The New Gmail Sucks

The good old days; The Original Gmail

Remember when Gmail first came out and it was the greatest thing ever?  Ok, maybe not the greatest thing, but it was really good.  It was very clear and easy to use and it gave you tons of space to store your emails.  Since then Google has rolled out changes over the years.  Each time there has been a major change, it gets worse.  I wrote about the first detrimental change they made in a blog here.

Most recently they have totally changed the compose feature.  Before when you clicked Compose to write a new email, it would open up normally and use the full screen.  Now when you click it, it just opens a little box in the corner.  What?  Why would I want to be restrained to a little box in the corner when this is the main thing I am working on?  Ok, I know what you are going to say.  There is an option to make it go to the full screen.  I still don't like it even in that mode.  Also the new look is too minimal.  Such basic information such as the labels for "To" and "Subject" disappear once you type something in.  Buttons like "add a picture" or link are hidden away so you have to hover your mouse over certain sections just to see what options you have available.  It's like they are trying to make it as user unfriendly as possible.

They also added Tabs for the emails.  Maybe some people who get tons of emails of different kinds like this new feature as it helps break them up, but for me, it is just another unwanted change.  I quickly put it back how it was.

So if Gmail is so bad, how come I keep using it?  Well, it's not quite bad enough to completely abandon.  I do however use 2 other services, Yahoo, and Live.  Yahoo has made awful changes much like Gmail has and their email is just about useless right now.  Logging out of Yahoo takes about 10 seconds when it should take less than 1 second.  They also use the annoying tab feature.

The best email I'm using right now is Live by Microsoft.  I actually go into it by accident.  See I had to make a Live email account for business and after using it for a while I realized it is more likeable than Gmail or Yahoo.  I'm not ready to switch over all my accounts to Live, but it's nice knowing there are some better options out there.