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A rundown of the new Gmail

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Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#241

Post by jteague »

indianajensen wrote: post #191
OmarIsmail wrote: post #45

The most exciting news here is that they're iterating on Gmail again. It was clear that Gmail was stagnating for a while as they were investing in Inbox. It's unfortunate that Inbox didn't take off, but now that it looks like they're putting the effort behind Gmail proper, we'll be seeing continual updates and improvements. In just the past 6 months we've seen native Gmail add-ons (that work across web and mobile) an…

I've been an avid Inbox user for years. Anyone knows what's next for Inbox? Looks like it might be folded back into Gmail and discontinued as standalone?

Google has said that there are no current plans to change or discontinue Inbox. So, at least for the immediate future, if you like Inbox, you can use Inbox.

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#242

Post by zyrthofar »

blairbeckwith wrote: post #217
peatmoss wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently moved my stuff to / paid a year of Fastmail. I gather Protonmail puts security features a bit more front-and-center. How about the UX? Can anyone comment on how they like the over all experience of Protonmail as compared to Fastmail? I realize I could sign up a Protonmail account and compare, but I’m not sure I’d get a good picture of the service through casual use. I like Fastmail quite a lot so far, but…

Lack of POP/IMAP is a big, major con. You're forced to use their web or native interfaces. They don't make this super obvious outside of an FAQ on their site. I signed up and then found out. I wonder how much churn that causes them.

I was about to switch in a couple of weeks, until I read your comment.

How would encrypted emails work in a client like Thunderbird? Would it normally be handled correctly if POP/IMAP was available?

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#244

Post by nailer »

gk1 wrote: post #207
nailer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they'd just fix Gmail sync between tabs. Sending a reply to a message you've already replied to (because the first reply didn't show up in the tab) is embarrasing.

That seems like a non-problem. You can easily prevent it by having only one Gmail tab open at a time.

> That seems like a non-problem. You can easily prevent it by having only one Gmail tab open at a time.

That seems like a non solution. I frequently compose multiple documents full screen, while multitasking between different items of work. Judging by the upvotes before your edgy comment I'm not the only one.

Other apps maintain state being used in multiple windows, gmail should do the same.

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#245

Post by EpicEng »

lmm wrote: post #228
mattkrause wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That pen thing would be a great anecdote....if it were true.

It's substantially true. The pen was developed by a private company rather than the government, but "the US spent" is fair if we consider it to refer to the country as a whole. Using pencils in space did cause genuine issues, but the Russian space programme did live with those issues until the space pen was developed.

>but "the US spent" is fair if we consider it to refer to the country as a whole.

Of course, that's not what anyone means when they repeat this nonsense, and the entire point of the story is to create a narrative that the US government is bloated, wasteful, and stupid.

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#246

Post by peatmoss »

zyrthofar wrote: post #242
blairbeckwith wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of POP/IMAP is a big, major con. You're forced to use their web or native interfaces. They don't make this super obvious outside of an FAQ on their site. I signed up and then found out. I wonder how much churn that causes them.

I was about to switch in a couple of weeks, until I read your comment. How would encrypted emails work in a client like Thunderbird? Would it normally be handled correctly if POP/IMAP was available?

This is the grand problem with email. At least two standards exist: PGP & SMIME

But... those aren’t particularly friendly and thus aren’t widely used. The main usability issue is a fundamental one, namely that management of crypto keys is hard.

Hearing that Protonmail requires their own client suggests to me that they’ve given up on the standards due to usability issues, and have instead adopted a managed key model like Apple’s iMessage.

iMessage is end-to-end encrypted, but Apple manages keys on your behalf. It’s not a bad compromise between privacy and usability depending on your threat model.

But, at this point I’m deeply suspicious of anything that isn’t standards based or that locks me into a particular vendor’s software. I’m therefore skeptical that we’ll satisfactorily solve email privacy for a majority of people in my lifetime.

EDIT: Thunderbird would work with Fastmail for encryption using PGP or SMIME (at least I think Thunderbird supports SMIME). Protonmail wouldn’t work, I’d guess.

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#247

Post by lmm »

EpicEng wrote: post #245
lmm wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's substantially true. The pen was developed by a private company rather than the government, but "the US spent" is fair if we consider it to refer to the country as a whole. Using pencils in space did cause genuine issues, but the Russian space programme did live with those issues until the space pen was developed.

>but "the US spent" is fair if we consider it to refer to the country as a whole. Of course, that's not what anyone means when they repeat this nonsense, and the entire point of the story is to create a narrative that the US government is bloated, wasteful, and stupid.

I've seen it more used to create a narrative about US culture as being overly technology-focused and lacking a sense of making do / good-enough. Shrug.

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#248

Post by TheWiseOne »

billfruit wrote: post #237

Nothing on inline video playback and embedded YouTube videos. I think many desktop clients have that functionality. That would make possible email news letters that can have the richness of Medium posts.

God, I hope this never comes true.

Email is not the right medium for this. Stick to blogs and webpages for this instead.

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#249

Post by CommanderData »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #45

The most exciting news here is that they're iterating on Gmail again. It was clear that Gmail was stagnating for a while as they were investing in Inbox. It's unfortunate that Inbox didn't take off, but now that it looks like they're putting the effort behind Gmail proper, we'll be seeing continual updates and improvements. In just the past 6 months we've seen native Gmail add-ons (that work across web and mobile) an…

Google add ons is a poor excuse for extending Gmails functionality.

I tried to create a basic app a few months ago and it is extremely limited and feels very much beta.

An example: extending compose functionality in any way is impossible.

Add ons are limited to when the user opens an email, that's pretty much it. Try for yourself and see.

Re: A rundown of the new Gmail

#250

Post by alphydan »

timwis wrote: post #166
ankitank wrote: post #135

Actually, the new gmail is: https://protonmail.com/

Does it intelligently separate "promotions", "updates", and "forums" emails so you can focus on emails that are actually conversations? I used fastmail for a while and it didn't do this, and it was _so_ much harder to keep up on my inbox that I switched back to gmail :/

Interesting. This is the single feature I hate most about gmail. It keept misclassifying important emails and I missed deadlines for taxes, payments, etc. I ended up having to read "All-mail" to avoid missing stuff.
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