# Tell me about Gmail **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 20, 2007, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658 "2007-12-20T02:24:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/21 "2007-12-20T14:00:47Z")
[QUOTE=Mr Bus Guy] (die slowly in a bitter hell Novell, I hate you) [/QUOTE] Plant hijacks own thread: What do you not like about Novell? ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/22 "2007-12-20T14:07:21Z")
Gmail is awesome, but there’s a couple things I don’t like about it. Forwarding mail: It doesn’t have a way for you to pull down a list of your contacts and click them on to your address field. At least none that I have found. You have to manually type in the addys, as C&P copies the coding instead for some reason. Same thing happens if you want to add CCs. Speaking of contacts, I want my default list to be ALL contacts, not just the most frequently mailed. Maybe they purposely don’t have forwarding to deter spam. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/23 "2007-12-20T14:48:13Z")
It appears that Gmail will be running Wildblue’s email, but I’ll keep my addresses and be able to use Thunderbird or Outlook. Our home pages won’t be moved to Google, but deleted. Not that I have much to move there. Thanks, CP ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/24 "2007-12-20T15:14:58Z")
[QUOTE=Knowed Out] Forwarding mail: It doesn’t have a way for you to pull down a list of your contacts and click them on to your address field. [/QUOTE] You should be able to type the person’s name, or just _start_ typing it, and see a list of people that match. Similar to the auto-complete feature on web browsers, but a lot more powerful and useful. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/25 "2007-12-20T17:37:52Z")
Another cool thing is that Gmail now offers IMAP, so instead of having your client download the emails to your local machine (if you don’t want to stick with the web interface), your email client can look at the messages directly on the server. This is particularly good if you have an iPhone and a Mac and you want them both to integrate with the same Gmail account. It works perfectly 🆒. POP3 solutions don’t really work for multiple client access because you almost always end up with the message going to one machine or the other but not both. ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/26 "2007-12-20T21:44:37Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Gmail is the best email service I’ve ever used. [/QUOTE] As they say on teh Intarwebs, word. It’s just the bee’s knees… the cat’s whiskers… the kangaroo’s pouch of email! I switched to it about a year and a half ago, and I’ve never looked back since. Oh, and the ever-increasing space is a great thing too. At the moment, my space allocation is actually increasing faster than the rate at which I get email, so without deleting a thing my percentage used is actually falling. That’s wicked cool! ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/27 "2007-12-20T22:01:51Z")
[QUOTE=Red Barchetta] Even this is an understatement. [/QUOTE] Preach on! ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/28 "2007-12-20T22:21:58Z")
Oddly, I’ve begun getting spam on my gmail account. Something like 2 or 3 a day show up in my actual inbox, not the spam folder. I guess the spammers are starting to figure out how to bypass Gmail’s filters, but the emails are surprisingly obviously spam. I report them, of course, so I hope I’m doing my part. Anyone else noticing this? ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/29 "2007-12-20T22:38:21Z")
Yes, I also get a spam or two a day now, but it’s still better than any other mail server. I always report them, as well. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/30 "2007-12-20T22:48:23Z")
I’m glad to see that nobody anymore is accusing Google of violating user’s privacy because of the context-sensitive ads it displays with your email. Some ignorant tool lawmaker in California even wanted to ban it there IIRC. The ads are a result of software reading the ad, and not a person, of course. And if someone has a problem with software reading their email, they’re pretty much screwed. Of course spam is filtered by software reading the email too. And guess what? It is impossible for a person to even view their email without some type of software reading it, whether it be their web browser or their email client. And also the email routing software that actually sent it to your POP/IMAP/Exchange server or whatever, and the POP/IMAP/Exchange server itself too, of course. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/31 "2007-12-21T00:56:48Z")
Well said, **Revtim**. The people whining about the ads (and there were many, including tech bloggers who should have known a lot better) were neglecting that very similar systems were used on Hotmail, Yahoo, et al, for years to sniff for spam, yet not a peep out of anyone was heard. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/32 "2007-12-21T01:39:35Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] Plant hijacks own thread: What do you not like about Novell? [/QUOTE] I’d like to know too. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/33 "2007-12-21T01:52:23Z")
I just did an interesting, although ultimately pointless, test on Gmail’s spam-filtering. I’ve got an account, which I hadn’t logged into for God knows how long. I don’t think I’ve ever sent an email from it, I’m just in the habit of registering things as myname@whatever, simply because I can. Anyway, there’s 10 spam emails in the inbox, and 219 in the spam folder. Not bad going in terms of filtering them, but I wonder how so many ended up being sent there in the first place! ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/34 "2007-12-21T01:57:17Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] …I wonder how so many ended up being sent there in the first place! [/QUOTE] Probably a “dictionary attack” - some spam program comes up with email addresses based on a well-known domain, and as many combinations of letters and numbers as the bit before the @ sign as it can. It’s nothing personal! ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/35 "2007-12-21T02:17:28Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Probably a “dictionary attack” - some spam program comes up with email addresses based on a well-known domain, and as many combinations of letters and numbers as the bit before the @ sign as it can. It’s nothing personal! [/QUOTE] I doubt it’s a dictionary attack, because I’ve got a seemingly-uncommon name even among the Welsh (dammit, I’ve given it away 😛 ). Brute force attacks, involving every alphanumeric combination, are a different matter! ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/36 "2007-12-21T08:53:03Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] I doubt it’s a dictionary attack, because I’ve got a seemingly-uncommon name even among the Welsh (dammit, I’ve given it away 😛 ). Brute force attacks, involving every alphanumeric combination, are a different matter! [/QUOTE] Oh yeah, Rhidian, I meant “brute force”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658.md?page=1)