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Gmail Adds POP3 To Email Accounts

Posted by timothy on from the rock dept.

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.

6 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. The catch is.. by Ckwop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ..now where's IMAP and what's the catch

    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.

    Simon.

    1. Re:The catch is.. by Vicsun · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The other possibility is that they only keep it free until they iron the bugs out.

      Frankly I like your suggestion better.

    2. Re:The catch is.. by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Interesting

      " The other possibility is that they only keep it free until they iron the bugs out."

      A few years ago, I signed up with a company that advertised "free e-mail for life" and it included POP3 access. After a short time, only web-based access was free and POP3 required you to pay. I think that's exactly where Google is headed.

  2. Re:Doesn't seem to fit popmail model by HDlife · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Ahh, tie-in to the "creepy desktop search" might be the ticket.

    Of course, you can select "leave on server" but POP client software really can't take advantage of all that stored email. Desktop search, or even an online Google search, while logged-in, could draw from all of those old emails even while you filed and deleted to your heart's content with your local copy in your POP client.

    Very sneaky indeed!

    Again, this only works because Google is golden. If MS or AOL announced that they were going to keep a permanent record of all of your email, whether you deleted it or not with your client, would raise a firestorm!

  3. Behind the glass by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google would do well to start turning themselves into an all-in-one computing provider. This may portend the next step.

    Nobody has figured out better than Google how to turn a zillion servers into the world's biggest distributed mainframe. Search and mail could be just the beginning. Google has built a platform upon which any variety of multiuser, Internet-wide applications can be built. Yesterday, it was search; today, it is mail; tomorrow... who knows? Maybe an office suite with built-in document management? Wasn't Microsoft supposed to have done this by now? (Hint: they can't because they're saddled with millions of lines of legacy crud.) Google can. Google has the know-how to truly put computing behind the glass again, where it belongs. And once they've delivered it to your desktop computer, they can deliver it to your phone, your set-top box, your refrigerator ... it is my hope that Google has what it takes to finally relegate the PC to the junk heap where it belongs.

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  4. Encryption by manganese4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So if gmail allows pop3 and smtp, I should now be able to send an encrypted email to another Gmail account or receive one in mine and Google will not be able to parse since they will not have access to the key pair.

    Does anyone know if Google has put anything in place to prevent pre-encrypting email or are they just assuming that the majority of the people using their service will not bother with this?

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