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Why use Gmail?

Disclosure: I’m not affiliated in any way with Google, I just wish I was.

I tend to evangelise about Gmail to other computer users for two main reason:

1. It is a web mail system.
2. It has brilliant junk/spam filtering

Third bonus fairly obvious reason: It’s free.

First the first: Why is any web based mail system good?
It means you can log in easily from any Internet connected computer and all your emails are right there. So are all your contacts. This means also that you can dump MS Outlook or Outlook express (or any other software you have been using for getting hold of your emails.

Worried about security and privacy?
I was too and then I had a rethink and asked myself ‘How good is my computer security and reliability compared with Google’s? My answer was – not very. I consider myself to be an experienced computer user and over the years I’ve had several hard disk failures. Each time I was lucky enough to either have a recent back up or I was able to revive a hard disk long enough to read my vital data off it (have you heard the myth about putting your hard disk in the freezer? – It worked once for me!).

I password protect some parts of my system but if walk away from my computer at home anyone could, in theory walked up to it and opened my mail client MS Outlook and read all my emails. As it happens I live in the middle of nowhere and I have not much to hide in my emails but you get my point.

Now, using Gmail I sign in each time and log out when I have finished. I can let anyone else use my computer knowing that the emails are not even stored on it… Peace of mind.

The ‘killer feature’ for me is the free junk filtering: This is so good that I would use Gmail just for this one feature. I had a nasty infestation of junk mail due to immoderate exposure of my email address on-line coupled with having the same email address for the last fourteen years.

Gmail automatically filters span mails into a folder for you. It keeps them for thirty days and then deletes them. During that time you can flag any that you realise are not span and Gmail will learn your preferences. A similar system works on the spell checker and powerful data gathering that Google have access to enables the spelling ‘engine’ to be updated as millions of people update their own documents. Corrections are fed back into their database and the dictionaries are updated. How do they do it? i have no idea and they are are not telling either!

I tried various filters that you can download and attach to MS outlook and then even paid for an on line service which was very good called Spamcop. But Gmail does just as good a job, my guess is even better and it is free. No hard choices there then…

Other specific points about Gmail:

• It has great spell checking build it.
• You can use it to read your old email accounts and have them all in one place. You could even never use your actual google email address. sign up for a Gmal account and get it to check your old email account and import your mail every few minutes.  You can also send using your old email address. No one will know anything has changed. It’s just as if you had continued using your existing account.
• No more software updates. Google do that for you at their end.

Downsides:

• If you are a corporation you may have a policy or requirement to have your email on-site. You don’t need to be reading this if you are managing anything on this scale but you probably would need also an off site back up of all your emails in any case for security. You do don’t you?
• It is technically still in beta so Google could technically withdraw the service but in reality this is very, very unlikely.
• You get targeted ads down the side of the page. To be honest I seldom look at them. Sometimes They catch my eye because they are very tightly targeted and they possibly check on the content of your email. This may seem pretty spooky and raise privacy issues but to be honest I find it more of an amusement! (you can get plug-ins for some browsers that block these ads but that’s another story.
• Tricky to fix it so that when you click on an email address on a web page it will open Gmail but it is possible (yes even on a mac)

Sign up for a free gmail account here.

Next Week – Don’t be a twit get on Twitter (by Calvin)**

Dave Spathaky lives in very far west west Cork. He blogs about anything and everything, likes to help people connect, cycles, feeds two cats, a dog and a daughter. His partner pots, teaches and paints. Today he is happy. Follow Dave’s minutiae on Twitter

Tags: gmail, Google, Twitter
Posted in Web, internet | 7 Comments »