Google gmail

Google gmail

Here is why I love Google gmail:

Disk space is free. Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Hotmail have been screwing around with us users for years, first 2mb of storage, then 5mb, etc. Trying to charge us for an extra 20mb or so. Google changed the rules with gigabytes of free storage.
Permanent memory. Google feels so strongly that you should have all your email forever, that they actually make "delete" be a two step operation. Instead of trying to manage your email by keeping a small inbox, Google changes the rules, and comes up with a ui that works fine even when your inbox has thousands of messages. Now that is innovative!
Customized "from" address(es) so I can keep using my personal domain name(s) and identities vs. being tied to your email service forever (boo to yahoo and hotmail etc).
No damn mandatory advertisement signature. Unlike Yahoo and Hotmail, gmail does not require me to put a gmail advertisement in the signature for all my outgoing emails.
No graphic ads. Unlike Yahoo and Hotmail, gmail does not slow me down with graphical/image advertising banners, but instead does text-only advertisements.
Relevant ads. Unlike Yahoo and Hotmail which make me look at advertisements that are offensive or irrelevant to me, gmail tries to find ads relevant to the content of my email! Some folks have complained, but I actually love that they do this-- it is only their software which scans to find relevant ads; no human is reading my email.
Quicken-style completion when typing in email addresses. This is done perfectly.
Keyboard navigation so I don't have to use the mouse for common operations.
Whitelist images allow people on my friends list to send me images but email from anyone else requires me to click to display images.

FYI, to get rid of the incredibly annoying "chat" popups that Google released in a moment of delusion, click on the "standard without chat" link at the bottom of your message list.

See Also