Gmail by Google? Anyone use this and what is your opinion on this service?

[Orchidflower]

Since I want an encrypted email service (remember that I have so many secret documents in my underground work with various countries ), a friend suggested I use Gmail by Google as my service. He said they have more room than what I've been using, also.
Does anyone use Gmail here? And what is your opinion on Gmail's quality of service?
I "think" I remember someone a couple years ago that I knew that used Gmail having problems with it going down or something, but don't make me swear to it. Anyone have anything to say about Gmail that's good or bad or even indifferent?

***If anyone has an ENCRYPTED service they use like hushmail, please give me your opinion of it. I'm seriously looking around now.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Wife uses Gmail and likes it.

I have also heard that it has gone down from time to time, but this has never affected her. Timing, I suppose.

I wouldn't count on anything being secure from serious hackers (specifically, Uncle Sam).

 

[TromboneAl]

GMail is the only way to fly. Highly recommended. It has been extremely reliable for me.

 

[Trek]

My wife uses it, but I personally don't like the way it "organizes" your emails. Probably just takes time to get used to it. I suspect it's reliable as any though.

 

[Helen]

I love it. They give you a ton of storage space. I've had it for years and have deleted very few messages. I'm not even close to exceeding their space allotment.

I've never had gmail be unavailable.

 

[vicente solano]

My son installed for me on my phone to receive very spceial mails, like from this forum. No problems, but then I only read mails...

 

[TromboneAl]

My wife uses it, but I personally don't like the way it "organizes" your emails.

A lot of people don't use it's system well. For example, when my sister visits, I see that all her mail is in her in box, and she deletes things she doesn't think she'll need.

First rule of email: Never delete a message.

Second rule: Archive. Every day or so, I just archive all the messages I'm done with. They are no harder to get to, they just aren't sitting in the in box. It's easy to do this, since you can just tell it to archive everything you've read, or fine tune what gets archived.

This way, you usually have an uncluttered in box containing only those emails and email threads that are currently relevant.

The search function is very effective.

 

[Orchidflower]

Why never delete a message? I don't understand, TromboneAl.

 

[Janet H]

I love gmail and with a little time you can come to appreciate the different way of sorting info. Say goodbye to folders forever

Others pluses for gmail include the best spam filter around, great internal search tool, remote access and easy configuration.

 

[Orchidflower]

Gosh, I'm getting sold on Gmail. Wish I were sophisticated enough to use folders. Talk about your basic beginner.

 

[Janet H]

Gmail does have folders - but they have something much simpler called labels.

You can leave all your messages in your inbox and tag them with labels. You can then search and sort by labels. When I originally set up a gmail account I developed an elaborate set of labels but as time has gone on, they have fallen into disuse except for two remaining and much needed labels; 'Do" and 'Done". The search tool is so nice that it's just not necessary to file anything.

One final good feature: FREE

 

[Orchidflower]

FREE is always the price I love to pay the most!

 

[Sarah in SC]

I like Gmail and find it has some great features compared to the two other email services I use. Easy to organize and easy to set up on my mobile phone, too.
And free!

 

[Rustic23]

Orchid,
Gmail gives me 8 gig of storage. I have over 1,200 email archived. I think T Al's point is there is not need to ever delete an email, because of the amount of storage they give you. I don't archive everything, but I have started archiving most personal email.

 

[FUEGO]

Big gmail user here since the very beginning in 2004. And Gdocs and gCalendar and google voice and google chat among other things google. It is like a whole Office suite accessible "on the cloud" (anywhere there is an internet connection).

I think gmail was down for a few hours two times this year. It made headlines and also a "biggest tech failures of 2009" list I saw recently. Otherwise it is very reliable. It is more reliable than my Outlook based email at work, what with the occasional network hiccup/burp and Exchange server errors/reboots. And the search functions and accessibility are WAY faster than my Outlook based email at work. It takes a little bit of work to get used to "searching" for the email you are looking for instead of moving everything to folders and browsing. But I like it better than competing internet based email services and outlook.

Once you get set up, go to Settings or something and make sure https or secure/encrypted is selected. It will show in your browser too (the little lock icon).

 

[Orchidflower]

I'm still in shock over having 1,200 emails sitting in storage.....wow.
Will do what you oldtimers with gmail say. I'm here to learn.

 

[Katsmeow]

I went to gmail full time several months ago. I've used very complex email programs before with lots of filters, etc. However, I got tired of synchronizing with different computers so went gmail. I have several email accounts that all get collected by gmail and I can send from any of the email accounts. I use lots of labels. You can also know see a couple of hundred (I think) most recent emails offline which is nice.

 

[Orchidflower]

Bottom line seems to be a thumbs up for gmail from y'all.

 

[Coach]

Orchidflower, another vote here for gmail.

But I would not want you to be under any illusion about encryption. Your connection to gmail is encrypted, and google probably does a pretty good job of protecting your email stored on their servers. But email from gmail accounts, like 99% of all email, is transmitted from point to point unencrypted. And of course, once it gets into the hands of the recipient, you have no control over its security at all.

Services like hushmail operate on a completely different protocol.

Unless your are doing something very proactive, like using a service like hushmail or additional software like PGP, you should consider email no more confidential than a postcard.

Coach

 

[misanman]

An gmail user told me they were suspicious that Google scanned their email for purposes of targeting advertising. They claimed they sent some email that had to do with baby furniture and all of a sudden they were getting ads for baby furniture. Anyone know if there's any truth to this? I wouldn't want to start an "urban legend".

It could have been a coincidence or maybe linked to web browsing that they didn't remember doing.

 

[Coach]

An gmail user told me they were suspicious that Google scanned their email for purposes of targeting advertising.

That's true -- they do. Here's what they say about it.

Coach

 

[FUEGO]

An gmail user told me they were suspicious that Google scanned their email for purposes of targeting advertising. They claimed they sent some email that had to do with baby furniture and all of a sudden they were getting ads for baby furniture. Anyone know if there's any truth to this? I wouldn't want to start an "urban legend".

It could have been a coincidence or maybe linked to web browsing that they didn't remember doing.

They definitely do. Right now I have ads for computer parts, since I just sent an email to my brother regarding computer parts. I have an adblocker, so all I see is a one line text message at the upper part of my interface that alternates between ads and pithy quotes/news updates. I actually find these useful and interesting, not annoying at all. The ads are on the right hand panel, but they are blocked completely with firefox ad block plus.

 

[Meadbh]

I'm still in shock over having 1,200 emails sitting in storage.....wow.
Will do what you oldtimers with gmail say. I'm here to learn.

That's about 6 weeks worth of emails for me, after deleting spam. Many of my emails have multiple large attachments. How does gmail handle those?

 

[Janet H]

I also have a similar volume of e-mail. Large attachments seem to be no problem, but I think they have a 25 mg limit on a single file.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

I use my gmail account for all non-work related stuff. Another nice feature is you can have gmail harvest all the email sent to other accounts (like the road runner account that comes with my data service provider). That way I only have to check gmail for all non-work email.