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Gmail Adds POP3 To Email Accounts
VaultX writes "Gmail has recently added POP3 services to their free email accounts. This would allow someone to use gmail without ever seeing any of their advertisements. They are also providing SMTP, both POP3 and SMTP are forcing the use of SSL/TLS. Very interesting...now where's IMAP and what's the catch?" It's being phased in, though, so not every gmail account yet has POP access.
Is it pure altruism? Or is there another revenue source behind this move?
If you're using POP3, you're probably deleting the mail from the server, so they don't have to buy as many storage devices.
I must say that after Yahoo! decided to charge for POP access I said "never again will I rely on a 'free' service." Once you grow to rely on this account for POP access to your pdas. phones, etc. they have you by the short hairs.
Maybe they will prove me wrong and they wont pull a Yahoo, but for now, I am staying put and using my gmail account as my spam catch all and for its very best feature: geek street cred.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
What's the point of 1 gig online if everyone uses pop to turn it into offline email?
The thing is you can leave a copy on the server, and have them locally and on webmail. THAT's what's usefull about this.
Why do you need IMAP? Google doesn't use folders, and the label concept does not fit well.
IMAP is not that much faster in my experience, though I am given to understand that IMAP is by default more secure than POP3. Anyone know for definate?
My guess is that they'll inject adverts in to your e-mail when you download it using pop.
I thought they'd do just that too, but I currently use the Forwarding feature that lets you send any mail that comes to your Gmail account to another address. Forwarded gmails come into my inbox ad-free.
If they didn't add adverts when forwarding, I don't see why they'd do it when using POP3.
I like his suggestion better, too. However, everybody seems to forget the Gmail is still in BETA. This is BETA software and they are testing BETA features. These features don't have to be available when Gmail comes out of BETA and they most certainly don't have to be free.
Noticed how I emphasized the BETA and the BETA, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
Oh, the conspiracy.
I, personally, doubt that they will, then again, I've been a bit too trusting in some cases. I still see no reason to be so paranoid about google keeping your email address. I'm guessing the invite system is so they can keep control over how many people are using their service while it's still in beta, so they don't overflow the servers while the software is still buggy and possibly slower than they want it to be. That is a GUESS, I don't know for sure.
I mean, microsoft has a lot of mail addresses under their wing, so does yahoo, and other free webmail services. Google is a big-shot company, like MS and Yahoo, if it does get out that they're selling addresses to spammers, I think something would happen. Imagine what would happen if MS did it right now. It would be a big uproar and people would flee from hotmail to other services.
My personal thought is that they simply can't afford the risk of getting caught doing it, it's much easier to spot/getting framed for than secret tracking of your every move, which seems to be the general complaint..
Yeah, I read this, and initially thought "cool!". However then I realized: wait: their interface is faster, sleeker, and easier than any local mail client I have. So I actually don't think I'll be using this
is the same as it has always been. They are algorithmically analysing your entire email corpus (well, that was sent or received with Gmail, anyway) and correlating the data to determine trends, demographics, etc.
It's not like they are hiding this; it's part of the agreement you make to get free email. They have built a pipe through which a huge portion of the world's information flow can pass, and they are using it to learn things about the world and about the structure and hierarchy of human relationships.
The data is saleable, but they can profit from it without ever selling it, or ever letting any human agents access information that uniquely identifies YOU.
Remember, they sell advertising. At a premium price. All marketing and advertising agencies do data gathering, and Gmail is how Google is doing it.
It's a straight-up, informed-consent deal (at least for Gmail account holders- the issues get stickier if you send mail to Gmail because you never clicked through a use agreement) and if you don't want their robots reading your email you shouldn't use the service.
And how would that be different from spam? If it's a free e-mail company tagline at the end of the message it may be understandable, but if they start injecting full-fledged ads like
Hey Joe,
Good seeing you the other day. We're gonna catch the game next weekend, interested?
Sponsored Google Ad
--------------------
FiNd YOUR ClAsSmAtEs NOW!
http://www.spammersheaven.com/?trackinglink
--------------------
SPORTS betting, largest offshore CASINO!
FREE $20 mAtChInG bEt!!! You WIN!!!
http://www.spammersheavencasino.com/?trac
--------------------
Let me know.
Bob
Not only may it be illegal in some states, people will not use the service. People already get extremely annoyed by bloated Hotmail taglines as it is; this type of thing would be a complete disaster.
How about they just offer people a suitably restricted shell account?
I use GMail almost exclusively now.. I check Yahoo! Mail once a week or so, and since switching ISP's I don't use native SMTP/IMAP mail.
The problems with this (which can be solved using this new POP feature) are:
- Offline access. While wifi access makes Internet access much easier, it is by no means ubiquitous. So, when I can't get online it would be very nice to have an offline copy of my mail. POP3 mirroring my GMail to Thunderbird or Apple Mail will solve this nicely.
- Sending e-mail from other applications. I got my Mom hooked on using Adobe Photoshop Album to organize and share all of her digital pictures. And, after changing ISPs (thus losing her old e-mail address) she changed to GMail. These two things didn't mix well.. PS Album uses MAPI to e-mail via your preferred mail client. With SMTP access via GMail, now everything is simple. (other than PS Album's shitty MAPI support. You have to edit the registry to add Thunderbird or Mozilla to the list of supported mail clients. Even then I ran into strange behaviors..)
--- I checked my GMail account, and it currently does not give me the option to enable POP. I guess they are opening it slowly to all users.
My guess is that they'll inject adverts in to your e-mail when you download it using pop. The move wouldn't make sense otherwise.
Have you used Gmail before?
Having used their web interface.. it DOESN'T MAKE SENSE to actually download all my mail and read it on a mail client.
The interface is so clean, and things load so fast, it is amazing.
Contrast that with email clients.
I'd say there is a lot more appeal to the web interface that just the ability to POP and the 1GB space.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
I guess because you don't agree to receive spam, and you agree to receive these ads. Not to mention, each email will contain something you probably did want to read.
This would be bad though, because it would mean that any local spam filters will become useless.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
why not just use your real email?
It makes their algorithms more accurate with more data available.
So even if you never see an ad, and they never make a cent through some kind of clickthrough on you, every email that goes through their system tells them more about the contextual online universe.
Google is ultimately in a data mining position. Data is money for them. Email is data.
GPL Deconstructed
so beta beta beta beta beta? what's the difference between a release and a beta if everyone gets the so called beta?
'beta' itself meaning pretty much nothing, could be 0.9 or whatever too. it's out there, marketed with the seemingly limiteless supply of invitations to the service(you can't come - but everyone gets in).
and how is everyone forgetting that is beta? the questions would still be relevant. a released product is a released product, no matter what you call it or if you paint it yellow and put a huge sign on it saying "THESE ARE NOT THE FINAL FEATURES". no shit they're not the final features? it's going to be an evolving product through it's lifecycle probably anyways so not even the features it has when they remove the beta label will be "final".
so far what they got is a product.. and trying to figure out what to do with it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Chris DiBona
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
I actually find the google ads amusing, enlightening, and quite scarily, well targetted.
:)
It works, and can often help a conversation along by giving either information about a subject, or even purchasing info. Why bother searching google, when they do it for you
I like getting mails sent with the "Send To/Mail recipient" menu in Windows.
Normally, its just a file, or a link I found at work, but every time I get adverts for Virus protection and related info. It amuses me every time.
In other places, adverts are just noise. They simply pad out a page. Like car engine noise or computer hum, you just tune it out.
I have disabled all flash and animations on my computer however, I just cant read the article with distractions flashing before my eyes. Its not even as if its clever advertising.
liqbase
I must agree. I remember when GMail first came out, not particularly wanting it since I was not a big fan of webmail. Then I remembered that it was not webmail I didn't like: it was crappy webmail UI! Google does things right, and I appreciate it.
I wouldn't want to run their Web UI if I dealt with massive ammounts of email, I don't think, though.,
The interface is nice, but when I have 5 other email accounts that I check via Thunderbird, it's quite nice to now be able to check all my email accounts via Thunderbird instead of making 2 trips to do my email.
Who doesn't like free music?
And Froogle has been in "beta" form for how long? It seems I've been using that heavily used and freely available service for years. The Wayback Machine has it going back to Feb 2003. Maybe Google thinks keeping "Beta" appended to all their web services will absolve them of responsibility if it fails?
Or maybe they're taking a more sensible approach than the industry standard, and actually letting people know that the products haven't been completed yet. I'd rather know something is beta than be told it is the final version only to find major bugs (windows 95 was the best example of this).
Google's approach is much more in line with the Debian policy than Microsoft's.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
New hotmail.com and msn.com accounts already have this disabled since September.
:)
Older accounts and paid accounts still have all the access they want.
Try making a new hotmail address and set it up for http access in OE or OL. Doesn't work
http://www.fsckin.com/
Simple solution to avoid all of the hassle of webmail.
1. Pay $5-$15/year (depending on which registar you choose) for www.yourname.com.
2. Pay $5-$20/month (depending on which host you choose) for web-hosting. If you only want email, I'd imagine you'd be looking at the $5 end of the spectrum.
You now have unlimited POP3 accounts, your choice of webmail applications, at least 500 megs of space on even the cheapest of hosts, a clean email address (no more your_name9387943894793@hotmail.com) and it's yours for life unless you stop paying the bills. If the host or registar changes their policies to something you disagree with or if they go out of business, it takes 24 hours at the most to transfer it to another company.
Try to get away from the "here is always a catch".
Google believe they have a superior product, offering pop3 support will lure new users in, and eventually they will make the switch.
Even if they *don't* make the switch for reading new mail, they will for reading old mail. GMail store a copy of all your mail. It will not delete the mail you retrieve from teh server, just mark it as read (moving it from "inbox" to "all mail"). So when you can't remember where you put a mail with your local client, you will go to gmail and find it with google's search technology. Which will be faster. Just like it today in all cases I have tried has been faster to find information about a product I have bought by asking google, than by looking in the help files and other online documentation provided by the vendor.