Slashdot Mirror
Forbes Reviews Google's Gmail [updated]
An anonymous reader submits "Forbes.com has what looks to be the first hands-on review of Google's forthcoming Gmail service. Aside from the 1-gigabyte storage, the searching features sound pretty useful for what the writer calls 'email packrats' which I think fits me pretty well. But I can't say I agree with the writer's opinion that privacy fears, as discussed this Slashdot thread, about the Gmail service are 'overblown.' Still and all, I'm curious to try it myself and see what I think." Update: 04/13 00:55 GMT by T : notEA writes "A California state senator is drafting legislation to block Google from releasing Gmail. Seems kind of silly, since all anti-spam filters read your messages anyway."
It's hardly a good review. It's descriptive of the features, but the author makes it a point to emphasize apparent facts. He dedicates one paragraph just defending the fact that 1 GB is good for you, as if there was strong opposition and people lined up with posters "Give me back my Hotmail 2 MB!" outside of Google's offices.
Then in two paragraphs he explains what "clear text" means, providing gratuitous analogies of your ISP techs potentially reading your e-mail.
Here're some more interesting first-hand experiences:
GMail review, about spam filters and all
Another review with screenshots
Review from a current user with pictures and information on ads
Mark Pilgrim, complaining GMail's JavaScript broke his Firefox shortcuts.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves, here. You're not the first to invent this exploit, for certain. I am sure that Google has anticipated this, and will silently punish those that take advantage. I'm hearing that Spymac.com has offered a simliar 1GB storage email deal (also free, no less), and they'd have to be world-class idiots not to have some sort of protections in place to keep the system from being abused (I can't find their TOS, or I'd link it for you).
I think once GMail gets out of the gate, we'll see what clever method they have to keep the warez out. Maybe no binary attachments?
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
It should be possible to use public key encryption with inspected outgoing and incoming email gateways to ensure email content privacy.
-Incoming SMTP Email
| Incoming Gateway encrypts plaintext email with User's public Key
- Encrypted Email
| Gmail Web based email server
- Encrypted Email
| User's Web Brower with Javascript decrypt. User supplies/cut-pastes private Key
- Decrypted Email only at user browser side
| User Reads and enters reply into text window
| More Javascript encrypts outgoing content using outgoing gateway's public key
- Encrypted Email
| Outgoing Email gateway decrypts outgoing Email
- Decrypted Email
As long as the Incoming and Outgoing email servers remain seperate,subject to inspection and undergo regular auditing, then the email stored on Gmail will remain unreadable to Google.
I think they started doing it when they saw the demand after the early Apr google announcement and people thought it was an april fools joke.
Disk space is so cheap this isn't an amazing size -- I get 10GB (email+web hosting) for $10/month.
Ummm, you realize this is true for ANY email service? Any mail server is hosted on a server can can go down or crash. In fact, I would trust Google or Yahoo or MSN more. They usually have clusters of servers. If one goes down, it is unlikely that the other 99 aren't going to go down. And they keep regular backups and such.
I haven't R'd TFA yet, but I actually have a gmail account.
My verdict: it's FAST, most everything seems to be done in javascript, much like Orkut. It's like night and day compared to yahoo, and no obtrusive slow-loading ads.
As for the privacy stuff, Brin is right- it's pretty much gone anyway, complaining about AdSense is just rearranging the deck chairs.. Especially when you sign up for a free email service- how do you expect to have privacy with a free email service? Run your own mail server if you want privacy.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"