Yahoo.com mail review

Yahoo.com Mail is a free e-mail service offered by the American search engine company Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo.com 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.

Yahoo.com mail (2011 release)

The new version of Yahoo.com Mail, codenamed “Minty“, was first announced on 16 September 2010 on the Yahoo.com Mail Blog. It included a new interface, enhanced performance, improved Facebook and Twitter integration, the ability to watch YouTube videos straight from your email, improved search, and more.

As the new Yahoo.com Mail became mandatory for users, a number of previously satisfied users of Yahoo.com Mail started to report slow typing speeds with the new Yahoo.com Mail, running contradictory to Yahoo!’s claims that the new Yahoo.com Mail would perform “2x” faster. Yahoo! offered no resolution to the problem as of September 12, 2011, and continued to advertise that Yahoo.com Mail “provides performance that is 2x faster than the previous versions of Yahoo.com Mail” and runs at “lightning speed.” Further slowing down user productivity, users cannot copy and paste email addresses from the sender box but must navigate to the Contacts tab and search for a contact to be able to copy and paste an email address. This is because now recipient email addresses convert to the name of the recipient highlighted inside a box, without an immediate option for accessing the email address to copy and paste like in traditional email clients. Although it is not mentioned, upgrading to the new version disables the use of the secondary addresses provided in the previous version. Thus users will not receive emails sent to a secondary address any more. The new interface overrides the browser’s right mouse button (e.g., making functions such as opening mails in new tab windows unavailable).

Yahoo.com mail future:

• Email storage capacity: unlimited
• Email attachment limit: 25 MB (up to 100 MB via the built-in ‘Attach Large Files’ app)
• Account expiry on inactivity: 4 months
• Supported protocols: POP3 in Asia or via YPOPs!, IMAP via IMAP proxy or via Zimbra, SMTP, Mail Forwarding in some countries (but not in the US). Current and new accounts can not order the free POP3 / forwarding service – attempts give a currently not for sale error.
• Ads: yes
• 100 filters to automatically sort incoming messages (200 filters for the Plus version)
• Protection against spam and viruses.
• Advertising is displayed on the screen while working with the email account. Text ads are not within the emails themselves, and they are now added to the footer of outgoing messages, as of February 2011.
• Accounts not logged into for four months get deactivated (the account can be retrieved but all stored data, such as emails, are lost).
• Early in 2006, Yahoo.com Mail introduced aliases to its repertoire of features. Users could now add a (single) alias username containing a dot character for a pre-existing account.
• The Chinese version of Yahoo.com Mail offers 3.5 GB quota and 20 MB attachments.
• Some users get features added if they are long time users.
• Latest beta of Yahoo! Zimbra desktop allows for all Yahoo! users to use the software