Yahoo! Mail Beta Goes Public

prostoalex writes "After months of being tested via limited beta, Yahoo! Mail Beta, developed after Oddpost acquisition, is now available to the world. From the review: 'The new Yahoo Mail Beta is touted as being as functional as a desktop email client (such as Outlook). Other new features include an integrated calendar timeline (including mashups with Yahoo Maps), drag and drop e-mail organization, message preview, tabs for messages, plus an integrated RSS reader.' Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg was using Yahoo! Mail Beta back in September of last year and wrote the following: 'I've been comparing the new version of Yahoo Mail, which claims to be the leader in Web mail, with Gmail, the challenger Yahoo most fears. My verdict: The new Yahoo Mail is far superior to Gmail. Yahoo more closely matches the desktop experience most serious email users have come to expect. Gmail, by contrast, is quirky and limited. Its only advantage is its massive free storage, which exceeds what most people will ever need.'"

Comments

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[PHAEDRU5]

My God! Those ads really get in your face.

I can only see so many half-page ads about going back to school to get a nursing degree.

Is it better enough?

[The Dalex]

To be honest, I'm not looking for a desktop-style web-based e-mail client with loads of features. I use Gmail because I never need to worry about deleting anything and I can run a search through all my mail in seconds. For me, I just need a permanent e-mail address for personal correspondence, and my work e-mail (Exchange-based) does everything I need as far as scheduling, etc. It may be the best web-based e-mail client in the world, but it has nothing I need that I don't get from Gmail, and I'm sure a lot of people will need some serious convincing in order to get them to change their e-mail addresses.

Re:Is it better enough?

[tommertron]

I highly agree. The thing I don't understand about the review he gave was that he seemed to be saying Yahoo won the web based e-mail war bacause it emulated the desktop experience so well. Umm, who decided that the Outlook-e-mail experience was perfect?

I love Gmail because the conversation threading is a great way to read a lot of of emails, labels are much more versatile than folders, and fast, fast search.

Oh, and like someone else mentioned, it doesn't stick a damn ad at the end of my e-mail like Yahoo does. Drag and drop is great, but labels are just as easy to apply and can work just the same as folders simply by moving the mouse as well.

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[don'tyellatme]

i think i'll keep my text ads (and my sanity) thank you very much. that alone is enough that i'll never try it out.

I like it but...

[Raineer]

I have used Yahoo Mail Beta for a long time, and I do like the interface however there is alot of "lag" associated with it. Moving from folder to folder takes a good amount of time, and if you are accessing it from a slower PC this is very noticable.

I have not compared to Gmail however, but the lag gets to me.

Been using it for a couple of months now. . .

[n2art2]

And I love it.

Well I love it when I'm at work. because it works at work on my Windoz box. But it does not work on my Mac at home. I use firefox both at work and home (sometimes safari at home as well) and doesn't matter what browser I use at home cause it doesn't work. Now I did get an error message back when I first started using the beta, and it said something to the effect that Yahoo does not currently support Mail Beta on OS X, and that it would revert to standard mail, until further notice.

So the biggest question is. . . Why Firefox on XP but not Firefox on OS X??? AND. . . With it being now publicly available, does it now work with OS X as well?

Guess I'll find out when I get home.

Yahoo Fanboy

[prothid]

This guy that submitted this appears to be a tad biased, even a Yahoo fanboy. There is a Yahoo category on his blog with over 40 entries, and no Google category. So, there's not a wonderfully balanced point of view here. I'd take his "verdict" with a grain of salt, flamebait at best.

http://www.moskalyuk.com/blog/category/yahoo/

Re:Yahoo Fanboy

[kiwimate]

Yeah, I think he's a bit more than a fanboy. FWIW, I actually love my Yahoo! Mail account (and I promise you I'm not affiliated with them), but...going to the link above the first heading I see is Yahoo! Tech gets a facelift. That article starts with this text:

We changed the face of Yahoo! Tech front page today

That's a wee bit more than a fanboy speaking. Or you could just do the google thing and find this bio as the first link.

Alex Moskalyuk is a full-time Technical Yahoo!...

Re:So...

[grammar fascist]

Google is a classic case of a company with one tool in their box albeit more of a power hammer than a common or garden hammer

It's a... Swiss Army Hammer.

Re:So...

[DragonWriter]

I find I still prefer the folder mentality, as compared to Gmails "everything in one spot and search" philosophy.

Google's tags are functionally no different than traditional folders except that a message can simultaneously be in more than one "folder" simultaneously. If you prefer a "folder" arrangement to search, Gmail works quite well.

Why would I want a desktop mail client?

[lewp]

Seriously, what advantage does a desktop-style mail client -- especially one that's just simulated in a browser -- have over Gmail's simple, intuitive, fast interface with great integrated search capabilities? Maybe it's easier for an Outlook user to make the transition, but Gmail is so simple I don't see that being much of a factor.

Gmail got me to give up mutt. It's pretty damn good.