Now that I've used Gmail for some weeks, impressions are rather mixed. In order to test it under real life conditions, I've subscribed to some higher volume mailing lists like css-d and rp-ml to populate my inbox, resulting in several hundred mail items. While I like Gmail's usability, inbox design, thread ("discussion") handling, keyboard navigation and some of the DHTML goodies, things I don't like include:
No SSL transfer UPDATE 2004-07-16 For SSL, just use https://gmail.google.com/ instead of http://gmail.google.com/ - thanks Rainer!- No "filter after the fact" - I use filters to automatically add labels to specific items. New or changed filter rules will only apply to messages arriving, but cannot be applied to messages already in the inbox, a feature I rely rather heavily on in Thunderbird. Now Gmail's proponents might say: "Thou shalt not filter, thou shalt search." Surprisingly, Gmail sucks most in Google's very own domain:
- Search results contain exact matches only (mostly, that is). What makes perfect sense when searching the web makes hardly sense when searching files on a PC or searching mail: I do not want to enter a complete seach term, but just the beginning of it in order to a) save time and b) get results that contain different word endings like plural forms or related words. Example: when searching for "Arbeitsplan", I just want to enter "Arbeitsp" so that results that contain "Arbeitspläne" (plural form) appear, too, which does not happen. Instead, no results appear at all (interestingly enough, it lists "Roheisenpfanne" when searching for "Roheisen"). Not too impressive for a search company.
If you still need an invitation, drop me a line.
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