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Google Adds Chat To Gmail
Nathan Weinberg writes "Google has added a chat feature to Gmail. It brings Google Talk, minus voice calls, into your webmail client. Gmail now also logs your IMs, whether they originate in Gmail or Google Talk. In the commentary at InsideGoogle, I note that Google recommends you disable Firefox's AdBlock, which can block Google's ads, if you want Gmail Chat to function properly."
Just to mention, logging of chats is turned off by default. You have to turn it on manually.
I think this thing is a good idea (not the logging, the chat-inside-mailapp). I wonder if you get marked as "online" whenever you check your Mail on mail.google.com...
this sig is useless
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted. One thing I noted was the fact that in the past google would not let chat sites advertise because they could not parse the chat text and bring relevant ads to the page. I used to run an IRC Network that was big into web integration (think AJAX gateway to IRC), and I wanted to implement google ads, but they didn't seem content on any solution for us, no matter what we brought to the table. Maybe now that they have targeted advertising for their chat service, they will allow targeted advertising for other chat services. Either that, or they will want to keep a monopoly with their Gmail + Talk service.
Sig: I stole this sig.
I foresee a web based api to embed GTalk into your site. This web based chat interface is exactly what I've been waiting for, in fact I personally think they should do away with their desktop counterpart and do voip through an open source plugin of sorts. Using a desktop app just doesn't feel googly, no matter how well ddesigned it may be. Now if only they'd throw in support for GPG signing and/or encrypting in GMail(yes I know it'd kill their compression ratios). If everything was done client side in javascript, I'd imagine the security concern would be fairly low, the only thing I can think of is maybe other programs crawling the browser's memory after you've decrypted your private key client side (does anyone know if this would be an issue?)
Regards,
Steve
well your IMs aren't really private unless you use some form of encryption. Even then, it would depend on the type of encryption you use.
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
"AdBlock often interferes with Gmail's chat features, causing Firefox to crash. Our engineers are working hard to fix the problem, but in the meantime, disable AdBlock for testing purposes, and clear your browser's cache. Then, log back in to GmailAdBlock often interferes with Gmail's chat features, causing Firefox to crash. Our engineers are working hard to fix the problem, but in the meantime, disable AdBlock for testing purposes, and clear your browser's cache. Then, log back in to Gmail"
Well, after I actually RTF, I found that quote. So it appears that the blurb of this article was just FUD and that Adblock is just a temporary glitch and the services will work just fine in the future! Now I can happily go back to google worshipping.
AC: Hey! What you been up to? :-D :-\ :-P ;-) :-$ :-D :-\ ... yeeeeaaaah.. I just wanted to help you make dinner ;) :-O
GCA: same old same old. workin 9-5 sux teh bawls
AC: tell me about it! i hardly have time to utorrent warez anymore
GCA: Hey, I've got a quick and easy site you can go to for warez if you want. 8-)
AC: nah, that's okay, I've got to go make dinner.
GCA: whatcha makin?
AC: just some chicken and some veggies
GCA: you could spice up that chicken with some worchester sauce
AC: No... I'm good thanks.
AC: What's up with all the links, Allison?
GCA: Allison?
AC: Aren't you Grand Canyon Alli? From the spring break trip?
GCA:
AC: OMG You're a Google Chat Advertiser!!
RTFA.
1. You can choose whether gmail logs your chats when you first use the feature, and you can change this option in the settings menu at any time.
2. There is even a feature that let's you get "off the record" during a chat. So even if you're having logging enabled, you can go "off the record" during a chat, and what you type afterwards will neither be logged in your gmail account, nor in your chat partner's gmail account.
Sounds good to me.
Do not be alarmed. This is only a test.
Surprise, IM networks are centralized (that is, all what you say goes through a central server, there're chances that IM networks have been grepping into conversations for ej: conversations about people trying to convince people to go to another IM network). In fact, even IRC is centralized. Do you want security? Use end-to-end encryption.
Notice that unifying email and IM DOES have a lot of sense. IM and email are the SAME THING (send text and ocasinally some files), except that IM is instantaneous and email isn't. But there's no reason why you couldn't add a jabber extension which allows you to receive emails, your jabber client would just move them to a MUA. Email is just a particular case of the idea behind IM.
Logging on *my* computer is fine and useful. Logging on *their* server is not.
1. It's optional. Turn it on as you see fit.
2. You keep all your GMail on their servers. How does this differ?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Stop being a leech. You're using their services for free. The least you could do (besides absolutely nothing) is look at their ads
See bottom of screen - "Standard with Chat" vs "Standard without Chat". You can disable it entirely. Or, you can just sign off on the chat window.
Actually, this was technology that google had to incorporate in order to get Google Talk into China...all chat logs are BCC'd to the chinese government...