain competitive.

    I'm personally waiting for gmail to come out of beta and then I'll probably move from yahoo to google locak, stock and two smoking spam filters!

    Offtopic, but why does google engender a warm fuzzy feeling of trust whereas yahoo, hotmail and the rest "feel" like corporates out to make a quick buck? It's a totally false feeling, but it's happens...

    • Re:big Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Donny Smith ( 567043 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:06AM (#9428631)
      >Offtopic, but why does google engender a warm fuzzy feeling of trust whereas yahoo, hotmail and the rest "feel" like corporates out to make a quick buck? It's a totally false feeling, but it's happens...

      Wait till they go public.
      Today while typing a personal (naughty) message to friends on Gmail, I did feel uneasy knowing that I'll be "profiled" by AI bots, so I toned down the language :-) Really creepy!

      Originally I wanted to use Gmail for my personal stuff ('cause it "never" goes out of date) and Yahoo for memberships, resumes, etc., but I'm thinking about reversing my decision and doing the opposite.

      Well, for all we know, Yahoo might be doing the same, but still, at least I don't know about it.

  • 2GB Mailboxes (Score:2, Interesting)

    by clontzman ( 325677 )
    Not just a plan. My wife has a paid plan with Yahoo and she had 2GB this morning.

    I've gotta say, I think it's going to be hard for Gmail to compete. The Gmail Web interface isn't all that impressive and presuming that Yahoo and MSN can get their spam filtering and storage space up to snuff (Yahoo's got the space and the hotmail spam filtering is actually really good now), Google doesn't really have the breadth of services that the other guys do.

    That said, they're smart guys, so hopefully they're working o

    • Re:2GB Mailboxes (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pbur ( 88030 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:17AM (#9428723)
      Isn't all that impressive? Everytime I show it to people and show them all of the things it lets you do, they all start begging me for an invite. The Gmail interface is very utilitarian, much like their search interface. It also loads a *lot* faster than Yahoo!'s

    • Re:2GB Mailboxes (Score:3, Informative)

      by Malc ( 1751 )
      You're right. I just logged in and got this page:

      Welcome to the new and improved
      Yahoo! Mail Plus.

      Thanks for being a loyal Yahoo! Mail user. We've made some great changes to Mail Plus, effective immediately! You'll have all the features of your current Yahoo! Mail Plus account, and many more - at no additional cost*!

      Here's even more to love about Yahoo! Mail Plus:

      * No graphical ads
      When you're using the Mail web interface, your experience will be even more enjoyable.
      * Streamlined interfa

    • Re:2GB Mailboxes (Score:3, Informative)

      by klui ( 457783 )
      3 things GMail has won me over Yahoo.

      1. No ads
      2. Email address completion works under FireFox, Safari, IE. Yahoo's completion only works for IE and you need to download a program.
      3. You can enable SSL for the entire connection, not just at login.

      Of course, there's no virus scanner and no import/export of contacts, but hopefully, Google will be taking care of this.

      All-in-all, GMail feels a lot like a standalone app while Yahoo (still) feels more like a web app (press a link/button, and watch the screen re
  • I logged in this morning and saw the new user interface and the 2G limit. I've never had my yahoo mail down to 1% before. :)

    And another bonus is that yahoo does not count items in their bulk mail (spam) folder towards your quota.

    Now to fill up my 2G limit. I think I'll mail myself some CDs.
  • is a word better suited to Hotmail which still holds a tight noose around its subscribers, zapping them and their accounts everyonce in a while when the account goes above limit.

    I forked over 20 bucks the last year in to Bill's coffers but I dont plan to do so now that Yahoo and Google has services far better.

  • I'm glad to see Yahoo... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dagny Taggert ( 785517 ) <hankreardenNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:00AM (#9428560) Homepage
    ...throwing down the gauntlet. I have had a Yahoo Plus account for a little over a year now, so I got my 2Gb space when I logged in this morning. At this point, Yahoo has the advantage of an online calendar (a great tool if you are a traveler)and the ability to sort your mail into folders. I also have a GMail account, mainly because it was offered to me. While the idea of that much space is appealing, I don't like not being able to sort my mail. Furthermore, I believe this encourages people to store documents online, a practice that is, IMHO, dangerous given the problems that Hotmail has had recently.
  • No one is happier than I that Yahoo is increasing my quota. I'm just about out of space, and don't want to irritate my friends by bouncing back their messages. My mom can get pretty pissed too.

    How long before spam starts including multimedia files that eat up the extra allocation? Now that so many people have broadband, there's no reason to stick to smaller messages. Emails may start to include much more advanced/annoying graphics, sounds and maybe interactive ad-games.

  • They also sent out messages to paying customers overnight that they are over their limit now.

    My 0% of 25 MB used resulted in me getting an email that I was over my 2 MB limit.

    After paying their ridiculous fee and getting such crappy support and jerky emails, I welcome the switch to GMail.

    • Re:Bugs, Bugs. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Stalus ( 646102 )

      Here's a snippet from my e-mail:

      You are currently exceeding your Yahoo! Mail storage quota by a very large amount. You are only allowed -2048.0MB of storage but you are currently using 0.0MB of storage. Your account has been temporarily disabled from receiving new messages.

      The easiest way to continue receiving your important email is to expand your mailbox. Yahoo! Mail offers 10, 25, 50 and 100MB of storage space starting at just $9.99/year.

      Nice to know that I can only have negative storage. Looks l

  • But wait, there's more!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by jkabbe ( 631234 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:01AM (#9428578)
    I am really excited about their new DHTML-enabled interface. I just can't read mail without links that change colors when you hover over them!!!

  • Awww (Score:2)

    by gspr ( 602968 )
    I've had my Yahoo mail account for so long that I have 6 MB instead of the regular 4. Do I get 150 MB then? Pweease?
  • Nice muted colour scheme, unlike some [slashdot.org] that I can think of... :D

    -MT.
  • I have been upgraded to 100MB but neither of my girlfriend's accounts (she has two) have been upgraded.

    I always download my email with POP, so they don't have to store many of mine wheras both of her accounts are at >80%. I suspect I've been upgraded cos I don't store many emails so it won't cost them too much and it looks like good PR.
    • Jeez. I mean this is tin-foil to the max.

      I am always sitting on > 80% on my yahoo account as I don't delete every email and don't use POP. Both my accounts have been upgraded.

      They are doing it because gmail upped the ante. They must be definitely wanting to make money from it. But atleast give them a little credit.
  • Why not just remotely access your own ISP-based email account?

    It's pretty easy to set up...

  • And when it's full... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darien ( 180561 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [neirad]> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:02AM (#9428593)
    That's cool. It'll be nice not to have to clear out my Yahoo! inbox every week. This will probably stop me migrating. After all everyone already knows my @yahoo.com email address.

    However, at some point my 100Mb box will be full, and I'll want to get it down to, say 50Mb. At which point I very much hope there'll be some decent new tools for bulk deletion. The idea of trying to free up 50Mb by clicking through page after page of email going "select... delete..." does not appeal.

    • Re:And when it's full... (Score:4, Informative)

      by glaHHg ( 468427 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:39AM (#9428942) Journal
      So go download a thing called yahoopops (or whatever it's called, google is down right now or I'd link it). It lets you check your yahoo email with a standard email client. So just download it then delete everything you don't think you'll need to access from anywhere.
      Okay google's back here's the url: http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/
  • ....right here [bugmenot.com].

  • umm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <mrpuffypants@gma ... inus threevowels> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:03AM (#9428602)
    Gmail: 1,024 megabytes
    Yahoo: 100 megabytes

    I think it's pretty clear that Yahoo is getting desperate and stupid; they most lileky don't have the infrastructure in place to offer 1GB email accounts or they already would have. 100MB is just a temporary kludge to keep existing users from flocking to GMail as long as possible (p.s: it won't work!)

    • Re:umm (Score:2, Informative)

      by martone66 ( 643104 )
      Hotmail: 2 megabytes

      Hotmail is still their main competitor, at least until Gmail comes out of beta and everyone and their mother can sign up for an account.
    • I believe they do have the infra and I think the problem is it's Network Appliance-based and hence outrageously expensive!

      1GB of NetApp NFS vs. 1GB of Linux NFS

      1GB of Linux NFS is essentially priced same as HDD (per-GB cost - take a 200GB NFS server and cost of the box becomes miniscule as it breaks down to 1/200th per GB).

    • Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mjh ( 57755 ) <.moc.nalcnroh. .ta. .kram.> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:32AM (#9428849) Homepage Journal
      (p.s: it won't work!)

      Actually it might. Right now, only beta testers can migrate to gmail. But most people can't. So they can't weigh whether the gmail service is better/worse than yahoo. As a consequence, people may discover that 100MB of mail space is all they need. If they're used to 6MB of mail space, 100MB is a huge increase. The decision isn't just between an additional 94MB and 994MB. It's between:

      • 1000GB
      • 100MB + keep current email address
      Don't discount the cost of switching your email address. Keeping your email address is probably worth a whole lot more to most people than an additional 900MB of disk space... especially if they've been getting by with 6MB of disk space.

      IMHO, this is a really good move on Yahoo's part. It will be interesting to see how well it works.

  • who'd have thought... (Score:4, Funny)

    by professorhojo ( 686761 ) * on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:03AM (#9428603)
    we could all get so gooey over webmail again? or is it just me... ? ;-)

  • Cool. More spam (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AppyPappy ( 64817 )
    Great. I can hold more spam. My Yahoo account is almost useless from the weight of spam in it. It's like a magnet for every weird spam too. I get spam for penis shrinking, failing stocks to buy, expensive generic drugs and elderly Amish women pics.

    That's what I get for subscribing to that Campus Crusade for Habakkuk list

    • Re:Cool. More spam (Score:3, Interesting)

      by microTodd ( 240390 )
      Um, Yahoo clearly states that mail in the "Bulk" (SPAM) folder does not couny against your upper limit.

      I actually think that Yahoo's spam filtering is very good. I only get a few false positives a month. And there is also a mailbox-specific domain blocker that you have control over.

      Pretty good service for free, methinks.

      P.S. Thanks for Slahdotting mail.yahoo.com guys! Now I can't check my mail!
  • Somebody go get an account with them and test out their spam filters!

  • Comparison (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:05AM (#9428625) Journal
    100 megs to 1 gig
    Let me ponder on that thought while I delete my 200 + spam mails a day, that I need to sort through manually to inspect that it does not contain any of my friends.
    The 200 + spam mails a day is a recent event. About two-three months ago I used to average about 20-40 a day - all of a sudden there was a huge surge.
    I won't mind giving Gmail a try and hope their spam filters are better. While I do not mind a skyscraper ad, on the side of my email, I do mind pop-ups/under. I hope that the ads they propose won't contain porn/hate websites....it would be annoying if I am at work trying to read my email but cannot due to the half naked woman to the right of my e-mail.
  • My Yahoo mail account is now at 100MB (spam away)
    The Yahoo mail homepage also reflects this fact here [yahoo.com]

  • Brilliant strategy! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter AT tedata DOT net DOT eg> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:09AM (#9428649) Journal
    This article at New York Times explains that Yahoo has decided to boost their E-mail space (Soul sucking registration required) from their current 4 megabytes to 100 in response to Gmail. They are also planning to offer 2 gig mailboxes for $19.99(USD)

    Hmm. Now, let's figure out which business deal is better, shall we?

    Do I either,
    A) Pay $20 for a 2 gig Yahoo box, or
    B) Open up 2 GMail accounts for free and still have 2 gigs of storage.

    Now, the true genius will suddenly realize that if you open 3 accounts, that means you have 3 gigs of space, and that's more than 2 gigs that Yahoo offers. How many of you figured that one out?
  • ...since their spam filtering doesnt perform that well and, in consequence, the hapless user will be turned into a garbage collector, having to click on individual mails from a list that spans over several 20-lines screens.

    And I'm talking about Yahoo-sponsored spam!!

    And they might charge their users for a improved spam filter.

    Damn suits!

  • all the rest (including hotmail, aol, yahoo) will be that the others will be selling your info that you register and from your e-mail while google will not. This will be no different than the way that Yahoo/MSN/AOL currently sell your login to spammers (and MSN/AOL will actually offer bandwidth/client ip's to these same spammers).
  • I was graced today when, still almost asleep, I signed in in my Yahoo-mail, and was greeted by the upgrade message.

    Funnily (is that a word? :), I thought I had clicked in a wrong link, so I clicked the back button and re-did the sign in, and to my surprise, there it was again!

    Still trying to like the new interface, though.

    Competition is good, isn't it? :-)

    If only there were two blondes trying to please me...
  • Really, I'm quite curious...

    I can see why, say, maximum message size could be an issue, and that would be a direct relation to max storage space. So if you only had 5MB, then somebody can't e-mail you an 8MB attachment (which is likely only 4MB, but thanks to the wonders of 7bit e-mails...)

    However, one would imagine (at least, I do), that a user would download any such-sized e-mail and promptly rid the online storage space of it.

    So what are the uses of having hundreds of megabytes or even a/2 gigabyte of

  • Looks like it only applies to .com's (Score:4, Informative)

    by Spad ( 470073 ) <{ku.oc.daps} {ta} {todhsals}> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:11AM (#9428678) Homepage
    My .co.uk address is still stuck on 6Mb - although I have been getting free POP access ever since they started charging .com accounts for it, so it's not all bad news.

  • Not all Yahoo! email boxes 4Meg (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Like2Byte ( 542992 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {etyB2ekiL}> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:11AM (#9428680) Homepage
    I began using Yahoo! Mail years ago and I've had 6MB per email address (I've got two) ever since. When I signed my mother and father up to have Yahoo! Mail accounts two years later they were given 4M accounts.

    The first thought I had though since being notified of the increase was, "How the heck am I going to keep track of all the junk I'll eventually have to delete?" My answer was, "To never allow it to clog in the first place by removing immediately any e-mails that I may want to save." The obvious answer.

    IIRC, Yahoo only allows you to set up 10 rules for handling the email you receive. This is troublesome because now that we've been given so much free space, I know people will want to seperate their space by using folders - ideally, automatically - for just about everything and everyone they know. But, if 10 rules are the limit, I see in the future that limitations on space won't be the driving factor in attracting customers. Once again, it will all boil down to service and services available (options, rules, etc.) to the end user.
  • As an early Yahoo! user, I had a 6 MB box, which proved how '1337 I was. Now I'm just a 100MB schlub like everyone else.

  • Size doesn't really matter! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jbarr ( 2233 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:34AM (#9428871) Homepage
    It's the other features such as Search, Labels, Conversations, Keyboard Shortcuts, and a lightning-fast interface that leverage the larger storage space. Anyone can offer tons of space, but unless you provide tools to effectivly utilize it, it's just space.

  • The evils of capitalism (Score:5, Funny)

    by santos_douglas ( 633335 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:34AM (#9428874) Journal
    and unbridled competition are once again evident as Yahoo has used its monopoly power to force an additional 96MB of space on us all!

  • how to get rid of ads (Score:5, Interesting)

    by supernova87a ( 532540 ) <kepler1&hotmail,com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:46AM (#9429026)
    For those who might be curious, I found an easy way to get rid of ads when reading your gmail (if for some reason, ads really bother you).

    Just ask everyone to put the word "died" at the end of their messages. Gmail has this filter that tries not to be too insensitive by plastering your browser with ads for caskets next to news that Uncle Bob just died, so I guess it searches for words like that.

    I tried with the words "disaster", "died", etc. and they all caused ads to disappear.

    It might be creepy though after a while if every email had the word "died" at the bottom.... )

  • Why do you have so much email? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by prwood ( 7060 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @10:04AM (#9429218) Homepage
    I don't understand the need for these gargantuan email boxes. My personal (non-work) IMAP mailbox has mail dating back to July 2002 (all of my email before that is archived and I never look at it), and it's just under 60 megabytes. At that rate, I would reach Yahoo!'s limit by the end of 2008, at which point I would probably just archive my email again. My work email is an entirely separate, company-provided account, but I still only have 186 megabytes of email going back to May 2000. 46.5 megabytes per year.

    I think if you're using 1-2 GB for your email, then you should consider some non-email ways of managing your data. There are already many sites on the internet that archive mailing lists, so there's no need to keep around a personal copy of list mail. Purging the Trash and deleting spam messages helps to save space. Instead of emailing large files, consider serving them up on the web, ftp, etc. Even if you do email large files, there's no need to keep them in your mailbox after they are downloaded. Save them to your computer, burn them to a CD if needed, and delete them.

    Then again, maybe everyone else on the internet is just way more popular than I am.

  • Pros and cons of both (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pen ( 7191 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @10:29AM (#9429504)

    Yahoo

    • Still only one tenth the space of Gmail
    • Still has annoying graphical ads.
    • but:
    • Open and available now and for everyone
    • Compatible with older browsers.
    • Integrated with Yahoo's other services like Calendar and Notepad

    Yahoo is hoping that increasing the storage space to 100MB will keep a lot of people from switching to Gmail.

    Gmail

    • 1000MB of storage
    • Great interface with convenient searching
    • Very calm and non-intrusive advertising
    • but:
    • Still a closed beta
    • Issues still being worked out (Google has been very responsive about the bugs I have reported, even though they were low-priority)
    • If you're already a Yahoo user, requires changing habits (aka new player on the field)
    • Currently only compatible with the newest browsers (Google says they're working on an alternative simpler version)

    • Re:Pros and cons of both (Score:3, Informative)

      by Yeroc ( 125826 )
      I have both a GMail and Yahoo account right now and I think things are still tilted more in Yahoo's favour than Google's though as GMail is still in beta this could change before they go live.

      The Addressbook in GMail is extremely minimal. All you can record is the name (one field, no separate fields for first and last name etc.), a single email address (a lot of people I know have both a personal and work address) and some freeform notes. Yahoo (and Hotmail) have substantially better Addressbooks with Ho

  • This is how storage space claim will be rendered (Score:3, Insightful)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:46PM (#9431339) Homepage
    irrelevant. No one really needs more than 100M of email space. Now they will have to compete on convenience, features, etc. They (they being Google) are still in a strong position, but not as strong as before. If I were to choose between email providers I'd use the one that has POP3 (or IMAP) available and better spam filtering.

    I actually thing Google screwed themselves by announcing this service too early in the game. If they announced a full blown, stable version they'd have a GIANT market lead.
    • I agree with you. And here's some relevant ramblings.

      I don't know if you've actually tried Yahoo's Plus service, but I have it and it rocks. Besides the 2GB storage space, I *DO* have POP access to my Yahoo mail account. Couple that with Yahoo's near perfect spam filtering (I see maybe 2 or 3 spam a day out of about 500 I receive every day), and it's really a helluva service.

      Besides email Yahoo also gives me a personal home page that is VERY configurable, a nice address book with import/export capabili

  • It must be me.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by the_real_se7en_,' ( 741984 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @02:18PM (#9432537)
    Figures... Last night i had to clean out 2 of my 4 yahoo emails because they were both over 90% full. And if I would of waited till today I could of left them all there. Damned my luck to hell!

  • yahoo doesn't get it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zorander ( 85178 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @02:24PM (#9432610) Homepage Journal
    I haven't used yahoo's mail in a few years, but as I remember the interface was clunky, slow, and painful, and there were adds above and/or below.

    Regardless of the space they give you, that's probel number one. GMail has a very slick interface. It's as responsive as a web based user interface as any of the standalone mail programs I have used, which is very impressive. From what I hear, there is an 80kb .js file that is cached locally and after that everything is very very quick.

    There isn't any difference between one gigabyte and one hundred megabytes to 99.9% of the people out there who could fit their mail in a few megs easily. It's really only power-users/mailing list subscribers who'll even approach one hundred. Heck, at my school I'm capped at $150 and after a year of deleting nothing I'm only at 30%. I'm a member of python-dev and wxpython-users which are both moderately trafficked groups and used to belong to python-users which is a very high traffic group. All these messages (thousands) are still around. It would take me a lot of time to fill that 150M, much less a gigabyte.

    In any case, Yahoo should follow google's lead in the ad policies/user interface, rather than raw space. You could offer a terabyte and no one would even approach it, *it doesn't matter* If you're using a gig on gmail right now, chances are you are either being gratuitously inefficient or somehow abusing the system (using it for backup or something). There's just no way.

    Brian

  • Storage comes second -- boolean search rocks! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SnakeStu ( 60546 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @02:27PM (#9432648) Homepage

    It's been awhile since I had a Yahoo! account, but what I remember of it was pretty much like every other Web-based email system -- every other, except Gmail. Sure, sure, the storage space is nice, but that's just a component of what really makes Gmail useful: Full-featured search capability.

    Here's an example, from which you can extrapolate your own interests (coding, or recipes, or political commentary, etc., instead of models). As a photographer [musecube.com], I like to be kept informed about new models in my area who have signed up with OneModelPlace.com [onemodelplace.com]. So, I have signed up with that site to get automated notifications, which now go to my Gmail account. When I get a notification, I decide -- by looking at the model's portfolio -- whether it's a "keeper" or not. If not, I delete it, because I don't want it coming up in my searches later. If it's a keeper, I tack on a "Interesting Models" label and archive the message. That's where the big storage helps.

    Then, when I want to find a model that meets certain criteria, I can do a search in my Gmail account. For example, I could do a search for "nude AND edmonds" if I wanted to find a model in Edmonds, WA who is available for nude work. This is better than doing a search on OMP directly, because I know the model's portfolio isn't "stale" (since some "models" on OMP are no longer modeling), and I've already culled out those models I probably wouldn't be interested in working with (for whatever reason -- cost, looks, etc.), so my results in my Gmail search are prequalified.

    Other features of Gmail are nice, but not necessarily unique. For example, Opera's email client allows the use of labels (although I haven't used that client enough to know if they work as well as Gmail's label feature). Other features are underpowered or missing -- if you're looking for a Web-based email address that has lots of integration gimmicks, then Gmail doesn't cut it, at least not yet. But for raw power for the core purpose of handling email, I'm liking Gmail more and more.

    Obviously, as with any Web-based email, or really any non-encrypted email, there are privacy concerns, but those can be managed. While I probably won't use Gmail for personal mail very often (if ever), I certainly will use it for newsletters and other content that I might want to be able to search in the future.

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