I use this regularly now, but I'm still dead set on moving back to having email in my workstation. Now, Google seem ruthless in their hunt for your information and this alone should be enough to make a decision. But it's a bigger problem than just that: you are at their mercy for any change they introduce, and they are a critical component of the internet for many if not most of us. Namely this interface change, or the availability of that simple html option. One could argue that the same can be said for any "cloud service" but email is typically a bit too critical to many of us. It definitely is for me. And they would push their integration plans whatever your opinion is and whatever the consensus is. This modus operandi seems to be the new standard at Google.

The last straw was a recent incident I had with my Android phone. So apparently in one of the recent updates of Google Talk they realised they could just log me into their one-and-only Google Account with gmail, etc. included. I had very carefully avoided Gmail's app (which they won't let you delete). I had refused to "sync" anything or add my Google account. Now, Google wouldn't let me log-out or delete my account.

I don't have any particularly compromising information in my phone. I don't have any "secret" numbers and the labels make sense just to me. I have it set up so if I lost it, it wouldn't be a big problem. But now I had my email forcibly open in my phone for anyone to see. Now I had to lock the screen and be extra-careful. Google doesn't let you delete your account from the phone easily. They provide this "option" but if you click on it they will let you know that you can only delete your account from the phone by doing a factory reset. Goodbye installed apps, settings, highscores, everything. So I did, and proceeded to create an account just for the phone.

Now, searches are getting painfully slow and they're quite poor compared to Thunderbird. But I'd still prefer gmail for the convenience of having it always available and always synced from anywhere, if only they weren't so insisting in upping their stakes and in forcing people into an all-or-nothing situation. I bet it makes business sense for them, it just doesn't make it for me.

I lost my youtube account when they stopped allowing independent accounts (had it locked to someone else's Google account and couldn't get this person to release it). I cannot afford to risk losing my main email account, so I'm taking preventive action while they still allow a relatively easy migration back to the desktop.

Thanks, I know about the basic HTML site. It's not a worthwhile tradeoff for me, though. The basic site is literally worse than the 2003 version.

Thank you, thank you, thank you...

Thanks for this gem!

Did they forgot to change this view or G-Plusification will kill this as well?