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Gmail Goes Public

An anonymous reader writes "Google has apparently given the green light for Google's e-mail (Gmail) to be open to the general public." From the registration page: "As we make room for more Gmail users, we want to first extend invitations to Google users. We're still working to make Gmail better, so for now, we're just inviting a small number at random. Looks like that's you! We're really excited to share Gmail with you and we hope you like it." Observed at the P-I Buzzworthy Blog as well.

13 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. the link is one-time by eobanb · · Score: 4, Informative

    the link that appears on the front page of google for certain people only works that one time. There is no universal link for creating a gmail account right now. You need to just go to google.com and it may or may not show up.

    --

    Take off every sig. For great justice.

    1. Re:the link is one-time by Mr.+Sketch · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, but you can always get an invite from the GMail invite spooler. It has almost 500k invities waiting to be given out.

    2. Re:the link is one-time by WormholeFiend · · Score: 3, Informative

      I doubt it.

      I noticed a few days ago that the 10 leftover invites I had were removed from my account.

      Made me wonder if something was up, but having no one else to invite, I just shrugged it off.

  2. Just refresh... by mobiux · · Score: 4, Informative

    if you don't get it the first time, just keep refreshing.
    It took me 3 times to get the invite on the screen.

  3. Bad Gmail link. by Osty · · Score: 5, Informative

    The link to Gmail in the story goes to a page that says:

    Account Already Created

    The link you followed to this page has already been used to create your Gmail account. To access your account visit http://gmail.google.com and log in with the username and password you chose during registration. To create another Gmail account, you'll need a shiny new account creation link. We apologize for the inconvenience.
    Here's a better link for Gmail.
  4. Re:I can't even by Drooling+Iguana · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gmail lets you connect via POP3.

    --
    ... I'm addicted to placebos
  5. Direct link by turtled · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here:
    https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount
    Just truncated from the paragraph. The posted link was the result of someone singing up already. I also have 50 invites... but, with the link I posted, everyone is ready...

    --
    "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
    1. Re:Direct link by ral315 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Er...that's a link for a GOOGLE account. It's not the same as a Gmail account.

      Once again, Gmail accounts are NOT available to the general public, just a random sampling of the population.

  6. gmail is still buggy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Frankly, I'm surprised. Google has introduced a few bugs in its latest release of gmail.

    For example, the "mail forwarding" feature cannot be disabled once it has been enabled. Any change to it does not not save.

  7. Re:I can't even by CrankyFool · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's remarkably simple (though, true to OSS principles, it's also remarkably non-obvious if you don't pore through documentation). You need two things in your .muttrc:
    A) Specify what addresses might be valid addreses for you, using 'alternates'. e.g.:
    alternates user@dom.ain.com
    alternates otheruser@other.domain.com
    alternates @myspecial.domain.com
    The last line is the one that says that any mail address @myspecial.domain.com is a valid address for you;
    B) set reverse_name=yes

    That tells mutt that, if you get an email that's to one of your addresses (see A above), even if the current machine name is not that address, it should formulate the 'From:' address based on the recipient address, rather than the local machine name.

    That should be all you need.

    Eagerly awaiting my Offtopic moderation ...

  8. Re:I can't even by k.ellsworth · · Score: 4, Informative

    email me to k.ellsworth@ THESPAM gmail.com and i send you an invite... as anyone else need one i'll send back invites. i have 50 left

    --
    Putting a windows cd backwards, plays evil messages, but it gets worse, putting it right, installs windows.
  9. Re:I can't even by edesjardins · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've never receieved ONE piece of Spam at my Gmail address since I've had it - I got the account in August. Just sayin'.

  10. Re:I can't even by shellbeach · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ah, Gmail misinformation. It's a wonderful thing ...

    A big thing is privacy. Google may be wonderful, but what about tomorrow?

    If you're that concerned about privacy, you could still use POP3 and SMTP with GPG or similar. Why would you bother, then? Well, having a non-ISP linked email address is a highly useful thing - for those of the community who don't run a mail server (e.g. don't have broadband or don't have the skills) this is vital to being able to switch providers and get the best deal.

    The other is web interfaces suck.

    You've obviously never tried Gmail then. I was a diehard PINE user before seeing Gmail, I hated Yahoo, Hotmail, Fastmail, etc interfaces and thought Gmail might be a good mailing list replacement for my yahoo account because of the greater storage space. I think it took about three days to forward all my mail to it and use it as my primary account. It's a beautiful interface, runs with some incredibly neat javascript - you have to see it to believe it.

    A third is the problem of using POP3 access, but still having to hike your mail client mail via SMTP. If you use your own ISP, you're at risk of getting flagged at some point in the future of failing SPF.

    But, you see, Gmail actually provides an SMTP server for you to use. That's right! You get POP3 and SMTP. And if they ever decide to stop that, there's still mail forwarding so you can throw everything else over to the email address of your choice.