
The Best E-Mail Program Ever: How Gmail destroyed Outlook. - robg
http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2210090
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bk
"The best e-mail program ever"? Hardly. "One of the least shitty of the bunch"
is probably more appropriate.

Gmail easily beats the old-school bunch, but the quantum leap of email is
definitely still ahead of us.

~~~
shutter
What would you like to see in that quantum leap?

~~~
est
IMHO something like Chandler Project. PIM+PKM+GTD+Workflow

~~~
carterschonwald
I was actually trying out Chandler earlier this week and I found it
disappointingly hard to configure, and I'm not normally one to have that be
the show stopper (cf occasionally spending 10 hrs figuring out how to build
some unixy software and have it interact nicely with some sort of emacs
package)

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mattmaroon
I still greatly prefer Outlook + Exchange. Gmail was not built for power
emailers or it would have folders (or at least hierarchical tags). It would
have the ability to mark something for follow up, then have it pop up in your
to-do list later. It would have ActiveSync and/or Blackberry server so it
could support push email to the smartphones that people actually own. It would
be able to sync your contacts and calendar from one phone/client to another.
(Calendar + ActiveSync + Smartphone = personal assistant.) It would have crazy
powerful rules like Outlook. It would have baked in RSS functionality. Need I
continue?

I'm a power emailer and that's why I don't use Gmail's web interface. It's
meant for casual users. I do use the service though due to free forwarding.

~~~
ohhmaagawd
Wow. I think Outlook is one of the shittiest pieces of software Microsoft has
ever made. Lets see... it crashes all the time. It is dog slow. You shut it
down and it doesn't really shut down.

The search is pathetic. This is huge. If you can't find your email, it's not
very useful.

Organizing emails by folder isn't necessary if you have a powerful search
facility. Gmail search is much faster than any outlook search and it actually
gives you what you need. Manual folder organization is a waste of time.

Labels are useful with the rule wizard. And I have to say I find the rules on
Gmail much nicer than Outlook. And unlike Outlook, you don't have to start up
your client to run them.

You can sync your contacts, etc...Google has all kinds of sync softare (gry
google-ing it).

You can access gmail from any phone that uses IMAP/POP (including blackberry).

You have 7 gigs of storage. Instead of the pathetic 100 meg that you usually
see with corporate Exchange servers.

The spam filtering doesn't even compare. Google has mastered it.

You can hook gmail up to your own domain easily (google apps account).

And GMail is free.

I think you have it backwards. Gmail is the power user's email, outlook is for
people who are stuck in the past.

~~~
eli
I prefer GMail as well, but you're not making a very strong case for it.
Outlook has its benefits and:

* The search has improved in Outlook 2007, plus there are 3rd party search tools and plugins (like Google Desktop, of course)

* Labels/Folders is not a big difference, and with a proper Exchange server set up, the Outlook rules _do_ run on the server not just your client

* IMAP/POP is _not_ the same as ActiveSync or Blackberry Server support. It's a big difference (Push vs Scheduled Pull) and is a dealbreaker for most Blackberry users.

* Gmail may give you 7 gigs, but Outlook/Exchange gives you as much as you have hard drive space for, and hard drives are awfully cheap these days. The fact that some corporations have crappy policies isn't Outlook's fault.

* GMail is free, but most people get Outlook with Office, which they were gonna buy anyway. Exchange server isn't free, but it's only a few grand. And, notably, it means you control and store all your own email, this makes GMail a dealbreaker for people for various security or legal reasons.

But yeah, the Outlook spam filtering sucks. There are plugins to make it
better, but I still think GMail has the best anti-spam I've ever seen.

------
arien
Gmail isn't perfect. The only two real reasons why I use Gmail and not Outlook
are:

\- I can access it online from anywhere without configuring much.

\- Because of the good spam filter, saves me from installing Mail Washer or
other anti spam tools.

Couple of things I don't like about Gmail:

\- Still doesn't have folders (labels are OK but they don't have any kind of
hierarchy).

\- I miss the drag&drop functionality from Outlook (e.g. mark a couple of
emails and drop them into some folder or the trashcan, much faster than having
to select the label from that pulldown).

\- It's missing desktop alerts. Sometimes they are annoying, but with some
configuring they are pretty useful at work. I have that Firefox extension to
check incoming emails @ Gmail, but I can't configure it to show only certain
emails.

Of course Outlook isn't perfect either, but I don't think it has been
"destroyed" yet.

~~~
decadentcactus
If you use Gtalk, it'll pop up (silently) when you get a new email.

~~~
froo
While I was using Windows I found Digsby to be the best of the IM clients that
I tested.

It gave the notifications for gmail, but also twitter, facebook and handled a
couple of my IM accounts.

Very useful, pity no client for linux or mac yet :\

~~~
peregrine
I don't like giving Digsby my login information for everyone of my sites.
Especially after they ask you to install 4 or 5 toolbars and spyware.

I'd rather use pidgin or just gtalk.

~~~
froo
interesting - when I first installed it it had no such toolbars etc.

Perhaps give digsby a miss then.

~~~
peregrine
They ask if you want to install them. You have the option to opt out but the
fact that they make money on people being careless concerns me.

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kennyroo
The title of this post (not the related article) is misleading. While I wish
Outlook would go down in flames, it's alive and well in just about every
corporation in America. Gmail hasn't destroyed it. I'm not even sure that
Gmail is all that great of a product, storage limits aside. It could be a heck
of a lot better with some UI love.

~~~
anthonyrubin
As far as I'm aware Gmail is far behind even the other webmail providers.

~~~
PieSquared
Behind how? I've been using it for a while and have missed nothing; am I
missing out on something I don't even know about?

~~~
inerte
I think he meant behind in terms of number of users. Gmail is third, if I
remember correctly (after Yahoo and Hotmail)

~~~
kolya3
Everyone I know has a hotmail account. It's everyone's throwaway-give-to-
spammers account. Those same people have all slowly migrated to using their
Gmail address for their most important emails. So if you look only at number
of users, Gmail might be behind. But if you were to know the number of active
users, I would guess Gmail is way ahead.

~~~
inerte
Why guess? :)

[http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-
statist...](http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-
statistics.htm)

If you're inclined to believe what the companies say about its own services.

------
tortilla
Actually I would say, "The Best Spam Filter Ever" - Gmail

~~~
jwilliams
I actually find Yahoo better.

Not sure why - perhaps they process a greater volume of mail so they have more
data to crunch.

~~~
known
I think search in Yahoo Mail sucks.

~~~
dotcoma
so does the spam filter.

------
tokenadult
Gmail's facilities for building contact lists are still abominably poor. I
switch to the old version every time I need to build a list to, for example,
contact all students in a class I teach.

~~~
likpok
This is true. There is no way to merge contacts (if it auto-adds the same
person as two different people), which makes reasonably contact lists
frustrating.

------
neilk
Why is everyone giving the credit to Gmail? It's Gmail + Gears.

Anyway, compared to desktop email clients, Gmail still lacks a lot of
features. Although the spam filtering and search does put it in a class by
itself.

Something tells me that person-to-person asynchronous messaging hasn't been
solved forever. Call it a hunch.

------
RK
Now imagine if an email service/client actually got a large number of people
to start using encryption. That would be an impressive feat.

~~~
jff
Agreed. Encryption/signing is easy with Claws mail (which is what I use on
Linux) but Gmail doesn't seem to make any concessions.

~~~
RK
You can encrypt Gmail with something like FireGPG, a Firefox plugin:

<http://getfiregpg.org>

I use Enigmail with Thunderbird, but the number of people I use it with is
_very_ small.

The desire to have ubiquitous email access makes the implementation of secure
email even more difficult. How do receive encrypted messages on all of your
devices? Do you store a copy of your private key on each device? What about
when you're away from your devices? Would you trust a server to host your
private key?

------
seshagiric
Yeah sure, but can you wait till Gmail is out of beta? Please?

While GMail works fantastic, I do not see how I would manage my work email
without folders or the ability to sort per message/ sender. And how about the
tight integration with Calendar or being able to sync with your mobile device.
No I don't want to search all the time.

There is lot to improve for email apps. But to say Gmail killed Outlook is
only a sensational statement. A cheap trick that is.

~~~
ohhmaagawd
ya. typing "from: seshagiric" is pretty tough.

as far as organizing, set up a filter and create a label. that's what I do. I
have half a dozen email lists I manage this way. Or get the Better Gmail
firefox extension for folders, although if you think about it a label is the
same as a folder anyway.

------
ohhmaagawd
A couple tips:

Gmail Notifier <http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html>

This firefox extension gives you folders (among other cool features):
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6076>

~~~
twopoint718
Seconded, plus there is (at least one) for Linux as well:

<http://gmail-notify.sourceforge.net/>

------
njharman
Doesn't anyone else use Thunderbird?

Spam filtering is the only thing in Gmail I'm jealous of. I wonder/wish google
would offer that as a service I'd pay for that. [I think google has the
corpus/skills/infrastructure to do it better than anyone else can approach]

------
eli
And somehow he didn't even mention that GMail is free and comes with an email
address, while Outlook you have to pay for and still requires email hosting
(ideally on Exchange if you want to use all the features)

------
epe
Until I can label messages without touching the mouse (Greasmonkey and the
like don't count), gmail has certainly not "reached perfection".

~~~
robosox
You can already do this. Select a message ('x'), open the More Actions menu
('.' period), type the label and press return. No greasemonkey necessary.

~~~
epe
Thanks!

