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Yahoo To Update Mail Service
tonyq writes "Yahoo! is beginning beta testing of a completely reworked UI for Yahoo! Mail that incorporates DHTML technologies. The web-based application resembles a desktop e-mail client. Features include message preview; drag-and-drop filing; the capability of quickly searching e-mail headers, body text and attachments; and the ability to view multiple e-mails at the same time in separate windows and scroll through all message headers in a folder rather than one page at a time. Other niceties are auto-complete, right-click menus and standard keyboard shortcuts. A user who got an early look has graciously posted screenshots. Yahoo is also taking signups on their what's new for Mail page."
Yahoo doesn't need an answer to Gmail. They have an order of magnitude more users (63.3 mln vs 5.4 mln).
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Unfortunately for a great number of people (including me) who don't live in America, the page states 'The beta version is only available to Yahoo! Mail users in the U.S.'.
According to this article, the new interface is optional. You can actually switch between the two interfaces.
The server is beginning to be sluggish...
i l-beta-impressions/
Try the snappy Coral link:
http://patcavit.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/09/14/y-ma
It's too bad that I've been phasing out my Yahoo email account. Anyone know of an opensource webmail package that is even close to this interface? Squirrelmail is looking a little shabby in comparison.
/.'ed. Try mirrordot or coral cache
PS. Screenshots are
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
If you want worthwhile encryption on your email, use a host based email client that supports GPG. If your email is open to the world as it flies between servers and sits in their caches and spools, it doesn't really matter if it's open to the world as it flies between you and your webmail host.
Yahoo bought out oddpost in 2004. If you'll remember, they were the first to put together a really slick DHTML-based email application. What you see here is a result of merging the technology Ethan and Ian had developed with Yahoo's infrastructure (plus a great deal more - tabs and other features that aren't part of oddpost). Glad to see a little dotrebound company like Oddpost make a mark!
The Hushmail service uses PGP and allows you to encrypt your messages with PGP and recieve PGP encrypted and signed messages. Be sure to pick a good passphrase!
The easiest way to do it securely with Javascript would be to send a challenge to the client over regular HTTP, request the user's password, combine the challenge and password and run it through a hashing algo like MD5 or SHA to produce the respone.
The server then takes the challenge and the stored password, hashes them and if the hash matches that sent by the client, the client is authenticated. Voila', secure authentication without SSL, and the unencrypted password never went over the wire.
Actually, this guy called Paul Johnson did exactly this, and you can get JS implementations of a lot of crypto algorithms from his site.
Could be useful if you don't want to buy an SSL cert for a small personal site or something, but obviously is not a replacement for SSL, which provides other really Good Stuff (tm) such as the authentication of the server to the client.
PS: I'm in no way connected to this Paul Johnson guy, nor have I tested his code. Caveat lector.
You're certainly welcome for the small bit I contributed.
I said "my baby", but I'm really more of an estranged uncle. The project was Luke Ehresman's brain child.
And there are a score, or more, developers who deserve far, far more credit than I.
Anyway, I'm glad you like it. It still gives me a little thrill whenever I see it in use or see a reference to it.
Thank you for exposing people to Free Software, and thank you for fulfilling the important and often overlooked role of providing commercial end-user support.
-Peter