MacWorld is reporting of some recent complaints against Gmail and they are valid, I think, to some degree. First of all, I must confess, I am a Gmail addict. I have been on board since early on and really rely on it as my main email, mainly because it’s one that I can access from anywhere. It does concern me that the server is not one that I control, therefore, if Google ever pulls the plug on it, I’m hosed. But you’ve got to put some trust in the fact that Google is solid and growing, not struggling.
Anyway, here’s the complaints, from today’s MacWorld article:
The three main complaints being aired in Gmail discussion groups are: The virus-scanning feature can’t be turned off. Gmail’s long-standing virus protection — blocking all executable file attachments — will remain in place. Finally, Google isn’t saying which vendor is providing the antivirus technology.
The first 2 are not really an issue. Virus scanning is not really a problem for most of us, but the article does detail circumstances where it may matter. If you have reason to receive or send a file infected with a virus, such as sending the file to a virus scan company for evaluation, then Gmail is not the account to use. But doesn’t everyone have multiple e-mail accounts? (I know I have had an excessive number of e-mail accounts in the past but I think I’m down to 5 or 6 now)
Point 2 – blocking exe’s is pretty standard and it’s fairly simple to sidetrack that dilemma. There is a nice, non-technical gentleman in the article quoted as saying he was aware that you could do things to get around that but he was afraid he wasn’t technical enough. No fear! Here’s the trick, and this works whether you are a technical person or not. For example, let’s assume you have a file named bigchurch.exe and you need to email it to someone. Right click the file, click ‘Rename’, change the .exe to anything else. I usually use .e__, but it doesn’t matter. You could remove the .exe altogether and just have a file named bigchurch. I usually use e__ so that there is a clue to me that it should be .exe. If you send the file to someone else, just ask them to rename it back to the original .exe. No big deal.
Point 3 is what bothers me. Why is it such a secret to tell who the virus scan company is? Maybe Google wrote their own code for it and maybe we are getting bent out of shape for nothing. I doubt it, though. It’s probably supported by some existing software, but I dunno. I wasn’t worried about it until I started seeing complaints around the web.
The beauty of Gmail is the massive amount of storage available, as of right now, it’s at 2670.545907mb. I am currently using 312mb, or 12%, so the file storage potential is tremendous. A few days ago, I was well over 800mb and I seriously blew thru there and cleaned house.
I think my main complaint against Gmail is the text only signature. I would like to add a little creativity to my sig, but no can do. It also gripes me that it always puts the sig at the very bottom of the thread. That is good for other Gmailers but I’ve never been convinced that will translate right for a regular emailer, but maybe it does. I always cut and paste the sig to up underneath my newest text, but I guess I’m a little OCD. I am still bitter that I couldn’t get my name @gmail.com. If you know the Jim Walton that beat me to Gmail, tell him to name his price, but that would mean I would have to start running ads on this blog or something.
Any other complaints? How much space are you using?