Gmail

Ok, so what's up with this Gmail business?? What's so great about it? I've heard lots of talk about it lately, and I'm thinking about joining, although I am already a content owner of an MSN account. As far as I can tell, they're just about the same. Anyone??

They're nOThing alike. Gmail being on the infinitely superior side.
Why?
Because it has nearly 3 gigabytes worth of space for one ( I am a media student and need to exchange large files- all and any other e-mail accounts won't acommodate my space needs).
Secondly, you can *search* your e-mails through writing as little as one word that appears in one e-mail. I have about 1500 e-mails in my inbox at the moment and there is no way I would feel like trawling over them all to find what I'm looking for.. which is what you have to do for all other e-mail whatsits.
It has NO advertising wallpapers gracing every pixel that isn't taken up by e-mails.
The Gtalk (sister chat thingie .. the chat programme. bah! Like messenger) whatsit is built in to the actual gmail window when you open it and it has the option to instantly save every conversation you've had and archive it under the name of the person you spoke to for easy access later whenever you ant to review it.

What else? ...
It's just amazing >.>
Get it.

The big draw, as A_Q said, is the massive amounts of storage.
It also has a good spam filter, I've certainly never gotten spam in my inbox, unlike with Hotmail.
It's fully integrated with all sorts of other Google things, you get a GMail account and you can use that account on almost every Google tool.
There's a chat program related to it, although that isn't a huge draw, as not many use it, it's still nice to have, and since (IIRC) it uses the jabber protocol, it can talk to any other messenger that also uses jabber.
I find it faster to load then hotmail, but that may just be me.

Those are the major reasons to use it, true, it's hardly drastically different from other online e-mail accounts, but it is better, in many small ways.

It is, it isn't flawless though I read an article about someone loosing 2 gig of mails and files because of a server crash and that was just lost. Ofcourse this can happen to any mailserver but because of the huge amount of storage you might decide to store files only there and not also on your computer. It is a good idea to also transfer them to your computer if they are important.

I use gmail for my email and I love it, i can search fast, keep any email i would ever need, it's fast, it's just great email and I would recommend changing to it.

-NC

I used to think like you. Always say things like "They probably lie about the amount of storage" or "why cant everyone have it, having to get a thing on your cell phone or an invite from a freind, its stupid."Well, one day I requested an invite to gmail thinking "lets see if what they claim is true." I've been using Gmail for 4 months now, and I'm never going back to hotmail.

To MSN Hotmail: Be more like Gmail, because you've dissatisfied me completely.

I absolutely love Gmail. Yahoo (my previous account) is nothing compared. One, you get over 2.5 GB of storage, and more every day (I started with 2713 MB, now I have somewhere around 2750 MB), so you never need to delete stuff. The quick contacts thing is cool, spam filters are great, and of course, the built-in chat engine is wonderful. Plus, it saves all of your chats so you can go back and review them (a most helpful feature), and it groups emails as conversations, so you can easily see what has been said already.

The only drawback: You have to be invited or sign up with a cell phone. I got invited by TriDragon (an inactive n00b at ZU whom I'm teaching Java), and I'm never switching back to anything else!

Ok, question: who NEEDS all that space to store all that JUNK?! Aside from our friend the media student, I am still not convinced. I'm an orderly person -- millions and millions of stored emails seems abhorent to me, not to mention a bunch of chats. And what's more, I don't get spam on my hotmail account. The only "spam" I get is from the Hotmail Staff, who are just promoting something new about their stuff, which I find acceptable since I'm actually using it.

What I'm more interested now though is the fact that somebody mentioned about the chat feature. I'm a total computer illerate, so can somebody explain jabber-talk, in the fact that you can use Gtalk to talk to OTHER messenger services? Is that correct? Like which ones?

I'm a Gmail convert (from hotmail). I'd say something else, but my opinion has basically been summed up by all the previous posters. Gmail rocks. It is just so easy to use. And awesome.

Originally Posted by Zanza

What I'm more interested now though is the fact that somebody mentioned about the chat feature. I'm a total computer illerate, so can somebody explain jabber-talk, in the fact that you can use Gtalk to talk to OTHER messenger services? Is that correct? Like which ones?

It's basically this;
Once you're logged on to Gmail and have the window open, you can IM chat with any of your contacts who have Gmail and are online. It's simple.

It's a bit different though. The chat windows can be attached to the Gmail page or you can have it like a normal IM window.

Originally Posted by Zanza

millions and millions of stored emails seems abhorent to me,

You wouldn't want a place where you could feel safe that you won't need to ever delete emails again? you never need to refer back to old emails and regret deleting some off to make space for new ones?

There was something else I forgot to mention which is just fantastic about Gmail. It automatically saves the e-mails as you write them. So if your computer crashes or freezes or whatever, you won't need to begin re-writing from the very beginning! I think that feature alone is snough to make me adore gmail .. *cuddles*

(By the way, if anyone reading this would like an invitation, feel free to ask. I have a hundred or so to give out >.> )

What's the deal with invitations? You need to be invited to use Gmail?

That's right, young Dragon =)
want an invitation? <3

I don't understand why they make it so exclusive. How did the 'first generation' get their accounts, anyway?

Um, you can send in your cell phone number and get a text message with an invitation code, I did that no less than a day ago, and I've been enjoying my g-mail ever since.

I see! But then, what are those invitations people get from other users? For those without cell phones?

Oh well, I think I'll just stick to what I already have, anyway.

HaiKeiia - you give a person ( who already has gmail) your e-mail address, and through that, they send you an invite. You accept and tadaa! you have a fantastic new email provider thingy! ^-^
*if* you want it, I'll be glad to invite you.

GMail is a pretty good email service. I use mine for my non-spam email. Hotmail is for the junk mail

Alas, if anyone needs a GMail invite, i'll give ya one as well.