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Webmail never stops

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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With Yahoo Mail and Hotmail having been revamped recently, and while Gmail continues to develop, I thought it might be a good moment to step back and look at their relative benefits. I’ve had active Yahoo and Hotmail accounts for a decade, but over the past couple of years Gmail has become my emailing home – so if anyone wants to accuse me of a Gmail bias, it’s true, I have one!

So, Gmail stole me away from Yahoo and Hotmail. Have they pulled off any developmental tricks to bring me back?

The biggest functional difference between the three is the reader pane. Both Yahoo and Hotmail utilize this, so you can read messages while still having your inbox open. Those two also let you drag and drop mail into folders, which makes organizing your mail really easy. Running Firefox, Yahoo! Mail was noticeably faster than Hotmail, which still suffers from a bit of lag. A split second makes all the difference today. Yahoo and Gmail are comparable, with messages appearing without noticeable loading times.

While it lacks the reader pane, Gmail shows mail in a ‘conversation’, which is much easier to use than the ever-lengthening emails in Hotmail and Yahoo, when you’re exchanging a string of messages. Where Gmail really differentiates itself is with its Beta status, which I personally think is a conceit on Google’s part to allow constant development with user feedback. And we all know it’s cooler to be using a beta product than a final version, right?

My cynicism aside, Gmail features Gmail Labs, which allows users to use interesting developmental apps for Gmail, and customize it to their needs. Neither Yahoo or Hotmail are anywhere near this flexible.

All three offer color changes, Hotmail and Yahoo have a miserly selection, and Gmail has a much larger ‘themes’ selection. Of course, color is all down to personal taste, but I think the majority of these aesthetic customizations are pretty nasty! Of the original designs, Gmail is the clearest and most neutral, and its text more readable. The inbox text in Yahoo is a little small, but the page layout is good. I can’t recommend Hotmail, as it’s page in any configuration is claustrophobic.

Despite niggling fears that Google wants to own my soul, it’s impossible to ignore that Gmail is the faster, more flexible and aesthetically friendly webmail option.

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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