Information AboutGmail |
Gmail is a free Webmail and POP e-mail service provided by Google , known for its abundant storage and advanced interface (based on Ajax technology). It is known as ''' Google Mail ''' in the United Kingdom and Germany. Its competitors include AIM Mail , MSN Hotmail , and Yahoo! Mail . Initially released on April 1, 2004 , Gmail was almost immediately successful in reaching a wide range of users, rapidly evolving in response to suggestions and criticisms. Two years later, Gmail is still in " Beta ", meaning that access to the service is restricted to those who had received an invitation from an existing account holder, from Blogger , or through their mobile phone. Some believe Gmail will continue to be invitation-only even after the beta phase in order to reduce the risk of spam. OVERVIEW While Gmail is not entirely open to the general public yet, most Gmail users have many invites to spare, as Google gives most users one hundred free (or as low as 15) invitations (and frequently replenishes them, as a reward for users who frequently check their Gmail accounts). Gmail invites are also given away at random through Google's home page, and it is also possible to sign up if one has a mobile phone from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, New Zealand, Philippines or the United States via SMS Signup (see or even for sale at online Auction s. However, Google has prohibited the sale of Gmail addresses. The service is notable for providing over two and a half gigabytes (and counting) of storage space (increased from the original limit of 1000 megabytes). This change was announced on April Fool's Day 2005 , and was made for the one-year Anniversary of Gmail. The announcement was accompanied by a statement that Google would continue to increase storage until they reached the theoretical limit (infinity gigabytes) then give each user one more. All Google will say about this now is that it will keep increasing by the second as long as they have enough space on their servers. Gmail also has an integrated calendar named "Google Calendar" (formerly CL2) that was launched on April 12 , 2006 . Gmail makes intensive use of (wireless application protocol) enabled mobile phones. It also works on the PSP web browser, but is not fully supported. There has been some criticism about Gmail's information and privacy policies. Much of it stems from phrases in Gmail's Privacy Policy which state that Gmail will keep all e-mail for "some time" even if it has been deleted or the account terminated and that Gmail will disclose personal information (including the actual text of e-mails) if it has a "good faith belief" that such a disclosure is necessary for various reasons such to "protect the rights, property or safety of ... the public." Similarly, some privacy advocates criticize the lack of disclosed data retention and correlation policies. More than 30 privacy and civil rights organizations have urged Google to suspend the Gmail service until these issues are resolved.[http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/GmailLetter.htm browser in Windows XP . Rather than showing individual e-mails, Gmail groups e-mails into Conversations, which are threads of e-mail correspondences, with the number of messages in each indicated in parenthesis.]] AWARDS AND SUPPORT Gmail was ranked #2 in . Gmail also won "Honourable Mention" in the Bottom Line Design Awards 2005. Gmail has drawn many favourable reviews from users.[http://mail.google.com/mail/help/reviews.html [http://mail.google.com/mail/help/reviews_more.html] FEATURES See Also: Features of Gmail Gmail includes a number of original features as well as improvements upon those standard to web mail services. Here are some unique features that are characteristic of Gmail. For a complete list of features, refer to the main article. Conversation views The main innovation of Gmail might be its method of categorizing e-mails, which Google calls Conversation View. In contrast to other e-mail services, Gmail keeps track of individual "conversations" (an original message, along with all the replies to that message), and allows users to view easily all the e-mails related to a specific message. Gmail's algorithm for determining how conversations fit together is not perfect, however: Single conversations sometimes become fragmented (especially when a replier changes the e-mail's subject line) and unrelated conversations occasionally become attached together. Conversations split into two separate storage sections if there are more than 150 messages, sometimes resulting in 5 or 6 chunks making up a whole conversation. Another drawback was that the entire conversation gets deleted if the user deleted one single e-mail which was a part of that conversation, but this was fixed when a "Trash This Message" button was added. Labels instead of folders Gmail allows users to categorize their e-mails with "labels." Labels give users a flexible method of categorizing e-mails, since an e-mail may have any number of labels (in contrast to a system in which an e-mail may belong to only one folder). Users can display all e-mails having a particular label and can use labels as a search criterion. Gmail also allows users to set up filters which label incoming e-mail automatically. Auto save enhancement Gmail has added a system of Auto Save, a system for avoiding loss of data in case of a browser crash or other error. This feature automatically saves a "draft" copy of the current message once per minute. If you have an attachment it will automatically save that too. Keyboard shortcuts Gmail allows users to navigate its interface by using the keyboard as an alternative to the mouse, which is the norm for site navigation. This feature is not enabled by default, although instructions on how to enable it are provided. Optional dots Gmail usernames must be between 6 and 30 characters (inclusive) and made up of only letters, numbers, and dots. The use of dots, however, are optional (that is, Gmail ignores dots when resolving addresses). Google states that "Gmail doesn't recognize dots (.) as characters within a username. This way, you can add and remove dots to your username for desired address variations." For instance, the account google@gmail.com receives mail sent to goo.gle@gmail.com, g.o.o.g.l.e@gmail.com, etc. Likewise, the account goo.gle@gmail.com receives mail from google@gmail.com. However, when signing in it is necessary to include any dots used in the creation of the account. Plus-addressing See Also: E-mail address#Plus addressing Gmail also supports "plus-addressing" of e-mails. Messages can be sent to addresses in the form: gmail.user+extratext@gmail.com where extratext can be any string. Plus-addressing allows users to sign up for different services with different aliases and then easily filter all e-mails from those services. Chats Gmail's chat feature allows you to chat with other people that have a Gmail account. It interacts with the whole Google Talk network, so can be synchronised with that particular program. However, only text-based chat can take place within Internet Browsers; voice calling is Google Talk 's advantage. Because of the move away from e-mail, and therefore the name "Gmail", Google has changed the logo for Gmail, so that it includes '+ talk'. The logo also has a glossier finish compared to its predecessor. The introduction of Gmail Chat allows Gmail users to easily connect to the Google Talk network on computers that do not have the Google Talk client installed, without needing third-party clients (such as Psi , Miranda IM , IChat , Adium and Gaim ) or web-based applications such as GTalkr . Gmail Chat also allows the user to keep an archive of chats in their Gmail account - although this is disabled if either user in a conversation objects (called 'off the record mode' by Google). However, 'off the record' mode does not guarantee anonymity, since the other user could be using a third-party client with its own logging ability such as Gaim . Calendar On April 13, 2006 Google rolled out another addition to Gmail, the Google Calendar . Highly rumored for over six months, Google fully integrated this into Gmail. Google Calendar, like all other applications, is written in Javascript and uses AJAX . It allows you to view your appointments by day, week, month, and the next 4 days (the length of this can be changed in their settings). It allows 'quick adding' of events, in which an appointment can be added by entering a natural-language phrase containing the details of the event, rather than by filling out a detailed form. Additionally, Google Calendar provides an agenda tab that allows you to see all upcoming events in list form. The settings of the Calendar are highly customizable, allowing you to change your timezone on the fly, changing the day that the week starts on, creation of multiple calendars, and sending of notifications to your cell phone. The service allows users to invite other people to appointments and events, regardless of whether they have a Google Account. They can then RSVP , stating whether they will attend and leaving a note or comment. If the organiser enabled the feature, invitees can have the ability to send invitations and view the guest list. The calendar also supports importing from programs such as Microsoft Outlook and ICal . CRITICISM See Also: Criticism of Gmail The conversation view groups related messages in a linear stack, which can be expanded and collapsed. While this does provide an innovative view of an e-mail thread, it does not provide any way to differentiate messages that branch off from the original thread. This can occur when mail is sent to multiple recipients who respond individually. Google seems hesitant to release any upcoming plans for the implementation of these features. Absent features There are several features that are absent from the Gmail applications (sometimes for a price). Non-US interfaces Because Google is located primarily in the United States , non-US interfaces tend to lag behind in upgrades and features:
However if non-USA users change their language to "English (US)" they can access these services. Attachment Size Indicator Gmail has yet to include any way for users to check the sizes of any files attached to their emails without first opening the emails and looking at the individual files. While some speculate that Google will continue omitting this feature--to enhance the image of the service's "unlimited" storage-space--many others still wish there was a way to view the size of included attachments from the message-list view. The privacy issue There has been a great deal of criticism regarding Gmail's privacy policy . Some of the controversy surrounded the clause "residual copies of e-mail may remain on our systems for some time, even after you have deleted messages from your mailbox or after the termination of your account." Many believed that this meant that Google would intentionally archive copies of deleted mail forever. Google continues to rebut some of this criticism by pointing out that Gmail is using mostly industry wide practices.[http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/more.html#data] Google later stated that they will "make reasonable efforts to remove deleted information from our systems as quickly as is practical." Most of the criticism, however, was against Google's plans to add context-sensitive advertisements to e-mails by automatically scanning them. Privacy advocates raised concerns that the plan involved scanning their personal, assumed private, e-mails, and that this was a security problem. Allowing e-mail content to be read, even by a computer, for advertising purposes, raises the risk that the expectation of privacy in e-mail will be reduced. Furthermore, non-subscribers' e-mail is scanned by Gmail as well, and these senders of e-mail did not agree to Gmail's terms of service or privacy policy. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that Google can change its privacy policy unilaterally, and that Google is technically able to cross-reference cookies across its information-rich product line to make dossiers on individuals. Opponents of these views state that when one's e-mail is checked to see if it is spam, it is being scanned by the same process. Because a human is not reading the message, they say, it is not a problem. Another unresolved issue discussed among privacy advocates is the lack of disclosed data retention and correlation policies. It is possible for Google to combine information contained in a person's emails with information about his Internet searches. It is not known how long such information would be kept, and how it could be used. One of the concerns is that it could be of interest to law enforcement agencies. More than 30 privacy and civil rights organizations have urged Google to suspend Gmail service until these issues are resolved. {Link without Title} DEVELOPMENT HISTORY See Also: History of Gmail Gmail was a project begun by Google developer Paul Buchheit years before it was ever announced to the public. For several years, the software was only available internally, as an email client for Google employees. Gmail was finally announced to the public in 2004 amid a flurry of rumor. Owing to . Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice-president of products, was quoted by BBC News as saying, "We are very serious about Gmail." Gmail also initially received a lot of criticism for a statement they made in their original terms of use, refusing to guarantee that all e-mails at Gmail would be deleted upon request by the user. Google later clarified that they were referring to backup copies of e-mails, and promised that all deleted mails would eventually be expunged completely from their servers. This, along with the feature that advertisements would be generated by software-based scanning of e-mails in order to better target them, gave rise to a controversy on web privacy (see BBC News Article ; for a defense see " The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Nine Reasons Why It's Bogus "). Before being acquired by Google, the gmail.com Domain Name was used by the free e-mail service offered by Garfield.com, online home of the Comic Strip '' Garfield ''. This free e-mail service has moved to e-garfield.com . As of the 22nd of June, 2005, Gmail's Canonical URI has been changed to http://mail.google.com/mail/ instead of http://gmail.google.com/gmail/.Gmail for your domain On the February 10 , 2006 , Google introduced Gmail for your domain . This service, currently in beta testing, allows organizations to offer e-mail services through Gmail using their own domain. Google may eventually open the service to all domain owners, as Microsoft has with its Windows Live Custom Domains service. Google Mail
COMPETITION See Also: Webmail After Gmail's initial announcement and development, many existing web mail services quickly increased their storage capacity. For example, Hotmail went from giving some users 2MB to 25MB (250MB after 30 days, and 2 GB for Hotmail Plus accounts), while Yahoo! Mail went from 4MB to 100MB (and 2 GB for Yahoo! Mail Plus accounts). Yahoo! Mail storage then proceeded to 250MB, and finally, in late April of 2005, to 1GB. These were all seen as moves to stop existing users from switching to Gmail, and to capitalize on the newly rekindled public interest in web mail services. The desire to catch up was especially visible for MSN Hotmail, which upgraded its e-mail storage erratically from 250 MB to the new Windows Live Mail (beta) which includes 2 GB of storage over a number of months. In August of 2005, AOL started providing all AIM screen names with their own e-mail accounts with 2 GB of storage. Another example of competition came from www.30gigs.com who were offering 30 gigabytes of storage, and was also invite only. Every account which is inactive for 9 months gets deactivated by Gmail. All stored messages get deleted and the account gets "recycled", which means the account name can be used by any other users afterwards. Other Webmail services, like Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, have different, sometimes shorter, times for marking an account as inactive. Yahoo! Mail deactivates dormant accounts after four months, while Hotmail deactivates accounts after only one month. Other than the general increase of storage limit, there has also been an improvement of the e-mail interfaces of Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail after the launch of Gmail. Gmail's ability to have an attachment size of 10MB was also matched by Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail during 2005. Following the footsteps of Gmail, Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Mail Beta service and Microsoft launched Windows Live Mail, both now incorporating Ajax interfaces. See Also: Comparison of webmail providers HELP IN GMAIL When users first sign up for Gmail, they are prompted to take the Gmail Tour which teaches them the basic features and what makes Gmail different. There is also a help page teaching new Gmail users how to import their contacts from their previous for users to give and receive help concerning Gmail. SEE ALSO Add-Ins EXTERNAL LINKS
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