I enjoyed the quick comparison of the two. One addition that might be nice: don't you think that some of these features should be weighted heavier than others?--as these are most likely not of all equal value to the user.
Anyways, great post!
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
Glad you liked the post. That's a fair point - interface and organization are a lot more important than custom colors and a few extra MBs of storage. Next time we do one of these perhaps we will weight it somehow :)
Rex
· 2 years ago
I use both. I use Live Mail in fact for the Criteo work I do. It's not bad, and a definite improvement over Hotmail.
I still have Gmail for my other accounts most definitely!
Rex
xxdesmus
· 2 years ago
1. Organizing should have went to Live Hotmail. Personally I despise Gmail's label system. It is a matter of opinion which type of organizing is better (folders vs. labels). This should have been a tie.
2. Size doesn't matter. "normal" people will never even approaching 2GB of email (and therefore roughly 2.8GB is also useless). They guys should take a hint from Yahoo and just go with a "it'll be as big as you need it" approach. This should have been a tie.
3. Chat also should not have gone to Gmail. Considering the 30 or so people that actually use gTalk (I am exaggerating, but still it is pathetically tiny), Gmail's chat integration is absolutely useless for 99% of "normal" people. This should have been a tie because Gmail's chat basically doesn't exist, just like chat in Live Hotmail.
4. As for speed, Live Hotmail has increased significantly over past builds, but it does still occasionally lag. Then again, so does Gmail. If you have a conversation over 4 or 5 replies Gmail crawls. This one I'd call a tie, to be honest.
I don't particularly like either of these options, but for me Gmail tends to suck less at the moment. I think both of these guys could take a hint from Zimbra. If Zimbra was to offer a ad-based (minimal ads) free webmail offering they would absolutely kill everyone. Here's hoping that happens...
Vlad
· 2 years ago
2. It doesn't matter that normal people wont reach the sizes given to them. The only thing that matters is that Gmail has more space than WL Mail.
3. However, Gmail has Chat directly integrated into its client, while WL Mail does not. Gmail is the winner.
4. It doesn't matter that the speed increased significantly, WL Mail still loads a lot more slowly than Gmail. Gmail is the definite winner.
veryskeptical
· 2 years ago
@xxdesmus
Responding to the point that 30 people total use gChat - I hope that it's obvious to everyone that this statement is more than exaggerated; it's wrong. It's wrong because it implies that gChat is a function that doesn't factor into the appeal of Gmail over other web-based mail services. While my personal experience of gChatting with dozens of people daily is but 1 test case against yours, I urge you to look around a bit and see how often gChat really is getting used. This is especially true at universities. Also, you admit you don't use Gmail, so why would you have built up a strong gChat contact list? Your test case is more invalid than mine =)
I make it a point to convert people to Gmail, and my strongest case (behind the conversations function) is the gChatting ability inherent in Gmail.
Ioannus de Verani
· 2 years ago
Mr. Ostrow, gimme a break. How can you give 'integrated calendar' to Windows Live Hotmail? If you look closely, it is not integrated at all! (Or at least, much less than GCal)
If this were integrated (like in Outlook), the sidebar would be still there, where you can access mail, contacts, etc. Also, if this were integrated, it would function much the same as in WLHotmail. As in AJAX. All this is is the old Hotmail calendar with a new colour scheme. If this were integrated, they would make it so that you can get between them without a page reload. Also, Gmail has functions to add an event based on the text in a message. As far as I know, WL Hotmail is lacking this feature, a very important hallmark of integration.
Gmail isn't perfect either, though. It is not fully integrated with GCal either.
@xxdesmus: 1: I agree that that should have been a tie. However, why did you say at the beginning that it should have gone to WL Hotmail? A little indecision, eh? :)
2:I completely agree. What kind of freak would even need all of the gigabytes and gigabytes given to him/her? 2.5 Gigs should be enough for anyone :).
3: What the heck do you mean chat doesn't 'basically' exist in Gmail? I use chat in Gmail all the time! Albeit, the chat lacks nice formatting features, but the fact that it is so nicely integrated with Gmail makes me use it. Heck, just the Reply to Chat feature in messages is wonderful to me. Windows Live, on the other hand, doesn't have an online chat solution. They have Windows Live Messenger, but it is a desktop app. They should take a card out of Yahoo!'s deck and make it an online app...
4: I have had no speed problems with either app. Windows Live Mail and Gmail are just as fast as eachother, which is satisfactory. Actually, the only speed issue I have had with Gmail is when it occasionally refuses to load. But this is very, very, very rare.
I have not yet experienced the ability to add an event to GCal via text in a Gmail message. If that's indeed the case, I'd probably switch my vote there. I'm really just not a fan of how Gmail opens new browser windows when you try to access all of the other services - it seems rather unnecessary and an oversight on their part given how much detail they usually put into the usability of their products.
Andy
· 2 years ago
To be honest, the thing that annoy me the most in Hotmail is the size of the checkbox.
I lost count on how many times I opened the email when I was trying check the box on the main screen.
Mike Torres
· 2 years ago
Good write-up. I can't argue with much although I think Hotmail's folders do beat out labels for most non Web 2.0 people. And I would give the IM integration a tie since no one actually uses Gtalk :)
There are two areas that we really focused on outshining the competition - I'm biased but I would have loved to see them appear in your review. They are:
* Native Outlook 2003 & 2007 synchronization. This isn't POP or IMAP access, this is full-on sync of the data in Hotmail with an amazingly rich PIM. The only thing that comes close to this for me is in the enterprise space - Exchange Server. This feature will be released for Outlook this month along with Windows Live Mail - a lightweight client version of Hotmail that serves as an upgrade to Outlook Express and Windows Mail on Vista. Both are worth checking out.
* Online safety. The work the team has done on anti-phishing, virus scanning, and spam protection is serious. 280 million people will benefit from this immediately, which is great.
Of course, there are other things that I dig about Hotmail - the Outlook-style reading pane, the real-time spell checker, the built-in Windows Mobile 6 client with always-on push email, and the basic theme picker (I like customization) but these are just nice-to-haves while the two bullets above are must-haves for me.
BTW, the search works really well.
Pete Cashmore
· 2 years ago
I use GTalk. ;)
tyahh
· 2 years ago
i use gtalk as well. its excellant for when you are in a foreign country...to call home? too expensive otherwise.
lov6m6d0
· 2 years ago
use skype my friend
Me
· 2 years ago
Skype is the best for long distance comunications
Web Design MN
· 2 years ago
Thanks so much for the comparisons. My husband and I are looking into trying Windows Live. Right now we are using Outlook. Overall I have no problems with it. Isn't technology grand?!
Chris
· 2 years ago
Great comparison, I prefer Gmail over Hotmail. You should also use another feature for comparison "Usability", Hotmail covers half the screen with the Ad and Hotmail bar, useless. In mobile, I use Gmail, so far I have no problems, in fact the mobile version of Gmail is far easier to use than Hotmail in Treo 650.
However they is nice improvements for Hotmail.
Hella Breitkopf
· 2 years ago
Your nice short test doesn't mention browser and compability issues. Are there none (so is hotmail working with firefox/opera/safari/konqueror as well as with IE) - or have you used IE and nothing else? Gmail is working fine with at least firefox and does provide basic functions for other browsers, so this would be of interest and for users of non MS browsers and operating systems mandatory. Also of interest would be the cooperation with non MS PDAs ... (e.g. Palm OS).
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
I used both IE and Firefox 2.0 for the test on both Gmail and MS Live Hotmail and had no issues with either.
David P
· 2 years ago
Actually Google Calendar has came a long way! It integrates into e-mail quite miraculously! Whenever I have a Webinar to attend I received an e-mail and Gmail automatically recognizes that it is an event in which I can attend and has a calendar feature at the top of the e-mail which I can create a new event at the time specified in the e-mail!
The sharing features on Google Calendar are also awesome.
I use iGoogle for just about everything now a days... RSS (ofcourse) Google Notebook to keep todo lists for employees and I use it for social bookmarking at the moment (until google makes a better social bookmarking tool). I use google docs for expense sheets and employees hours and various needs.
I
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
They are definitely putting together a pretty formidable suite. I'm eager to try the presentation software they announced.
AMvapor
· 2 years ago
Just thought I would mention one big advantage I have seen in the gmail system.... gmail for your domain... I've set it up and it's great to be able to setup your_name@your_domain.com without having to deal with the usual hassle of hosts and servers, etc.
Dr. Tim Martin
· 2 years ago
The most embarrassing thing about Microsoft's Live Hotmail is that it is banned by a majority of respectable web sites and services. They simply won't accept a Hotmail account.
OTOH, Gmail is rarely, if ever, refused.
I vote for Gmail.
Tim...
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
Very true. Gmail actually put my test Hotmail email into the spam filter, lol
Vlad
· 2 years ago
I think that Gmail is the winner of the Mobile section, as Gmail actually has a Java application for phones, which provides a very intuitive interface. All WL Mail has is a basic WAP page which is pretty hard to access. You need to enter your email if your browser clears cookies (I know mine does from time to time) and it is very basic.
The Gmail app saves your account information, and provides quite a few of the features of the full-featured client while still retaining a pretty basic interface which makes checking your mail easy.
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
This one was a tough call - I do like Gmail's mobile app because it's an actual Java Application, but the Microsoft one seems more intuitive (plus, not requiring the download will win over some users), which I think gives it an edge if we're talking about people trying to decide on a webmail provider starting from scratch.
Lalit
· 2 years ago
Actually windows live mobile also has a mobile app that you can download
Mark
· 2 years ago
Doesn't really make a difference to anyone, such as myself, who uses Windows Live, Outlook, or any other e-mail app to receive their web-mail does it?
Joe Cheng [MSFT]
· 2 years ago
Good review!
> They have Windows Live Messenger, but it is a desktop app. They should take a card out of Yahoo!’s deck and make it an online app…
Other than the fact that I'm a Microsoft employee (though not on the Hotmail team), the one thing thing that keeps me on Hotmail is the integration with desktop clients. When I'm on my home or office PCs I just prefer to use a desktop app rather than launching a webpage to check my mail. Today there's Windows Live Mail Desktop and soon Hotmail will connect to Outlook 2003/2007 for free. (This is different than Gmail's POP access, which doesn't keep your e-mail synchronized across multiple clients--both WLMD and Outlook stay synchronized with whatever's on the server.)
Tom
· 2 years ago
Hotmail still deletes accounts after 30 days of none use. Imagine using a hotmail account for a few years and then coming back to find you've lost everything because you didn't get to it in 30 days.
the one crime in IT that is unforgivable is the loss of deletion of a customers data. It's a tragedy that chased me away from hotmail years ago :(
robert
· 2 years ago
this just happened to me. i had taken a mental vacation from the internet so to speak. when i signed in to my hotmail account last week everything was gone. all current inbox and junk mail and ALL MY FOLDERS with a lot of really personal correspondence from the last several years. all gone in a heartbeat. i can't tell you how sick i was. i gave customer service an earfull of course..........they said they were sorry. of course my other hotmail plus account, the one i pay $19 for for additional storage space was all still there. i've never wanted to sue anyone before now. i hold the people who make these policies in contempt primarily because i don't feel they make it clear to their subscribers that this kind of deletion of data will take place after only 30 days. i never imagined this would happen. the reason i didn't back these folders up was that i thought they were safe.
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
thanks for the insider's opinion :) Curious to try out the Hotmail/Outlook connection.
ctrlalteredmind
· 2 years ago
you missed out on the actual content of the email. Gmail makes it so much easier to view documents, pdfs, excel files, images etc from the browser itself. Multiple attachments can be downloaded in a single click (Gmail even nicely zips them up for you!). MP3 attachments can be played right from the browser without downloading, which works as an excellent preview. Who would really care if Live Hotmail came out with 3GB of storage? These smaller features are the ones that actually make Gmail a winner.
ctrlalteredmind
· 2 years ago
oh, and I forgot the fact that Gmail can automatically forward a copy of the email you receive, to another account. Live Hotmail will not implement that any time soon, as far as I can tell.
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
good point - this is a great feature and makes it super easy to start receiving emails on your wireless device
tizan
· 2 years ago
Can you suck out your mail to your local hard drive or even open your mail from any mail client without going to a browser ? That is important when you want to own your mail or even quit a given service. I don't know about hotmail...but i know that yahoo does not allow you to do that in the free version. Whereas gmail does.
Joe Philipson
· 2 years ago
Good comparison, I'm really glad to see gmail still on top. Hotmail still following in Gmail's footsteps. Maybe if Hotmail thought two steps ahead of Gmail and integrated some of those things and did some innovative stuff BEFORE gmail instead of trying to work on and catch up to gmail they may look better and gain some converts.
zimu
· 2 years ago
you've forgotten: a) gmail lets you forward emails b) gmail allows you to download pop3 mail from other accounts for free, and looks like it polls other accounts for new mail every 1 minute c) gmail has free pop access and smtp access without the need for outlook d) gmail has a MUCH more powerful filtering system where you can apply tags etc as messages come in, delete them, selectively forward etc.
zimu
· 2 years ago
ah and one last thing i forgot:
i've tested gmail as well as live on both my PDA as well as standard phone (K750i)'s browsers. gmail wins both in simplicity and speed and fewer ads.
gmail in fact has no ads.
for my pda, i can download the gmail midlet and have live email on my phone.
yes, i've been biased to gmail so far, that's cause its that much better. HOWEVER that being said, live allows you to push email onto your pda phone, whereas gmail does not have this feature yet: you need to get a midlet which honestly does not work too great.
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
Are you sure that Gmail pushes email to your PDA? I seem to be forced to hit "refresh" pretty often to get new emails into the Gmail app.
bDallas
· 2 years ago
Three months ago my Gmail acccount went down for a FULL 36 hours with NO customer support and nothing more than a "check again in a few minutes" screen every time I tried to login.
The gmail support blog was full of users complaining and shouting and begging for updates and there was nary a peep from gmail support. Some folks had outages of up to 4 days or more.
There was never an update during the outage and afterwards, no explanation of any kind.
I'd be interested in a comparison of recorded downtimes btw hotmail and gmail. Is there any way to gather such information?
jonahatan
· 2 years ago
one thing forgotten...
the MOST important reason for not using hotmail in my opinion:
hotmail sends advertisement in a footer along with each e-mail you send, gmail doen't
should be in the article!
Adam Ostrow
· 2 years ago
ah, forgot about that ... the ads in email do suck ... Gmail already won the advertising category at least :)
Norway
· 2 years ago
I can't say how much I agree with you! It's almost unbelievable that it wasn't mentioned! That is the main reason not to use hotmail, and why i've gotten myself a gmail account.
Corey
· 2 years ago
Well, it is interesting to see what all this competition will do for us, the consumer. I've been a loyal GMail fan, ever since I grabbed an account a few years ago. I admit, it was tough to give up my Yahoo! Mail service, after using it for the better of six years, but GMail was that good.
But of course, there is large share of revenue to be had in the email market, something that the trinity of online corporations--Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, by the way--had their eyes on long before anything came to fruition. The definite trend in email features (one company does this, the other follows--invariably with Yahoo lagging behind) may eliminate the competition factor, feature wise.
After all, if Hotmail rolls out a neat new feature, you'll know GMail won't be far behind... so why make that drastic switch? But no, I suppose the web is one of few places to have a variety of conformity, so to speak.
Then again, there is only so many ways something can be innovated. And yet, snail mail earns hefty revenue with billions of little stamps. Go figure.
Richard Green
· 2 years ago
1. Another interface feature which seems (?) to be lacking in Gmail is the ability to optionally sort messages by "subject" "from" "size" or "date"? Sorting options are a basic component of most mail programs.
2. Hotmail also offers a desktop client alternative to using a web browser. Not a huge advantage in my opinion- but I prefer it.
Todd Smith
· 2 years ago
The only problem with gmail; is when I wanted to put it on my website; it didn't work! So, I forward all my comcast mail to my gmail. Now, I'm able to all e-mail without having to cheeck both e-mail accounts.
Leslie Wong
· 2 years ago
I'm not sure I understand the tie in POP3 Account Access.
I searched Live Hotmail help for POP3 and the first topic was, "Receive mail from other e-mail accounts...," "Currently, only some users, including users who have a paid subscription to Windows Live Hotmail, can add a POP3 (POP3, or Post Office Protocol 3, is a protocol that's used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server.) account to their Windows Live Hotmail account."
Also, under the notes in "Add(ing) your e-mail account to Microsoft Outlook," it says, "Currently, only some users, including users who have a paid subscription to Windows Live Hotmail, can add a POP3 (POP3, or Post Office Protocol 3, is a protocol that's used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server.) account to their Windows Live Hotmail account."
Since this is free in Gmail, I think Gmail would have the advantage in this category also.
Kevin Billson
· 2 years ago
I used GMail since its conception until recently. I got sick of the boring interface and lack of progress on its "Beta". WLM and WLDM will do me.
alf
· 2 years ago
Don't forget that you can use Gmail to send from other accounts and to download from other email services.
Joe Cheng [MSFT]
· 2 years ago
Hotmail can do both as well, although I think to download from other POP accounts you may have to pay extra.
Isaac
· 2 years ago
If you want Integrated RSS there is a FireFox extension that will integrate Google's RSS Reader into Gmail.
Jason
· 2 years ago
I would disagree with part of your comment regarding the interface. Outlook(at least starting with 2003) can very easily create message threads by sorting on the subject. It refers to threads as "collapsed groups" which is really horrible terminology, but it's really just a thread. So I doubt a real Outlook junkie would have any trouble following the collapsed thread model. But I also grant since the comparison is to Windows Live(which I don't use) that's a minor point. But then again you yourself seem to have semi-lumped Live and Outlook together...
And like many others I don't like the tagging based method of organization. It seems to depend on search far too much for my taste to be effective. I much prefer a hierarchical folder structure. It's also far more intuitive for most users at this point since it's more analogous to a file system. It's tagging and labels that are more foreign concepts then a folder based structure. Now whether most people are actually good at organizing their folders is a completely different argument...
Chris!
· 2 years ago
Well for the RSS bit ... Google now has 'Google Reader' that comes with the email address. So would that make it better?
Motorcycle Guy
· 2 years ago
I love the threaded view of gmail. Probably the best feature in my opinion.
What is Gmail?
· 2 years ago
Do both mail programs work in all browsers? I have had problems with Gmail in Konqueror, and had to change the UA to get it to work. How is Live in this regard?
Emma Rollan
· 2 years ago
hi how are u
Mario
· 2 years ago
Your article did not mention gmail's privacy policy (or lack of) where the content of your e-mails is used for contextual advertising.
The only reason in my opinion on why Live Hotmail loads slower then Gmail is because it has things such as the reading pane which I believe Gmail doesn't have. Live Hotmail also looks a lot better then Gmail in my opinion. It's hard to say it depends on what you used first. The person who wrote this stated that he already preferred Gmail, so already you would think that Gmail would be "the winner". Well in the end it was a good read.
shahrukh
· 2 years ago
HI THIS IS SHAHRUKH
Joel
· 2 years ago
What is with all you jokers who say gigs and gigs is too much space? Unbelievable… since when is getting more for free too much? Are you guys thinking of the long term? I am at 1.2 gigs right now (since January 2005) and at that rate I will eventually come to a point where I will have to delete items – thus even nullifying Gmail’s tagline of “Over x0000 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.†Its been nice to have every email available for me for the last couple years, it has come in handy and I’m sure I’m not the only one who will be a little dissapointed when I hits the limit.
annie
· 2 years ago
WHAT THE HELL, I WANT MY OLD HOTMAIL. WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SCREW WITH A GOOD THING. I THINK I'LL MOVE EVERYTHING TO YAHOO. I HATE THIS WINDOWS LIVE....................................
Lindsey
· 2 years ago
Me too! I ABSOLUTELY HATE THIS, and I've been trying to figure out how to go back to the old one... do you know how???
Hilari
· 2 years ago
I can't stand the new Live hotmail. Several times all I want to do is just delete an email...I can't even INTERACT with the page until the stupid advertisement at the top is finished loading!!! It takes a good 5-10 seconds on a FIOS connection to do that also! Sheesh!
Boo boo
· 2 years ago
Hate windows live. server is always busy.
david
· 1 year ago
all windows live services are cool stop messing with them lame tikky gaymail usrs
Diego
· 1 year ago
Great article. Very good comments. Sometimes when I clean up my inbox I search for all emails with some text in it. After that I try to "select all" messages and move them to a certain folder (or tag them). If the search returns more than a certain number of messages they are fitted in pages (I couldn't find how to change the "number" in hotmail). When I "select all" messages, Gmail smartly adds a button to select not only the messages being displayed but actually "all". It's simple and saves MANY clicks, one for every page for that search. Gmail was not thought as a business, rather, it was designed to solve a problem and they go a long way to keep it up to date with users needs.
mohamad
· 1 year ago
how are oyou
Abelardo
· 1 year ago
Hi, good analysis, though I think you forgot one of the most important things, and this is EMAIL CLIENTs, Live Hotmail only accepts Outlook Express but they do not have IMAP client, instead Gmail offers POP3 and IMAP access, with that point Gmail completely defeats the crap called Live Hotmail.
damu
· 1 year ago
hi
Mallory
· 1 year ago
Honestly, I have no idea how anyone could consider gMail even comparable to Hotmail.
gMail used to be better, hands down ... But now there's so much crap it has to load every time, it's near useless in my books. I check my eMail anywhere from 10 - 35 times in one day, and if I had to wait 3 minutes for my Inbox to load each of those times ... Well, Jesus, I wouldn't be able to get anything else done in a day!
It's always been Hotmail for me, and probably always will be. ;)
elcid67
· 1 year ago
Hotmail is horrible.
You can't sort through messages by read/unread... you can't even find your unread messages..
It doesn't have IMAP
You can't forward emails to mailboxes outside Microsoft domains (which basically means you can't escape Microsludge)
Its search is inferior
I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT.
Minneapolis Web Design Desarae
· 1 year ago
I've had both for years (hotmail and gmail), along with web mail for schools, yahoo, and random work emails. I still prefer gmail above all the rest. They are so innovative, and convenient. Plus you can't beat a free service with unlimited storage. Which is something hotmail doesnt have. I can archive everything and never delete mail again. I do appreciate the long comparison post though. Thanks, for posting.
Gmail
· 3 months ago
Gmail wins everyday, i'm tired of hotmail and msn related services, everytime there is an update, i know things are going to change, usually stuff i used gets removed or out of place, it just seems heavier, nonsensical and mandatory, i HATE IT!
All Comments
Anyways, great post!
I still have Gmail for my other accounts most definitely!
Rex
2. Size doesn't matter. "normal" people will never even approaching 2GB of email (and therefore roughly 2.8GB is also useless). They guys should take a hint from Yahoo and just go with a "it'll be as big as you need it" approach. This should have been a tie.
3. Chat also should not have gone to Gmail. Considering the 30 or so people that actually use gTalk (I am exaggerating, but still it is pathetically tiny), Gmail's chat integration is absolutely useless for 99% of "normal" people. This should have been a tie because Gmail's chat basically doesn't exist, just like chat in Live Hotmail.
4. As for speed, Live Hotmail has increased significantly over past builds, but it does still occasionally lag. Then again, so does Gmail. If you have a conversation over 4 or 5 replies Gmail crawls. This one I'd call a tie, to be honest.
I don't particularly like either of these options, but for me Gmail tends to suck less at the moment. I think both of these guys could take a hint from Zimbra. If Zimbra was to offer a ad-based (minimal ads) free webmail offering they would absolutely kill everyone. Here's hoping that happens...
3. However, Gmail has Chat directly integrated into its client, while WL Mail does not. Gmail is the winner.
4. It doesn't matter that the speed increased significantly, WL Mail still loads a lot more slowly than Gmail. Gmail is the definite winner.
Responding to the point that 30 people total use gChat - I hope that it's obvious to everyone that this statement is more than exaggerated; it's wrong. It's wrong because it implies that gChat is a function that doesn't factor into the appeal of Gmail over other web-based mail services. While my personal experience of gChatting with dozens of people daily is but 1 test case against yours, I urge you to look around a bit and see how often gChat really is getting used. This is especially true at universities. Also, you admit you don't use Gmail, so why would you have built up a strong gChat contact list? Your test case is more invalid than mine =)
I make it a point to convert people to Gmail, and my strongest case (behind the conversations function) is the gChatting ability inherent in Gmail.
If this were integrated (like in Outlook), the sidebar would be still there, where you can access mail, contacts, etc. Also, if this were integrated, it would function much the same as in WLHotmail. As in AJAX. All this is is the old Hotmail calendar with a new colour scheme. If this were integrated, they would make it so that you can get between them without a page reload. Also, Gmail has functions to add an event based on the text in a message. As far as I know, WL Hotmail is lacking this feature, a very important hallmark of integration.
Gmail isn't perfect either, though. It is not fully integrated with GCal either.
@xxdesmus:
1: I agree that that should have been a tie. However, why did you say at the beginning that it should have gone to WL Hotmail? A little indecision, eh? :)
2:I completely agree. What kind of freak would even need all of the gigabytes and gigabytes given to him/her? 2.5 Gigs should be enough for anyone :).
3: What the heck do you mean chat doesn't 'basically' exist in Gmail? I use chat in Gmail all the time! Albeit, the chat lacks nice formatting features, but the fact that it is so nicely integrated with Gmail makes me use it. Heck, just the Reply to Chat feature in messages is wonderful to me. Windows Live, on the other hand, doesn't have an online chat solution. They have Windows Live Messenger, but it is a desktop app. They should take a card out of Yahoo!'s deck and make it an online app...
4: I have had no speed problems with either app. Windows Live Mail and Gmail are just as fast as eachother, which is satisfactory. Actually, the only speed issue I have had with Gmail is when it occasionally refuses to load. But this is very, very, very rare.
Cheers,
Ioannus de Verani
blog.verani.net
I lost count on how many times I opened the email when I was trying check the box on the main screen.
There are two areas that we really focused on outshining the competition - I'm biased but I would have loved to see them appear in your review. They are:
* Native Outlook 2003 & 2007 synchronization. This isn't POP or IMAP access, this is full-on sync of the data in Hotmail with an amazingly rich PIM. The only thing that comes close to this for me is in the enterprise space - Exchange Server. This feature will be released for Outlook this month along with Windows Live Mail - a lightweight client version of Hotmail that serves as an upgrade to Outlook Express and Windows Mail on Vista. Both are worth checking out.
* Online safety. The work the team has done on anti-phishing, virus scanning, and spam protection is serious. 280 million people will benefit from this immediately, which is great.
Of course, there are other things that I dig about Hotmail - the Outlook-style reading pane, the real-time spell checker, the built-in Windows Mobile 6 client with always-on push email, and the basic theme picker (I like customization) but these are just nice-to-haves while the two bullets above are must-haves for me.
BTW, the search works really well.
However they is nice improvements for Hotmail.
The sharing features on Google Calendar are also awesome.
I use iGoogle for just about everything now a days... RSS (ofcourse) Google Notebook to keep todo lists for employees and I use it for social bookmarking at the moment (until google makes a better social bookmarking tool). I use google docs for expense sheets and employees hours and various needs.
I
OTOH, Gmail is rarely, if ever, refused.
I vote for Gmail.
Tim...
The Gmail app saves your account information, and provides quite a few of the features of the full-featured client while still retaining a pretty basic interface which makes checking your mail easy.
> They have Windows Live Messenger, but it is a desktop app. They should take a card out of Yahoo!’s deck and make it an online app…
http://webmessenger.msn.com
> Just thought I would mention one big advantage I have seen in the gmail system…. gmail for your domain…
http://domains.live.com, I'm using this for my personal e-mail.
Other than the fact that I'm a Microsoft employee (though not on the Hotmail team), the one thing thing that keeps me on Hotmail is the integration with desktop clients. When I'm on my home or office PCs I just prefer to use a desktop app rather than launching a webpage to check my mail. Today there's Windows Live Mail Desktop and soon Hotmail will connect to Outlook 2003/2007 for free. (This is different than Gmail's POP access, which doesn't keep your e-mail synchronized across multiple clients--both WLMD and Outlook stay synchronized with whatever's on the server.)
the one crime in IT that is unforgivable is the loss of deletion of a customers data. It's a tragedy that chased me away from hotmail years ago :(
That is important when you want to own your mail or even quit a given service. I don't know about hotmail...but i know that yahoo does not allow you to do that in the free version. Whereas gmail does.
a) gmail lets you forward emails
b) gmail allows you to download pop3 mail from other accounts for free, and looks like it polls other accounts for new mail every 1 minute
c) gmail has free pop access and smtp access without the need for outlook
d) gmail has a MUCH more powerful filtering system where you can apply tags etc as messages come in, delete them, selectively forward etc.
i've tested gmail as well as live on both my PDA as well as standard phone (K750i)'s browsers. gmail wins both in simplicity and speed and fewer ads.
gmail in fact has no ads.
for my pda, i can download the gmail midlet and have live email on my phone.
yes, i've been biased to gmail so far, that's cause its that much better. HOWEVER that being said, live allows you to push email onto your pda phone, whereas gmail does not have this feature yet: you need to get a midlet which honestly does not work too great.
The gmail support blog was full of users complaining and shouting and begging for updates and there was nary a peep from gmail support. Some folks had outages of up to 4 days or more.
There was never an update during the outage and afterwards, no explanation of any kind.
I'd be interested in a comparison of recorded downtimes btw hotmail and gmail. Is there any way to gather such information?
the MOST important reason for not using hotmail in my opinion:
hotmail sends advertisement in a footer along with each e-mail you send, gmail doen't
should be in the article!
But of course, there is large share of revenue to be had in the email market, something that the trinity of online corporations--Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, by the way--had their eyes on long before anything came to fruition. The definite trend in email features (one company does this, the other follows--invariably with Yahoo lagging behind) may eliminate the competition factor, feature wise.
After all, if Hotmail rolls out a neat new feature, you'll know GMail won't be far behind... so why make that drastic switch? But no, I suppose the web is one of few places to have a variety of conformity, so to speak.
Then again, there is only so many ways something can be innovated. And yet, snail mail earns hefty revenue with billions of little stamps. Go figure.
2. Hotmail also offers a desktop client alternative to using a web browser. Not a huge advantage in my opinion- but I prefer it.
I searched Live Hotmail help for POP3 and the first topic was, "Receive mail from other e-mail accounts...," "Currently, only some users, including users who have a paid subscription to Windows Live Hotmail, can add a POP3 (POP3, or Post Office Protocol 3, is a protocol that's used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server.) account to their Windows Live Hotmail account."
Also, under the notes in "Add(ing) your e-mail account to Microsoft Outlook," it says, "Currently, only some users, including users who have a paid subscription to Windows Live Hotmail, can add a POP3 (POP3, or Post Office Protocol 3, is a protocol that's used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server.) account to their Windows Live Hotmail account."
Since this is free in Gmail, I think Gmail would have the advantage in this category also.
And like many others I don't like the tagging based method of organization. It seems to depend on search far too much for my taste to be effective. I much prefer a hierarchical folder structure. It's also far more intuitive for most users at this point since it's more analogous to a file system. It's tagging and labels that are more foreign concepts then a folder based structure. Now whether most people are actually good at organizing their folders is a completely different argument...
under.taker.wwe,raw@gmail.com
Its been nice to have every email available for me for the last couple years, it has come in handy and I’m sure I’m not the only one who will be a little dissapointed when I hits the limit.
Very good comments.
Sometimes when I clean up my inbox I search for all emails with some text in it. After that I try to "select all" messages and move them to a certain folder (or tag them).
If the search returns more than a certain number of messages they are fitted in pages (I couldn't find how to change the "number" in hotmail).
When I "select all" messages, Gmail smartly adds a button to select not only the messages being displayed but actually "all". It's simple and saves MANY clicks, one for every page for that search.
Gmail was not thought as a business, rather, it was designed to solve a problem and they go a long way to keep it up to date with users needs.
gMail used to be better, hands down ... But now there's so much crap it has to load every time, it's near useless in my books. I check my eMail anywhere from 10 - 35 times in one day, and if I had to wait 3 minutes for my Inbox to load each of those times ... Well, Jesus, I wouldn't be able to get anything else done in a day!
It's always been Hotmail for me, and probably always will be. ;)
You can't sort through messages by read/unread... you can't even find your unread messages..
It doesn't have IMAP
You can't forward emails to mailboxes outside Microsoft domains (which basically means you can't escape Microsludge)
Its search is inferior
I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT.