A (Outlook?)Hotmail and Yahoo! loyalist here like a few others Hi fellow Yahooistas ;-)

I love the concept of creating directories to categorise mails (Thumbs up to Hotmail and Yahoo just for that). The tabbed email feature is also a very big plus for me in Yahoo. Hotmail's quick clean up and other nifty features are also really good.

Anyhow, the changes haven't come to my inbox yet, but the wife showed me her "brand new" Inbox. WoW. Kudos to them. Really really nice..... Very responsive and sleek. I had really appreciated the new changes on Outlook/Hotmail so far, and now this from Yahoo!. Yahoo! ;-)

I have always had a soft spot for Yahoo!, because they were among the first when the internet boomed, to build new software infrastructure technology around it, and they also built it to scale (well). So much of the internet infrastructure that is both standardised and taken for granted is, in one way or another, thanks to Yahoo!'s early and pioneering efforts.

So, I am actually a little bit grateful for what they've done to move the Internet forward. Seems like they are back in contention along with Hotmail in ret(g)aining their user base. I sincerely wish them well.

P.S: I've never got spam on Yahoo! mail as well.

The screenshots are horribly small with no way to resize, so I can't tell what is better than Gmail.

If it had 2 factor auth and a way to trust a particular machine or application (which I think it does?), SMTP and IMAP were free (are they? used to have to pay), there were no ads (even though GMail's aren't terrible), and it guaranteed it would not delete my account or email if unused for years, if it guaranteed a better uptime than GMail (which is already good enough), had contact dupe fixer as good as or better than GMail, had plugin for Thunderbird, etc. to keep contacts in sync so didn't have to use a 3rd party free plugin that breaks at times, and I could see that it was easier to use than GMail, and they guaranteed great security (better than GMail) and that they didn't ever look at the content of my mail or my contacts, that they would never sell me out to anyone, that they were as conspiracy-conscious as I was and apolitical, and if it allowed clutter-free integration with Facebook, etc. to mine them for email addresses when I connected to someone, and if they hated spam and would help me organize my life with easy calendar integration to every major smartphone and other devices, share calendar only with family or have other calendars to share with diff groups, get things done without integrating a tasklist, and ignore the stupid stuff, and guarantee email for life, then I might use it.

For loyal Yahoo! Mail users like myself, this announcement reaffirms Yahoo!'s focus on, and commitment to, their most popular services. I also like the unified experience on all devices.

The CEO's post shows her involvement in these changes. The changes demonstrate her desire to rework the underpinnings of services rather than revamping the user experience for marginal gains. The former infuse the right elements into Yahoo!'s culture; the latter serve as window dressing and don't help to mitigate/fix the underlying issues that have handicapped Yahoo! over the last 5 or so years.

I am looking forward to future updates to Yahoo!'s services.

It would be even more compelling if Yahoo start to offer free email service on custom domain as Google apps is no longer free. For the interface, I am not saying the new interface is bad, but even Yahoo! can make it as good as Gmail (forget the search first), still not a reason to switch..

A good part of the value (for Yahoo) is the branding. It's more important to them right now to remind consumers that Yahoo still exists than cater to a handful of geeks with vanity domains.

Well then they're going to miss out on the people that vanguard these things.

Having an @yahoo is embarrassing even for non-geeks.

That's probably tongue in cheek. In case it's not it's worth noting that Yahoo is the second largest Web mail provider (after Hotmail). One source:

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/will-it-work/email-...

You can get @rocketmail (not that I'm advocating Yahoo or anything).

Do they still remove everything from your account if you don't login to the web interface for some time?

Just went to login to my Yahoo account and I can confirm that yes, they do. Everything is deleted if you don't login for four months.

Just happened to me too. There is no better way to piss off your uses than deleting all their email. I could see having a 2 year deactivation, but 4 months? I'm sure the storage space isn't an issue, so this can only be a ploy to try to force users to log in.

Marissa Mayer has her work cut out for her. This, along with probably 10,000 other things, needs to change if Yahoo wants to compete with Google (and Microsoft?).

I have had a different experience - I have gone longer than 4 months between logging in and have not lost everything. Unless of course I have some box/account/app somewhere out there logging in unbeknownst to me :)

That must be the case. You should check account settings to see whether you have permitted such apps or sth rogue.

As it clearly says it does so and I confirm as my inbox is wiped clean too. There were just few "Welcome to xyzabc.com" mails.

This sucked and was the reason i stopped using them. I dont care enough to try them again now, purely because I lost mail this way

I log in to my Yahoo account about once a year to reset a password on <insert ancient web service account>, and I've never experienced this.

Went to mail.yahoo.com to check my mail there (for the first time in months.)

The landing page had nothing to do with mail and everything to do with piles of crap that Yahoo wants me to look at.

Congratulations Marissa, that's the last time I'll even bother looking when you say "Look! We've changed."

Next.

FWIW, it does say: "Over the next few days, most mail users will begin to experience the new web version of Yahoo! Mail." [Emphasis added.]

So we may still be seeing the old version. That said, they probably should have held off on the announcement until it was generally available.

FWIW this is exactly what Google does: announce availability for some small sliver of users and quietly expand that set over time. The announcement never comes once it's available for everyone.

> FWIW, it does say: "Over the next few days

Fair enough. I've got a trigger finger, probably because Yahoo has such a proven record of disappointing. (Yes I did not read her letter in detail.)

You already have it set in your mind yahoo is going to keep failing. If this was the next greatest thing I'm sure you'd still have a negative comment. I care little to nothing about this, but reading your comment just made me think you aren't too keen on forgiveness and second chances. It's incredibly rare to get something right the first or even next few times.

Why did you pin this on Marissa instead of Yahoo? She signed her name to it, but if Bill Gates or Steve Jobs did that, you would have said Microsoft or Apple.

Granted, her name has a better brand than Yahoo still, but she's working on that. What you said sounded sexist, and I'm not even a feminist or a female.

Yes, holding an CEO-author of a letter accountable is incredibly sexist. I'm very sorry, and it won't happen again.

How could you possibly claim his post was sexist? There is literally nothing about what he said that is even remotely sexist.

Perhaps he's pinning the blame on Mayer because the announcement was written and signed by her! It's the role of the CEO to represent his or her company in this manner and serve as the lightning rod for any feedback. The fact that Mayer is a woman is completely irrelevant. Both Jobs and Gates (and many other male and female CEO's) took on that role, and there is absolutely no shortage of rants and raves over the years directly addressed at them.

In fact, I would say that you are the one being sexist, since you are apparently accusing jpdoctor of sexism based solely on the gender of Yahoo's CEO.

"Why did you pin this on Marissa instead of Yahoo?"

It's not unexpected for newly-joining execs to be blamed for recent decisions.

"What you said sounded sexist, and I'm not even a feminist or a female."

Possibly because you don't understand what a feminist perspective is? There are plenty of ways to be sexist, but strong personalities, male and female certainly get associated with brands.

Since no one is really posting about the apps: I just updated to the new Android version and it blows the old Yahoo Mail app away. The app feels more like an Android app, it looks better, it's snappier, the ads are gone, and is overall a much better experience. If this is representative of the type of improvements we will see, I am excited.

Looks much better, but did you find a way to disable notifications ? I didn't see any settings menu.

Click on the upper right (the 3 bars), which will show a left hand nav. From the left hand nav, scroll down to Settings.

From there, it is "Account Settings" and then "Notification Settings"

What's with the microscopic screenshots? The hell am I supposed to take away from looking at that?

Fair point, but even the tiny screenshots show that the new interface has dropped all the crappy display ads that were part of the reason I stopped using Yahoo. (Their spam filter suckage was the other.)

i know. i clicked on each one, expecting the image to enlarge.. gee whiz ralphie...

Recently I noticed how absurdly homogenous my pinned browser tabs have become: Gmail, Google Reader, Google+ Hangouts, and Youtube. I dumped Yahoo's bloated mail client years ago, but I think I'd actually be willing to give it another shot if only to get some of my eggs out of this basket.

Take note, Yahoo: for me, online mail is largely just a pretty interface to a spam filter. Now that your client is sane, this should be your top priority.

This is paramount -- if you can't offer a spam engine as good as the one in Gmail, then you've lost before you've even started.

It's 2012 and Yahoo Mail still doesn't use HTTPS. Shame!

I just logged into my old account and couldn't believe the lack of SSL. Mindblowing. I entered https:// manaully and the page loaded after going through the Chrome certificate warnings.

It does, just not by default. I went to options and at the bottom, there is a checkbox to force https.

Use this firefox addon: HTTPS Everywhere. You will discover lots of sites that support HTTPS.

Still no archive button, still get spam, folders are mutually exclusive... Has nobody learned from GMail?

EDIT: Just unsure about what they added... looks like a standard webmail interface?

Hmm... I've learned from GMail. I choose a mail interface with a clear delete (instead of the nebulous "archive") and the ease of mutually exclusive folders instead of the lack of specificity of overlapping tags, and I got just as much spam in Gmail as I did in Y!.

So, I guess lots of folks have learned from GMail... that GMail is not really right for everyone. If you love tags, cool, but there's something to be said for email that works like one expects email to work.

Wouldn't mind better searching in Y! mail, however; Google did do a good job with that, not surprisingly.

This should lead to fewer family support requests. Thanks Marissa!

They need to rebrand Yahoo Mail. Like MS did with Hotmail -> Outlook.

Nobody wants to have @yahoo.com. That's embarrassing in 2012. Or 2006 for that matter.

Really? By "nobody" you mean us, right? Most people still use yahoo and hotmail. [1]

[1] "Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 310 million users as of October 2011, and the most popular webmail service in the United States" - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20114975-52/microsoft-aimi...

Anyone here who uses Yahoomail? Just curious. I stopped using them long back when they charged for some features while GMail still had them for free. Anyway, could anyone let us know how the new version is? I think my account has been deactivated due to inactivity (another irritating 'feature').

Their homepage doesn't clearly explain what has gotten better, and if it all, it is better than GMail. So would love to hear some feedback!

I use Yahoo mail and have for a very long time. I find it odd that I do not have the update yet. From what I can tell it does a lot of things right - removing ads, cleaning up the UI - but I can't make a judgement until I've used it.

I use Yahoo Mail and pay $20, so I can create temporary email addresses. I know there are other free temp email services, but I like to have it one place, makes it easier to search as well.

I prefer the current version of Yahoo Mail over the initial version of GMail. Perhaps GMail got a lot better since its initial version; I haven't checked.

Slightly off topic, the name ycorpblog sounds fugly. They have one of the biggest, most renowned internet brands - why not just blog.yahoo.com ?

The windows 8 app looks hot.

It looks a lot like outlook.com (from what I can see on that small picture), but it looks hot.

Maybe MS should've bought Yahoo after all, if only so the Windows 8 mail app wouldn't be such an irredeemable, worthless piece of crap.

It (from a screenshot) looks exactly like the Windows 8 Mail app, which is an interesting consequence of going "full metro"

I'm very curious how fully functional it is.

Hope they're getting rid of their old fashioned advertisement bar on the right and hope they're getting rid of the junk applications. I am really not hopeful but I would go back to my first ever email address if I see them provide better experience than Gmail. But what are the chances?

Just tried to log into my old yahoo account to see the changes and despite knowing the password it asked me a security question from 2009 that I cannot remember the answer, so I guess I'm never using that one again (it locked me out for 12 hours).

Nice interface, and I enjoy the tabs. My YMail account is still just crud for fantasy sports and spam, but it's a nice interface nonetheless. Much more responsive than I remember it being as well.

Interesting, went over the 'free' Yahoo email account that I got with my DSL account. I find this particularly interesting given that I'm now looking for a gmail replacement.

Does mail apps matter any more especially if it's for a specific brand? I think people are increasing growing accustomed to unified mails and imaps.

I'm really sorry to say, but: too late. Literally 99% of those I know used to be a Yahoo Mail user (Y! Messenger still biggish in Romania, though loosing ground quickly to social networks), but a big part of them are using GMail now.

Big, ugly ads and an "anti"-spam engine that makes SpamAssassin look good; what's there to come back to? Plus everyone has a smartphone/tablet now and what's that without a Google/GMail account? Yahoo has become irrelevant.

Don't let reality get in the way of your anecdote about what your friends use!

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/will-it-work/email-...

Yahoo Mail is still more popular than GMail.

Bear in mind that Gmail by default doesn't display images, so their tracking won't work for gmail unless users click "Always show images from ...".

I don't know whether Yahoo displays images by default or not.

Don't let reality get in the way of your anecdote about what your friends use!

+1 for the way you framed it. :-D

I might be reusing it as well.

great quote. will reuse with my dev team.

Yahoo! Mail has more active users than Gmail; almost double in the US market. It's second only to Hotmail with over 300 million unique users.

http://visualize.yahoo.com/mail/ (see About, or Comscore's 2011 email market share report)

Obviously, this just 1 datapoint but ...

I still use my original yahoo mail account, and my gmail account did not replace it.

Besides, my yahoo spam filter is not worse than my gmail spam filter (I would even say that it has less false positive).

Two data points.

I've been using my Yahoo account for over a decade. Why should I switch? I would have to change all the services that use the email. I never get spammed on Yahoo, despite it being a very old account.

I actually prefer Yahoo over Gmail since it has tabbed emails. I can open several emails at once and compose several at a time. Can't do that with Gmail.

>>I can open several emails at once and compose several at a time. Can't do that with Gmail.

With the new Gmail compose, you can... sort of. It will stack them at the bottom, but only show two "open" at a time (at least on my comp, with a fullscreen chrome window on 1900x1200, maybe you can have more open with a wider screen).

Not ideal, but better than it was at least.

I was very reluctant to switch from Yahoo to Gmail in the first few years of Gmail. But eventually I did it, and couldn't believe how much better Gmail was at spam filtering than Yahoo - like an order of magnitude better. I never looked back.

Recently I stopped using Yahoo Messenger, too, because they've been adding a lot of nonsense to it lately.

I had a long chat with an engineer from the Yahoo spam team about why Gmail was better, and this was his take: When Gmail started off in beta, the mail filters were amazing. They were trained with a large corpus of Google's employee mail, skewing everything to a technical subject matter and a tightly knit network of contacts.

When Gmail hit general availability, the quality of filters was not what average users expected. Things would get flagged simply because Grandma was not in the trusted circle of silicon valley.

Eventually they bought Postini, both to boost corporate email business, but also to source a spam filter that had been battle tested across large consumer mail installs.

This surprises me. I don't remember the last time a spam message made it to my inbox with Yahoo. Maybe 7 years ago?

I get 10 spam emails a day that get past Yahoo's spam filter. The common factor in all of them is that my address is not in the "To" field. Marking them all as spam for the past several months has been completely ineffective. My solution was to filter all email without my address in the "To" field into another folder.

I don't think the Yahoo spam filter works on an individual basis like the gmail filter does.

I hope they do threading some day...

Now, fix all the chat spams we get all day.

Looking at incredibly small screen-shots on this blog post (and having no way to resize) I guess I can safely say 'nothing much changed' at Yahoo it seems, as of now at least. Looks like the new Yahoo mail wants Flash. Tells me so.

Tabbed email is a very good start, btw.

Damn it, where's Yahoo for Linux? And I'm hoping Marissa Mayer decides to integrate it with Google Talk contacts eventually.

And who uses a chat app full screen (like the Windows 8 one)?

Use the Internet? Windows 8 was mentioned here because it is a mobile OS.

Or Thunderbird...

>And who uses a chat app full screen (like the Windows 8 one)?

Perhaps like this, off to the side.

http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit...