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Yahoo Boosts Email Space in response to Gmail

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)."

33 of 707 comments (clear)

  1. not all accts upgraded yet? by polymorpheus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Looks like only 2 of my 3 Yahoo! accounts got the boost overnight? Anyone know more details about the rollout? polymorpheus

    1. Re:not all accts upgraded yet? by FatalTourist · · Score: 4, Funny

      Here's the trick. Sign out and then sign back in. Went from 6MB to 100MB in seconds!

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  2. 100mb? WOW! by Apage43 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:100mb? WOW! by Dracolytch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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

      --
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    2. Re:100mb? WOW! by MonTemplar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      -MT.
    3. Re:100mb? WOW! by sapped · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:100mb? WOW! by Mard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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  3. no registration needed link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  4. Yahoo! is missing the point by ponds · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Yahoo! is missing the point by Malc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  5. Re:How about instead... by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The only reason people keep them around is that they're too lazy to delete them themselves. Not because they want to refer back to them.
    Speak for yourself! I do deliberately keep my email, and it pisses me off no end when I get some sort of hard disk crash that causes me to lose old archived email.

    Yahoo gives a warning when your mailbox reaches a certain size anyway, so it's easy to do some quick maintenance like delete that email with the absurdly large attachment to get the space back. But 100megs will certainly help.

    --
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  6. I'm glad to see Yahoo... by Dagny+Taggert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...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.

    --
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  7. And when it's full... by darien · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:And when it's full... by glaHHg · · Score: 4, Informative

      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/

  8. Re:How about instead... by dghcasp · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The only reason people keep [email] around is that they're too lazy to delete them themselves.

    Bullocks.

    There's lots of reasons people keep their email around basically forever... Some quick examples:

    • License keys
    • Particularly nice or significant email messages
    • Evidence that someone actually said something & can't deny it later
    • For future reference

    Or are you one of those Dilbert-esque PHB's who have your secretary print all your emails, file them in binders, then keep them under lock & key until you forget the key?

  9. Re:aah, yahoo is /.'d! by dennison_uy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, I think that's more a result of Yahoo migrating to the new system. I've seen the new interface from my friend's account like 6 hours ago and it looks pretty slick. He had thought Yahoo! was bugged but we kept refreshing and we were able to watch them migrate to the new interface in real time.

    I logged into my account and it was still using the old interface and had the old 4-megabyte limit. It wasn't until I logged in like 10 minutes ago that I logged in to see the new interface, although a bit broken ... they are still probably porting over some of the accounts ... I wonder why they couldn't make "global" changes that would affect all users at once, as it probably should be?

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  10. Re:big Surprise by Donny+Smith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    >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.

  11. Re:annoying I can only delete 25 messages at a tim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mail Options->General Preferences->Messages per page

  12. Not all Yahoo! email boxes 4Meg by Like2Byte · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  13. Re:hrmmm 2 gig for $20 or 1 gig for free? by fr0dicus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt it. People don't like changing their e-mail address, any more than they like changing their phone number, and anyone stuck with 4MB will find the new 100MB ceiling massively bigger. Yahoo are very effectively protecting their installed userbase.

  14. Re:How about instead... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    >> Particularly nice or significant email messages
    > Never got one I wanted to keep yet.

    i think this says it all, really.

    I'm sorry to hear that; I really am.

  15. Re:hrmmm 2 gig for $20 or 1 gig for free? by daoine · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It depends on how you look at the move. I don't think Yahoo is necessarily going to attract new customers with this model.

    However, with this move they're highly likely to retain their current paying customers. People who were paying for 20M get 2G for the same price. It's suddenly no longer worth the hassle to get an invite to Gmail, nor are you likely to move over once Gmail is public. Changing an email address is a pain, and if you were willing to pay before, you're likely to be willing to continue.

  16. Re:aah, yahoo is /.'d! by caluml · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah - microsoft.com resolves, but not www.microsoft.com. Same with gmail.google.com, and www.google.com.
    I imagine some people at Akamai are sweating a bit right now :)

  17. Re:How about instead... by boaworm · · Score: 4, Funny


    I do deliberately keep my email, and it pisses me off no end when I get some sort of hard disk crash that causes me to lose old archived email.


    Hey! someone found a problem to your solution just recently. Its called "Backup". A revolutionary new technology that allows you to make a copy of your data to a non-volotile memory "device", such as a tape or compact disk. The technology even supports you bringing the "device" offsite so it survives fires/burglaries etc
    Amazing, huh ? :)

    --
    Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
    Aristotele
  18. Re:umm by mjh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    (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.

    --
    Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
  19. Size doesn't really matter! by jbarr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
  20. The evils of capitalism by santos_douglas · · Score: 5, Funny

    and unbridled competition are once again evident as Yahoo has used its monopoly power to force an additional 96MB of space on us all!

  21. Re:Problems with upgrade by rbb · · Score: 4, Funny

    You call not being able to send HTML mail a problem?

    It's a new feature! ;-)

    --
    In God We Trust, Others We Monitor
  22. how to get rid of ads by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.... )

  23. Pros and cons of both by pen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)
  24. That's the spirit of slashdot for sure by melted · · Score: 4, Funny

    Screw a company that provides you with world-class service for free. Now that would be fair, right?

  25. Re:100 MB of storage is quite good. by cmacb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But the other thing to not forget is that Yahoo is ONLY doing this in response to Gmail. Prior to that Yahoo was actually taking away features and making more things only available to paying customers. I've been a Yahoo user almost since the beginning and have been constantly disappointed with any service that I paid them for. They have a tendency to bait and switch, or simply discontinue a service when it doesn't perform as they expected. I used their text paging service (for the year it was available) their local dial-up service (ditto) and am currently using Yahoo domains (which have been lowering their price in an effort to prevent erosion, rather than adding features).

    I don't give a company credit for innovation when all they are doing is responding to REAL innovation. Gmail, from what I've seen so far is better, faster, has an interesting alternative to folders which may prove to be more effective, and has a commitment to continue adding features to their free service. Google has no add on services that you can pay for and I think they intend to keep it that way. They have Yahoo and MSN quaking in their boots and I think thats a good thing.

    I'll stick with Gmail until something BETTER, not just AS GOOD comes along.

  26. Re:Yahoo Support by Ctrl-Z · · Score: 4, Informative
    Does this help?
    1. Go to http://www.yahoo.com/.
    2. Click on "Help".
    3. Click on "Mail" under "Help by Feature or Service".
    4. Click on "How do I contact Yahoo! Mail Customer Care?" under "Contacting Yahoo! Mail Customer Care".
    5. Press the "No" button beside "Click No to contact Yahoo! Customer Care.".
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