So I got set up with a GMail web-based e-mail account today (thanks Pat) and my initial impressions are favorable.
The promise of lots of space (1 GB) is a welcome reprieve from the "you get 5 MB and we delete it all if you don't touch it regularly" web-based e-mail systems I'm used to (Google apparently gives you 9 months of inactivity before taking action).
The interface is simple and straight-forward without a lot of bells and whistles (yet). The text ads are unobtrusive (though it might be nice to userContent.css-hide that table containing them.) The "flagging" UI behaves similarly to the orkut ratings with a little star image that behaves like a checkbox. Folders are replaced with "labels" that you can define and attach to any message. I don't have enough mail yet to evaluate the threaded sorting or the archiving features so I'll post more when I've got more.
update: Blonker suggests in the comments that I post my gmail address here to get some mail for further testing. Sounds good to me. Especially if commenting is broken (as it seems to be most of the time these days) just drop me a line at asadotzler@gmail.com :)
I've been playing around with it some more and I'm really starting to appreciate some of the UI touches. The spellchecking is quite nice, all in place without using other windows and popups. The reply and forward UI is clean and simple too, expanding the current view rather than replacing it. So far, this is really nice.
update2: well, hiding the ads was pretty easy. table[class="metatable"]{display: none !important;} in userContent.css seems to do the trick just fine. Thanks to those of you who are sending me test mails.
Posted by asa at April 7, 2004 08:53 PMWow. Color me jealous. =)
Posted by: penrou on April 7, 2004 09:08 PMHey, post your Gmail address here and you will be able to check the rest of the features very soon ;)
Does gmail support pop3?
Posted by: José Jeria on April 8, 2004 05:12 AMSounds brilliant, cant wait till i get my hands on one. - and oneday i will find someone that has an orkut account i have not yet found anyone here in australia that has one.
Hey Asa, have you discovered http://del.icio.us yet? It's like a self-generating daypop with the ability for you to subscribe to other's bookmark list - as well as relative rankings of bookmarks based on the number of folks who have it in their list. The description may sound uninteresting, but it's amazingly cool, and I've been finding that great links show up there on del.icio.us at least a week before they populate through the "blogosphere".
You can create your own acct and "subscribe" to other's lists... its really cool.
Posted by: Andrew Wooldridge on April 8, 2004 09:52 AMDoes it have a limit on attachement size?
And since you posted your address here you will now get to test out gmail's spam filters. ;-)
Posted by: Jeff Hume on April 8, 2004 01:54 PMHate to be a buzzkill, but I'd thought I'd share some concerns that privacy advocates have with the new Google mail service:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/03/google_mail_is_evil_privacy/
Posted by: Eric Lutz on April 8, 2004 02:42 PM