Deciding to Use Gmail

Switching e-mail programs is often a big decision. E-mail has become such an important part of the way that we communicate with others that we have come to expect e-mail software to act and perform in a certain way. When checking your e-mail, you shouldn’t have to think too much about the software you are using to read, respond to, and compose new e-mail messages.

When deciding to use Gmail (http://gmail.google.com) for your e-mail rather than another Web-based e-mail program, you should consider some of the features. These features can include important things such as the amount of online storage offered or the compatibility of the Web-based e-mail program with your preferred Web browser, or less important things such as the ability to customize the user interface of the Web e-mail program. Gmail’s interface is currently not customizable, where Yahoo allows you to have message stationary and

MSN/Hotmail allows you to customize your interface with nine different color schemes. Yahoo and MSN/ Hotmail also have drag-and-drop message interfaces where Gmail does not. But while these features are incidental, nice-to-have features, the core program is where Gmail excels.

Online storage

The amount of storage space on the server for your e-mail is an important consideration when choosing among Web-based e-mail programs. Certainly you will want an e-mail service provider that gives you plenty of storage space or you will need to begin erasing old e-mails and lose important historical information. Because Google’s idea is to increase your ability to maintain historical information rather than removing old e-mail, it was important to offer more storage space. Here is a comparison of the top Web-based e-mail programs:

• Gmail: 2.65GB

• MSN/Hotmail: 2GB

• Yahoo Mail: 1GB

You can see from this list that a Gmail account gives you the ability to save e-mail for a very long time. Storage space is considered a technical advantage and therefore these amounts are always changing, each one trying to outdo the other. So, watch for higher storage capacities in the future.

Compatibility

Because Web-based programs rely on the features of Web browsers to make them work, it is important to select an e-mail program that works with the browser you use. For a long time, the main browser of choice was Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE). Other browsers have gained importance as they have developed additional features. Many people are switching to Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux installations, and some to Opera on the Macintosh.

When selecting a Web-based e-mail program, you don’t want to sacrifice your choice in browsers to make the switch. This means that selecting the Web-based e-mail program that operates with your browser is important. Table 19.1 gives you the browser compatibility comparisons among the various Web-based e-mail programs.

Table 19.1: Browser E-mail Compatibility
Open table as spreadsheet

E-mail Program	Compatible Web Browsers
Gmail	IE v5.5+, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Safari
Yahoo Mail	IE v5.5+, Firefox, Opera
MSN/Hotmail	IE v6.0+ [*]
[*]Basic features will run in other browsers.