Desktop vs Web for email
After reading the latest xobni thread, I am curious how people choose to read their email. I use gmail because I can access it anywhere, and that feature pretty much trumps all others, privacy concerns included.
I use gmail for low priority traffic like mailing lists, and everything else goes through FastMail (http://fastmail.fm/) which is quite simply the best email host I've ever found. For $40/y you get hosting for 50 domains (and 30 aliases on FM's many domains); SpamAssassin; Sieve filtering; secure IMAP, POP and SMTP; 2GB storage; and a nice web UI which suffices when I'm away from gnus.
Sorry for the food analogies; I'm hungry!
I use 3 different computers running two OS'es - that is the only reason I use web-based mail. Back in the day when everything was on my laptop, I liked "TheBat!" and ThunderBird.
I use evolution for work email and use its "vfolders" extensively. They have a different name, and they predate "tagging", but they're really the same thing, and difficult to live without.
In gmail, I would prefer proper threads instead of "conversations", but in practice the difference is minimal.
The crappy editor is its biggest problem, but even that can be worked around.
When Gmail first came out, I certainly would have agreed with that statement. When I first received a Gmail invite, I placed "make Gmail address main one" somewhere on my to-do list.
Since then, however, Yahoo has mostly-replaced Yahoo! Mail with Yahoo! Mail Beta, which I strongly feel is far superior to Gmail (and far, far, far superior to the Yahoo! Mail Classic). Its main advantage (but definitely not its only) is its GUI, which contains its own tabbing system, the ability to read an e-mail in an iframe merely by selecting it in the inbox, the ability to move between folders via drag-and-drop, and much more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo%21_Mail#Yahoo.21_Mail_AJA...
Relatedly, but off topic: It still appals me how many sites don't gracefully degrade back to vanilla HTML. Or even check, for heaven's sake, merrily making all of their links Javascript-only. Not nearly as many as assume that you can't possibly be using your own fonts or setting minimum point sizes, admittedly (my eyesight isn't what it used to be, and it never used to be up to much) but even so... I keep hoping that someday a revision of HTML will come out that banishes the javascript: protocol from links altogether.
-I like drag and drop attachments. -I like the OS integration. Click on an email link from the browser, send something from iPhoto etc... -I hate that when I hit tab on gmail it focuses on the send button. -I like having email offline. -I like to be able to fast-seach AND THEN sort. -I like realtime spellcheck.
Gmail is the best web interface by far but in my opinion it is inferior to mail.app. I think the tipping point comes when you're spending more time on a machine w/o your client, gmail is the way to go.
Lots of companies don't like email on other servers, calling it a security risk.
That's probably true, but given the lacking security in other areas in almost every company I've heard with this policy, the security excuse is useless.
I check email on the web only when I absolutely have to. I like the gmail interface, but still vastly prefer to download my email.
If I can get emacs configured, I'll start using that. I get hundreds of emails a day and at any given time I only care about maybe 5% of them. But it's a different 5% every day and sometimes I want to be interrupted. I need to be able to change my filters on the fly. With Outlook, you have to pull up application-halting dialog boxes and click through several different UIs to change them.
For the record, I'm using gnus with IMAP and emacs within screen on linux.
Thunderbird is missing the ability to pipe messages through an external process.
1) fastmail.fm (the IMAP service I use has been very reliable for years now)
2) I don't actually start gnus, or emacs, or a linux terminal session on a daily basis; I just keep them running and use ssh and screen to get to them. It's only text mode of course, but for the last 5 years or so I rarely had a real need for anything more than text (and if such need arises, I just use the web access to the IMAP server or another MUA).
As for security, email is not secure. It never was and probably never will be. PGP etc. is too hard for most of the people so even if you use it, majority of your corresponders won't.
Desktop email is an anachronism. With the proliferation of rich mobile devices (e.g. iPhone) it will become obsolete.
You are 100% right about lack of security though.
Or try emailing me a snipped of source code preserving syntax highlighting, formatting and fonts&colors.
Webmail is in stone age when it comes to feature set and usability. It has one HUGE advantage (mobility) but that's about it.
Most people are fine using it because most people, understandably, are not sending each other "documents", but I would describe a typical personal email rather as "short message".
Even better, an employee of one of these services, quite innocently, sells some of a client corporation's stock. That corporation better hope to whatever they consider Holy that the stock refrains from dropping for a while. SOX makes it a good deal easier to prosecute lots of different parties to the appearance of impropriety. Guilt and innocence goes out the window. What matters is what is LEGAL, and a little something called "burden of proof". In my own opinion, it is so low now that a sick kindergarten age child could hurdle it.
Unless you are a VERY good lawyer, or you can afford one, or preferably 10, I would advise you to stay away from any SOX entanglements. Sell the enterprise some software to run on their own servers, DO NOT offer to manage it if you are a startup.
That said, if you can afford the battalion of attorneys, move forward with your plans. Keep in mind however, indemnity clauses in the new SOX era means you go to prison WITH them should anything go horribly awry.
The one thing I dislike about gmail is that I find myself reluctant to use it to write long emails. Especially in Basic HTML view.
My primary address is on Gmail, and I do use the web interface when I can't got to my laptop, but I prefer not to.
I've used other webmail like the new and improved AOL and Yahoo, but it's too feature rich for me,it takes up too much processing power of my 1.4ghz aand 512mb ram puter and I am already used to using GMAIL.
At work I am forced to use outlook, but would much rather use thunderbird.
GMail is excellent. Well thought out interface, and it just works.