it needs phone number
Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
711–720 of 865 posts
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#712While I haven't had this issue with Gmail, I recently got a new computer and the first two weeks for full of moments like this. It's shocking to me how much we've let popups go rampant on everything. Perhaps the worst offender is Windows update, as it won't even let you use your own computer without clicking through 10 screens refusing all sorts of products they are trying to push on you.
I know everyone's tired of hearing this, but this doesn't happen on Linux. I know I know, it's different and a little janky here and there and maybe you have to find a replacement for one or two pieces of software. But like, you don't actually have to put up with this. There is a better way.
I wish I could fully agree. Canonical is a bit pushy: "Ubuntu Pro / ESM subscription will make your machine safer! and it is convenient mega free!! ((for non-business uses))"
Workplace very strictly requires Ubuntu LTS for toolchain & compatibility reasons, otherwise I'd run Debian or Fedora or Tumbleweed with Ubuntu containers/VMs where needed.
Nonetheless, Linux popups and promotions (even from enterprise distros) are not nearly as bad as the Windows 11 experience.
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#713I feel the same about auto completion in antigravity
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#714I don’t understand. Do the people generating ‘content’ with LLMs themselves enjoy pissing away their own time ingesting the output they’re asking an LLM to produce? For all the amazing creative work carefully (or not) crafted by humans directly, you’d rather have the derived token sausage? Writing with intent to deceive a human, and otherwise generating ‘art’ with models is the laziest application thereof, and I’d ar…
> [Stupid Other People] enjoy pissing away their own time ingesting the [LLM] output Stop. Yes yes, you are a fine writer with excellent communication skills. You would never stoop so low as to allow a mere machine to write for you, and no such device is going to have anything but the most banal suggestions you would accept (I mean, even the most elite of us make the occasional typo, amirite?). Many people (most, rea…
I hate writing, but I don't send LLM output, because I'm not the asshole who sends junk.
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#715Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try Mailspring. I’m a huge fan: https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring
That's an electron app. What does it offer that Thunderbird doesn't?
I would go further and ask what do electron apps offer in the way of improvements that WebApps don't.
In mobile, webview-based apps exist mostly because they provide more ways to gather data on users.
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#716I left gmail... well, not really, I was kicked out of gmail, because I am a user of noscript/basic HTML browsers and the only way to "revalidate" you account was to use a whatng cartel web engine. I recall the noscript/basic HTML interface of gmail was dropped after a while.
At the time I was paying for DNS. Then, most, if not all, DNS registrars which are not requiring a whatng cartel web engine are now gone.
The email people were careful to design the email system to work without DNS, then I went IPv[46] literals. It is stronger than SPF, since if the SMTP IP does no match the IPs in the envelope and the headers the email will be dropped.
But the "geniuses" at gmail ignore that and say that I don't have a DNS PTR record... how convenient... (My ISP does provide a PTR service... gated behind the requirement of a 'whatng cartel' web engine...).
And I don't forget about "spamhaus", a shady swiss/andoran company, which many email admins have a weird tendency to pay that for their block lists which includes ISP consumer IPs (people do not have the right to have an email server, ofc).
We are going to endup with with compuserve/AOL all over again.
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#717Gmail has been pure shit for the past years.
I started because it did not have spam, now I get endless spam on a daily basis like they're trying to kick me out on purpose
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#718I don't see any of those (horribly-sounding) AI "helpers" when I read or write messages in gmail. I tried it again just now, to make sure that nothing had changed since yesterday.
I do remember clicking through some suggested "feature improvements" a while ago and saying "No" to all of them. Can't really remember what it was though.
Can it be that the author has some option enabled in settings somewhere which allows this? Or is this something GMail is (forcibly) gradually rolling out? If so, shudder.
EditUpdate: After reading another comment, this must have been a bunch of "smart features" which gmail suggested a while ago. I just, as I said, refused all of them. So they're available in Settings somewhere. Find, turn off.
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#719Gmail is one of the shoddiest of the ultra-cheap email providers. If you use Gmail, a significant number of messages will disappear. They don't go to junk, they just disappear. Gmail will reject messages for obscure technical reasons. They recently decided that they would no longer accept messages signed with 1024 bit RSA DKIM. So, with no public announcement they just turned on the restriction. I found out about this from a random Mastodon poster who wasn't really sure what was going on. The error message returned to the sender gave no indication at all.
Gmail is the email provider for people that like to claim they never got the email. Google has somehow made the most reliable messaging medium, unreliable.
It is obvious that Google simply doesn't care about email. So it makes perfect sense for them to use Gmail to promote something that they do care about.
Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
#720Looking for your alternative? Let me give you some (non financially motivated) praise for Fastmail. It has everything Gmail has - even app passwords, hide my email, and ios integration. The only criticism is the calendar doesn’t autocomplete addresses so that’s a bit more typing than I would like. But everything you do in Fastmail is instant . They live up to the name! Once you try it and go back, you’ll be shocked -…
Speaking about Gmail->FastMail migration, you might be interested in this ten-years old thread: Moving 12 years of email from GMail to FastMail (
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12247401)