Live data from Hacker News

Gmail's Second Major Problem

kapilkale.com

41–50 of 78 posts

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#42

Looks like Greylisting to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting

Yep. I used to work at DreamHost and our customers would run into issues with Gmail greylisting incoming mail. In fact, they do it like crazy.

In a lot of cases, adding an SPF record for the sending domain would clear things up.

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#43
post #30

The author is furious about a technology that was not designed for instantaneous delivery (SMTP) and fumes about it, because it isn't instantaneous. What's worse is, he quickly assumes goes into some kind of 'super-hero mode' and makes a pretty heavy claim that this is Gmail's second biggest problem . I think this is the best approach - If someone hands over you a free glass of wine, which they've tried their level b…

No, the author is upset about "email with a 2 hour delivery lag." Try getting away with that lag at your job. There is no mention of "instantaneous" time scales in TFA.

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#44
post #42

Looks like Greylisting to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting

Yep. I used to work at DreamHost and our customers would run into issues with Gmail greylisting incoming mail. In fact, they do it like crazy. In a lot of cases, adding an SPF record for the sending domain would clear things up.

It is disturbing how many DNS/domain hosting companies still have zero support for SPF.

It is A, MX, CNAME, and MAYBE a couple of other common record types. But a TXT record? No chance...

I had to move to Route53 just for this functionality.

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#45
post #30

The author is furious about a technology that was not designed for instantaneous delivery (SMTP) and fumes about it, because it isn't instantaneous. What's worse is, he quickly assumes goes into some kind of 'super-hero mode' and makes a pretty heavy claim that this is Gmail's second biggest problem . I think this is the best approach - If someone hands over you a free glass of wine, which they've tried their level b…

Isn't the 115 minute lag in the screenshot lag between one Google SMTP server and another Google SMTP server? That seems like a problem Google should be able to address.

> That seems like a problem Google should be able to address.

This is part of the problem.

SMTP and the whole E-Mail thing is inherently unreliable and slow. Speaking for myself, but suspecting this is true for most heavy Gmail users, Gmail feels so good because it seems more reliable than using any other Web mail service. It is even more reliable when both ends use Gmail -- attachments are almost a non-issue within Gmail. Before Gmail mails could take ages to be delivered, get silently lost in spam filters/folders or did not arrive at all.

When we ask Google to be more reliable in that part, we ask them to not do E-Mail but proprietary Magic-Gmail-Messaging. This is part of the problem, not the solution, this is why Facebook is doing E-Mail now. (Ironically FB Messaging seems in some way even less reliable than the Gmail Messaging.)

BTW, what's up with this X.400 thing?

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#46
post #26

Whaaat, SMTP != Instant Delivery!? You must be joking! As much as i can understand the pain of an email not being delivered after 2 hours this seems to be too much drama. "happens 2 times in a month" is not a "major problem" for a free service especially since i suppose this user is part of a rather small minority. I never noticed substantial delivery lags myself over the past years myself. Anyway, if you say "i'd pa…

As funny as you think it might be to charge $50 a month for guaranteed quick delivery, this is exactly what he actually wants. Large random delays in delivery are costing him way more, so he's willing to pay to fix the pain. Instant delivery isn't in the RFC, but conformance with the spec is not something he cares about. He cares about fast delivery.

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#47
post #35

$50 -> $1000 is one order of magnitude. Not "orders". Orders of magnitude hyperbole needs to stop. Why not write "some would pay $1000 a month" when quoting the Graham article. You didn't even show you have users willing to pay $5000 a month for gmail which would in be the "orders of magnitude" you wrote.

it depends what base you are using. to me 50->1000 is 6 orders of magnitude. To those used to base 10, it's 3.

From your words, I guess you're in base 40.

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#49
post #3

i wish some major computer company would release an easy-to-use plug and play server product that would enable consumers to run their own mail servers on cheap hardware, just by toggling a switch just imagine... no ads, no privacy concerns, complete control. if they were smart they would include some sort of automatic backup program that runs in the background and saves everything every once in a while, a backup that…

hMailServer - www.hmailserver.com

Cannot get much more "idiot proof" than that.

Re: Gmail's Second Major Problem

#50
My main gripe against GMail is the visual noise and clutter. There are way too many buttons and gradients and shadows now.

I remember in private beta, it's cleanlisness was heralded as the second coming, but now they seem to be adding features 90% of users don't need.

I've switched to Outlook.com and haven't looked back. Back to cleanliness and non-introsive buttons and popups.

Post reply on HN