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Gmail Cracks Down on Third-Party Notifiers
crtfdgk writes "Recently, Google's gmail service has attempted to change login protocols to block third-party gmail notifiers that alert you to new email. Google has now taken it one step further and created a word-identification script filter as part of the login process. Personally, I find Google's gmail notifier annoying since it sits in my taskbar and doesn't have popup notification, unlike many other worthy Firefox or Mozilla plugins that feature gmail notification. Shouldn't I be free to use whatever third party software to check my email? Will we be seeing controls on browsers that can view gmail next?"
I've been trying to imagine why google would do such an un-google thing. Perhaps they're worried about coders going to next level, and coding up entire gmail readers--or incorporating gmail account readers into something like Thunderbird. Adding that word-identification script filter to the login process would certainly prevent something like that--but also has the side effect of blowing up the seemingly innocuous gmail email notifier.
Which leads me to wonder how google's own system tray email notification program can still work. Obviously it's still possible, in theory, to do this same thing in spite of the word-identification script filter. Perhaps google will publish an API that 3rd party developers can use solely for the use of gmail notification abilities in their own programs.
I can't believe (thought it's definitely possible) that their goal would be to blow up only the 3rd party email notification programs. It seems like 3rd party notification programs would serve to only promote the use of gmail. And, as far as I know, they gain no ad revenue directly from their gmail notification system tray icon.
They actually publish an API for doing (limited) google searches in 3rd party programs, which seems like a more overt way to avoid ads and avoid google's revenue source. Maybe that'll be history soon, who knows? I hope this isn't an indication of their new corporate policy and philosophy.
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
I notice no word verification... I like the google gmail notifier it does do pop ups. :) plus you can choose "tell me again" to see the pop up again if you missed it.
I suggest either running your own email server, or getting a decent imap account from your isp. Although webmail services may be convenient at times, you have to come to grips with the fact thats its a webmail service, so you're not going to get all the bells and whistles. Gmail is neato, but I don't think it's good enough for the power user.
Hi there
They have a right to do this. I like Google's services as much as the next person, but I think it's a bit silly to unanimously praise GMail. Google is a company like any other, and I hope this little incident reminds the Google fanboys of that. We need to be wary and responsible.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
My feeling is that if it's a *FREE* service (meaning you don't pay Google anything to use Gmail) then no, you shouldn't be free to use whatever third party software you choose.
I share your feeling for the most part but I really don't understand their actions. Why not stop wasting your coding time during a beta program stopping third parties from making their experience better and work on adding the things the users want (ie POP3, Opera support, HTML-only, etc?)
"Google has now taken it one step further and created a word-identification script filter as part of the login process." In fact if you go there now you won't see this. This is part of Gmail's anti bruteforcing stuff. If you get a password wrong so many times it starts requiring you to enter a word to try and stop an automated bruteforcing script. GMAIL ISN'T BLOCKING YOUR 3RD PARTY MAIL NOTIFIER JUST YOU FOR BEING STUPID!
IM services have tried repeatedly to block third-party apps. Both AIM and Yahoo have tried to block third-party clients.
Yahoo blocking
AIM blocking
"AOL made changes to their proprietary protocol (called OSCAR) that would ferret out anyone who wasn't using the official client."
I don't really get this rant. First of all, there's no word identification filter in the login process. Second, if he doesn't like gmail notifier, don't use it. Thirdly, I highly doubt the changes are solely to disturb the third party tools. More likely, they're working on improvents (which shouldn't come as a surprise since it's still in beta).
Maybe there are legitimate reasons for doing this. If Google fears that GMail's 1GB storage space could be used as a warez haven, they may have good reason for locking out automated tools.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Gmail has not published a offical api yet to access there webmail.
/. servers if everyone tried to post at the exact same time, They would slow to a crawl..
Right now these third party apps work by logging into the gmail account and pulling up the records, its just like you going to the webpage and logging in. This requires there system to access and cache every message in your inbox.
Imaging what would happen to the
This is what they are trying to prevent, thousands of third party checkers slowing down there system. I would be willing to bet once they have there gmail API stablized they will publish something like they have for the google search API, allowing third party programs to PROPERLY check the system without using excess resources.
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People need to realize that Gmail is simply a means for Google to deliver more advertising clicks. Free email is simply the means to an end. They've run the numbers and figured they can build a web-based email client, buy a mess of storage, and create their own click-stream for possibly cheaper than it would be to have an army of business development folks sell AdSense to every crappy website.
Now, Opera and plain HTML versions of Gmail make sense in this context because it's a relatively easy way to increase the numbers; there's no technical reason they haven't supported that yet. Their engineers just haven't gotten around to it.
External POP support is a little more dubious: "In the future you will be able to access Gmail messages from non-Gmail accounts for free or at a nominal fee." My bet is on the nominal fee. You can be sure they're going to start charging for POP access if they notice a significant drop in ad impressions for web-based Gmail 'cause that's going to mean a big drop in and CPM deals their sales folk are doing.
And the "beta" program? People, it's viral marketing. It's the ultimate technical shrug, "Meh, it's just a 'beta'" I can guarantee sites like GmailSwap has their business development staff weeping tears of joy; you can't buy marketing like that, but hordes of technorati are creaming their jeans for this email-cum-status-symbol.
because you want to control the ping to one every ten minutes. Imagine if 3 million people had notifier on and they were pinging your server every ten seconds each. That's 300,000 hits per second. No good.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Has anyone considered the possibility that the reason they're blocking these notifiers isn't because they have a problem with the idea, but rather there isn't a standard upon which they've settled on?
What I mean is, Slashdot bans people when they abusively pull RSS feeds too often, and ask people to only pull RSS once every 30 minutes, and no more often than that. It's possible that these programs are pinging the crap out of the server, essentially DDOS'ing the sytem with mindless queries every few seconds to every few minutes. If the notifiers only queried once every half hour, there would be no issue, but hen people would find it useless since there would be up to a half hour delay on being notified of new mail.
I think therein lies the crux of the matter.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
POP3 support would destroy the entire reason google provides the service, the ads that are displayed. Unless you want the ads embedded in your e-mail which is far worse than seeing them next to your messages on the web site in my opinion...
Where on earth did the author get the idea that:
A) That there IS a word logon system currently implemented.
B) That said word logon system was to block third party systems from interoperating with Google.
Finally, why was this put on Slashdot when there is absolutely no link to any article whatsoever to backup the few sentences that make up this story? Since when is some guy's short four sentence oppinion the ENTIRE story, without giving any examples whatsoever?
Realistically, they keep the backlash to a minimum by stopping it early. If some great tools came out now, and then google suddenly axed them when they went out of beta there would be even more people saying google sucks, is unfair, etc...
In a public beta like this, PR is still very important. The brand is already at stake. To treat it any other way would be stupid. People won't care about the Beta distinction later.
because you want to control the ping to one every ten minutes.
Two minutes. GMail's official Notifer checks every 2 minutes.
The big deal is that they want third party apps to stop actually logging in and pulling the full HTML for the main page, and start copying what the notifier does, which is to pull down something much smaller, simpler, and less CPU intensive for google.
Also, it prevents their statistics from being skewed by apps acting like actual people. What, you think they're not logging stats on this stuff?
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.