# Is it just me, or is Yahoo! mail turning to crap? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 7, 2010, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827 "2010-07-07T07:24:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/1 "2010-07-07T07:24:06Z")
I just have the free web mail service, but I’d still expect some modicum of reliability. Instead I’ve gotten a real drag in uploading/downloading attachments, screens that get frozen on one action, and (most infuriatingly) getting locked out of any form of Yahoo mail whatsoever because of a mysterious “error 999” that won’t allow me to see even the log in screen. I don’t trust Google, but I may have to start relying on Gmail more . . . ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/2 "2010-07-07T08:46:47Z")
I hardly use Yahoo! anymore, but I was recently trying to search through it for some really ancient email of mine. My search results were only turning up things back to 2008, although I’ve had my Yahoo! account since 1999 or so. After poking around on the internet a bit, I’ve learned that Yahoo! has been aware for years that their search hasn’t worked properly, so it doesn’t look like anything is going to be gone about it. That alone is reason enough for me not to use it. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/3 "2010-07-07T12:58:17Z")
I used it regularly for my job searching last year when I was un/under-employed, had no trouble. Maybe it depends on the browser you use? I primarily used Firefox and Chrome on Windows Vista/7. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/4 "2010-07-07T13:00:39Z")
I use it for several email addresses and I’ve never had a problem. Their search works fine, no freezing or anything like that. Maybe I just have really lucky email. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/5 "2010-07-07T13:34:08Z")
I use it daily, and haven’t noticed any change recently. Works OK for me, though it’s only for my throwaway spam address. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/6 "2010-07-07T13:39:23Z")
Everytime I sign on I get dozens of chat requests from people I don’t know and I can’t figure out how to turn that feature off. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/7 "2010-07-07T14:26:57Z")
I hate that from the yahoo home page when it shows **Mail (2)** and you click on it that it doesn’t take you to your inbox. It takes you to some intermediate mail page which serves no purpose where you then have to click on **InBox (2)**. Stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/8 "2010-07-07T14:35:22Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > I use it for several email addresses and I’ve never had a problem. Their search works fine, no freezing or anything like that. Maybe I just have really lucky email. You’re able to retrieve ancient email using Yahoo’s email search? Maybe it has to do with how much is in your inbox. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/9 "2010-07-07T14:36:42Z")
I’m having the exact same problems as the OP. And what infuriates me even more is that I’m pretty much forced to use it because I have way too many contacts that identify me with that email address!! My ritual goes something like this: Click on Yahoo mail. it freezes, ctrl+alt+delete, close program, reopen windows, cick on yahoo mail, NOW it works. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/10 "2010-07-07T16:03:15Z")
Could it be a browser thing? Because I too have no problems with it. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/11 "2010-07-07T16:34:06Z")
**Koxinga** , why don’t you trust Google? **Shakes** , why don’t you create a Gmail account, then set up email forwarding to it? ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/12 "2010-07-08T03:59:15Z")
I’ve pretty much used Yahoo! since I got home service. It now totally sucks. I believe the problem is with the facebook links, the messenger links and the updates to people in your network. Also all the advertisements. I usually leave my Windows task manager open 24/7 to monitor CPU usage. When Yahoo! is open, I’m up close to 80% or so. When I log out and close all the Yahoo windows, I’m down to less than 20% and still am able to do what I want to do on the net without slowdowns. So yeah, I agree Yahoo has become the suck. But all my friends know this email, so I’m out of luck as well. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/13 "2010-07-08T04:03:01Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > **Koxinga** , why don’t you trust Google? I’m afraid Horseboy will find me. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/14 "2010-07-08T04:23:52Z")
Try using [PopPeeper](http://www.poppeeper.com/) to access your Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or most any online webmail (as well as POP and IMAP mail). It’s a great tool that’s free ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/15 "2010-07-08T07:59:34Z")
Nowadays I use a Yahoo account only for some old throwaway-type stuff, but they sure managed to irritate the heck out of me years ago… At one point the storage limit for new accounts was something like 1.5 Megabytes; meanwhile a virus spammer was loose that would send me that much data in about 24 hours. Yahoo was smart enough to route the spam to a spam folder whose contents could “be deleted without notice” **but** it didn’t delete it, so all incoming mail, spam or not, was (silently!) deleted until one logged on to explicitly click “delete spam.” Twenty-four hours later, one would have to log on and delete spam again. (And that even assumes you keep your active folders empty!) When Gmail appeared with its 1 Gigabyte storage, Yahoo Mail suddenly upped its storage from 1.5 Megabytes to 2 Gigabytes. :smack: Even now, I think you can see network data going to and fro when you’re staring at a Yahoo mail page doing nothing. Whatever they’re doing is so unstable I used to crash IE Explorer just trying to copy-paste a message’s contents. And to save a message to one’s own disk without copy-paste was (still is?) ridiculously complex. (Printable view; Save As, for example, did _not_ work.) Color me foolish but I used to delete garbage messages with 2 clicks instead of 1 click, just so I could get the “Thank you so much for reporting Spam and helping us improve our filtering algorithm” message. After 12 deletions, however, that message is discovered to be deceitful since the response changes to “You’ve exceeded your spam-reporting quota. You need to upgrade to Paid mail service.” No. I’m not a Yahoo Mail fan. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/16 "2010-07-08T13:07:07Z")
I don’t like Yahoo Mail one bit and agree with everything everyone has said here. Too busy, too annoying. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/17 "2010-07-08T18:00:59Z")
Mine is overall fine, but the search function only works well about 80% of the time. On occasions, I search for things that I know are there, but come up with nothing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/18 "2010-07-08T18:16:42Z")
> [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](#): > > I believe the problem is with the facebook links, the messenger links and the updates to people in your network. I don’t have any of that stuff turned on, and I still have trouble with yahoo recently. It manifests in showing me the same message over and over even when I’ve deleted it, or by opening a message that’s not the one I clicked on. Petty, but really annoying. ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/19 "2010-07-08T18:21:52Z")
I use it for my formal email (resume, banking, etc.). I find the layout kinda bad when accessed via a web browser. However, it syncs flawlessly with my iPhone (maintaining full folder support) and using it through the phone gives me no problems. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827/20 "2010-07-08T21:20:54Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Everytime I sign on I get dozens of chat requests from people I don’t know and I can’t figure out how to turn that feature off. Click the drop down list and select “Offline” Never had any problems with Yahoo…it’s my primary email and I’ve been using it for years. I don’t use the “new” version of it, though. I like my Yahoo like I like my Coke: Classic. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-yahoo-mail-turning-to-crap/545827.md?page=2)