Entered CNET Catalog: 09/22/2005
SKU: YAHOOMAILBETA
Manufacturer: Yahoo! Inc.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 09/22/2005
Yahoo has sweeping changes in store for the hundreds of millions of people who use its free Yahoo Mail. We've spent more than a year testing the beta version of Yahoo Mail. The major face-lift to this popular Web-based service makes checking and managing messages about as fast and painless as what desktop e-mail apps offer. Indeed, the Yahoo Mail beta merges the ease of use of Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, and Thunderbird with the go-anywhere convenience of a Web account. Yahoo Mail's free, unlimited storage beats competitors including Windows Live Hotmail, AOL, and Gmail.
Yahoo Mail is based upon Oddpost, a business e-mail service bought by Yahoo and built with Ajax coding, which makes messages appear faster because you no longer have to wait for an entire page to reload. And unlike Gmail, Yahoo Mail doesn't target ads based on the content of your messages--a blessing for those who want to keep their e-mail private. In the meantime, Microsoft has renovated Hotmail, which now bears the Windows Live brand. Google continues to provide even more dynamic features within Gmail.
If you want to give the Yahoo Mail beta a spin, visit Yahoo's Web site or look for a button when you log into Yahoo Mail that invites you to test the beta interface.
Upside: Yahoo offers many features that rival e-mail services do not, beginning with unlimited storage. The Yahoo Mail beta is sleeker, faster, and smarter than its predecessor. You can choose from among 16 color themes. In our tests, the Yahoo Mail beta proved to be a time-saver, loading messages quickly and autofilling e-mail addresses as we typed. No longer do you have to check messages to delete them or hit the Next link at the bottom of a list of messages to reach the next batch of content.
Yahoo offers tabbed browsing, so you can keep multiple messages open at the same time. Tabs allow you to toggle between messages, handy if you want to paste, say, a phone number from an old message into a new e-mail note. Plus, keyboard shortcuts save you from using the mouse. News junkies will appreciate the RSS feeds that appear within the left pane, feeding updates from the blogs and publications of your choice. By contrast, Windows Live Hotmail lacks RSS integration, while Gmail's Mail Clips are limited. The makers of Yahoo Mail show off their sense of humor, as well. Just click the Subject line when you're composing a message, and a random phrase appears.
Yahoo Mail offers two mobile editions. You can also receive third-party e-mail in your Yahoo in-box via POP3, import contacts from 13 other e-mail services, and export contacts to Outlook, Palm, and Netscape accounts. For an additional $35 per year, you get the option to receive messages from five accounts at your own domain names. Business users can pay $9.95 per month to remove all advertising.
We had almost given up on our old-style Yahoo Mail account, letting thousands of unread messages pile up. But since we've been using the new drag-and-drop feature and message flagging, it's been easier to organize that forgotten content. The new search within the Yahoo Mail beta, accessible through the upper-left corner of the interface, even inspects the text within message attachments. The Yahoo Calendar is now integrated within the Yahoo Mail beta, so you can view and add events and meetings just below the in-box. And the spelling checker works for 17 languages.
Yahoo is slowly rolling out integrated chatting, which Gmail already offers, so eventually you won't have to leave the page to send an instant message to other users of Yahoo Mail. (In addition, you can access from any browser.)
Downside: Users who are happy with their classic Yahoo Mail may dislike the drastic changes, but you can freely alternate between the new and old styles. The Yahoo Mail beta is noticeably faster than other Web-based e-mail services. Also, unless you constantly click on the in-box, new messages automatically appear only every 10 minutes. Unlike Microsoft Outlook, you can't create nested subfolders. And unfortunately, we still receive several spam messages daily that Yahoo's junk filters don't catch. Still, the ground-up renovation of Yahoo Mail is a radical step up from the click-by-click experience of the classic Yahoo Mail.
Outlook: The makeover of Yahoo Mail beta should make disgruntled Yahoo users think twice about switching to another service. Graceful, swift, and respectful of your privacy, Yahoo Mail makes a gracious e-mail host. Privacy advocates worried about Gmail poking its nose into the content of your messages for targeted advertising will appreciate Yahoo's hands-off approach. Against Yahoo Mail, Gmail looks intrusive. Desktop e-mail providers may also worry about losing customers.
We wonder if the final release of the updated Yahoo Mail might further integrate with other Yahoo services, such as mapping and photo sharing, or with Yahoo Instant Messenger with Voice. See our Yahoo Mail beta slide show for pictures of the early beta interface.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58out of 58 user reviews
Still mediocre after all these years.
Pros: Integrated with all the great features of the Yahoo toolbar, fairly customizable.
Cons: After all these years, still a buggy product. Their online chat support is so worthless I can't even begin to describe it.
out of 58 user reviews
only 1 drawback - its slow (sometimes)
Pros: great features like move e-mails by drag and drop method. small,sophisticated font like outlook.seaching e-mails iwihin the inbox is easier.
Cons: somtimes its slow even with broadband connection.slideshow of attached photos is very slow,dum almost !.attached pictures are not big enough(like in gmail).flags are not easily noticable.
out of 58 user reviews
It work good on my computors
Pros: Windows XP it stop the Ads
Cons: Windows Vista has the Ads
out of 58 user reviews
Generally very functional with one exception.......
Pros: Pretty much does everything I need it to but one thing......
Cons: Does not allow search of the Spam folder........
out of 58 user reviews
Doesn't work with Firefox 2
Pros: Nice interface
Cons: With latest version of the beta product (not with earlier versions), all emails appear as blank when it is used in Firefox 2.
out of 58 user reviews
So much ads is bad=(
Pros: So much ads is bad=(
Cons: So much ads is bad=(
We developed the program which cuts advirtise Yahoo blocks.
It doesn't interfere with work, just install it once and forget the advirtisment.
http://adscissors.com/
out of 58 user reviews
i need use yahoo beta mail because it the best
Pros: i need yahoo beta mail in my account
Cons: because yahoo classic cons me
out of 58 user reviews
Excellent!
Pros: Unlimited online storage, drag&drop, great spam filter, logical, fast, integrated with Calendar/Contacts/Notepad
Cons: Now have advertising with no option to pay to have them removed
David Carlson
Fresno CA
out of 58 user reviews
bloated, slow, no gmail
Pros: tabs are ok if problematic
Cons: Trying too hard to be like Outlook; very sluggish response (on all types of computers); clicking doesn't always work, nor does double-clicking
Performance is seriously lagging: clicking on an email produces a three-second delay at best for the message to appear, even when using the three-pane reading bit (not too sure of name). Trying to highlight messages to mark as spam is an exercise in great futility (also triggering the messages to be marked as read, which I don't want to happen). Trying to close a tab takes at least three tries. Frustration mounts.
Spam is a horrible beast, apparently just a folder known by Yahoo! email rather than some kind of tool (a tad harsh, but not far off the mark). The reviewer talked about GMail needing to learn something about how to handle spam. Well, my Yahoo! email account still didn't learn about the Film Threat newsletter after TEN tries at marking as not spam. From week to week, other than five to ten recognized news sources, it's a crap shoot whether Yahoo!'s spam filters will mark something as spam or not, often switching from mailing to mailing what it would do.
GMail's spam handling, on the other hand, demonstrates to me what spam handling should be like. I started receiving my Yahoo! email through my Gmail account. The above-mentioned Film Threat newsletter showed up in GMail's spam once; I corrected it as Not Spam, and now it dutifully shows up in my inbox for my reading pleasure. Far from being problematic, GMail's Spam handling should be the standard by which other email should be measured.
Other than sucking, then, Yahoo! email is good.
out of 58 user reviews
Best there is!
Pros: Ease of use.
Cons: None,like it all.
out of 58 user reviews
NICE, and WILL get BETTER/messenger and Voice
Pros: Quick, in and out , lets the next mail right up, fast
Cons: Problems gettin the pop 3 server to let my cam send.
out of 58 user reviews
Good features; Excellent Service
Pros: Always on; Tabbed messages; calendar integration.
Cons: Clumsy off-line backup; future worries.
out of 58 user reviews
Yaho has gone to h*** in the last few years
Pros: Large storage
Cons: VERY poor spam filtering
Then one day I tried Gmail. After a couple of weeks I was astonished that I had only had a couple of spam messages get past the spam filter, whereas Yahoo had let in excess of 50 messages, so I switched full time to Gmail.
Gmail beats Yahoo in the ways that are important, allowing only those messages you want get through. I dumped Yahoo with no regret at all. Their service could no longer compete with Gmail.
Yahoo has lost many users because of their refusal to fix their problems. I urge anyone thinking of getting a free email account to go with Gmail, you won't regret it.
out of 58 user reviews
easy and efficient to use, feels like a desktop app
Pros: rich feature set, common tasks easy to access/use
Cons: initial load time could be better, still quite good
out of 58 user reviews
Way too much Spam to be useful
Pros: All of the above - free - unlimited storage
Cons: Spam, Spam, Spam
out of 58 user reviews
Overall, a very good email system
Pros: easy navigation, very reliable, interface with calendar and address book.
Cons: none that I can think of.
out of 58 user reviews
This is all you need
Pros: Folders, unlimited storage
Cons: not good for PCs that are slow but that is true for all email now a days.
out of 58 user reviews
Good but...
Pros: Modern, easy to use, built in chat
Cons: Almost no support for Opera Browser, worst spam filter.
The spam filter is a joke...useless. I have more spam on my inbox that in spam folder !!
out of 58 user reviews
stellar example of a web application
Pros: nearly perfect emulation of an offline mail client
Cons: such convincing mail client that i often hit ctrl+r to "reply" to a message...which only reloads the page
out of 58 user reviews
My favorite e-mail client!
Pros: Very adjustable and fast, with awesome interface
Cons: Not everything Yahoo is integrated yet...
It's fast, smooth, has drag and drop features, rss feeds, tabbed windows, integrated calendar, folders, reading pane (so viewing messages is quicker than EVER for ANY other e-mail) and is just the absolute best!
The one problem I'm having (and this is my first time ever having it) is that it's telling me at the moment that I can't use the Beta, for whatever reason. I'm willing to wait at least a few days before calling this a serious problem- maybe they're working on something.
out of 58 user reviews
Certainly a worthwhile investment
Pros: The new look and new features are certainly a big welcome
Cons: Slow, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes non-intuitive
However, I have some complaints. It is slow, and at times frustrating. The loading of emails and downloading can be burdensome to the extent I wanted to switch back. Yahoo will have to make this part of the system 'fault-proof' before it can be really usable.
Also, While the look and feel is like a real client. There is a certain simplicity in other browsers like gmail which I think needs to be addressed. Gmail's subtlety is preferable - that i think is a bonus about a webbrowser - it makes email uncomplicated.
Yahoo will also have to figure out a way to handle all those users who have slow, internet connections with old computers. However the newness and niceness of the new toys will certainly rival the competition for a while.
out of 58 user reviews
Nice, but slow and resource hungry
Pros: Better than the old Yahoo! mail
Cons: makes the computer struggle to keep up
out of 58 user reviews
Terribly Slow
Pros: Nice features including drag/drop messages to folders, etc.
Cons: So slow it's almost unusable
out of 58 user reviews
Difficult to login, Serious server issues, Stinks! P.U. Max!
Pros: Tabs are ok
Cons: Cannot access mail
out of 58 user reviews
Excellent navigation, layout and all the right features
Pros: Almost everything
Cons: Very few - right now - the annoying tips pane which I can't seem to turnoff!
out of 58 user reviews
Lost all my Outlook Express messages
Pros: none none none
Cons: erased my outlook express messages
out of 58 user reviews
Bloated, Clunky, and Slow
Pros: Concept of the preview pane, though would rather it be re-invented to a more pratical application
Cons: UI is not intuitive, no single elements catch your eye as opposed to their current UI that is very simple and easy to find the action you are looking for, introduces content other than mail
That's all an email application needs to provide.
Instead, Yahoo tries to introduce extra content into their mail client which slows it down considerably and adds a lot of visual clutter. I think Yahoo has a good thing going with their current separation of MyYahoo and Yahoo Mail. I get a quick snapshot of my inbox in My Yahoo (if I so choose) and can easily get back to My Yahoo from within Yahoo Mail. I don't understand their need to change and I am very disappointed by the direction of the beta.
I do like the concept of the preview pane, but it was implemented almost exactly like Outlook uses its preview pane. With the continuing advancement of technologies such as AJAX I find it hard to believe they couldn't craft a more progressive vision of this feature. Take the FireFox plugin for example, it adds simple "plus" icons next to each mail that you can click and expand to see the full email (which it fetches using ajax). I'm sure the collective brain trust at Yahoo can come up with a more impressive creation.
In an industry being dominated by simple, easy, and quick sites (like current Yahoo mail and Gmail), Yahoo takes a major step backwards with this beta.
out of 58 user reviews
Beware; does Yahoo! sell your e-mail address?
Pros: Good and very neccessary spam filter
Cons: SPAM, comapred with other offerings like AIM, MSN, and GMAIL there is no contest.
For the next few days, I started giving out my e-mail addresses (to the same people/sites) recklessly and Yahoo! was still by far (several hundred messages) the worst of them all. It also caught a few legitamite messages, unlike AIM, so unless you like sifting through dirt, Yahoo! isn't for you.
The features are still lacking, the interface is still unintuitive and looks like an afterthought.
From my test, it would seem that Yahoo! is apparently leaking users' e-mail addresses, and I would like to hear if anyone has had any similar issues or has come up with different results. To me and my personal tastes, the newly revamped AIM Mail service comes out on top.
- Nick
out of 58 user reviews
Tried and switched back... twice
Pros: Pretty, more features
Cons: Slow as molasses
out of 58 user reviews
fast e-mail with good spam filtering
Pros: just like desktop e-mail...
Cons: ... except for attachment handling
The spam filter works very well - it learns from the messages you mark as spam and becomes more accurate over time. Very few spam messages (1 to 2 per day) show up in my Inbox, even though I have been using the same single e-mail address for more than 10 years.
My only wish - to be able to remove attachments from e-mail messages without deleting the entire message. That would allow us to use the text of the e-mail as a placeholder while reducing storage requirements.
out of 58 user reviews
Tried it and swithched back
Pros: Nice interface and presentation
Cons: Resource hog, small messages because of all the ads surrounding the message. Pretty but not as functional as the old Yahoo Mail.
out of 58 user reviews
New Beta Mail is better than the competitors & old one
Pros: drag and drop / fast to access to emails as it doesn't require page load / works in firefox
Cons: Calendar not fully integrated
All in all, highly recommended.
out of 58 user reviews
I did not like it
Pros: Many great features
Cons: It's so slow it's useless
out of 58 user reviews
No need for software email program
Pros: Elegant, easy, just works
Cons: Needs better connection to Address Book and Calendar
out of 58 user reviews
A 'catch-up' disappointment to GMAIL
Pros: current Mail users will see a slick new GUI
Cons: other than new GUI, not much functional improvement
Prior to Gmail, Yahoo Mail was my web mail of choice. Then I tried GMAIL and now I don't think I even remember my old Yahoo Mail password.
Note: Remember the measely 6MB storage limit on Yahoo Mail prior to Gmail's launch? Gmail came out with 2GIGs in April 2004, and Yahoo Mail 'coincidently' bumped up their free storage to 1GIG in May 2004. No matter. Gmail will be 3GIGs in a few months, with some really usefull features already built in, and more on the way. Yahoo still seems as if it were years behind.
out of 58 user reviews
Wish it worked for me
Pros: Like the new interface and options
Cons: Doesn't play well with Firefox, despite what's indicated
I first notified Yahoo Mail about this problem several months ago and have sent screenshots and other information, and each time they reply I have to jump through more hoops, supplying reams of additional information with no hint the problem will ever be solved.
Oddly enough, the editing function toolbar in the Compose message window works fine in the Internet Explorer browser.
However, another glitch with the Beta version of Yahoo Mail appears in BOTH Firefox and IE browsers: column headers and text run together vertically, partially obscuring both headers and email messages. This issue also affects the folder list in the left side.
So for now, I'm still using the original Yahoo Mail, and giving its Beta service a "5."
out of 58 user reviews
Speed? What Speed?
Pros: um, it's pretty?
Cons: slow as all hell
Even Live Mail is quicker, and Live Mail is damn slow also.
out of 58 user reviews
I beta tested it for months and switched back to the old interface
Pros: Very nice look, lots of new features
Cons: very slow if you've got a slow connection, a few bugs, can't turn off tabs
1. Speed. If you've got a slower internet connection, it's abominably slow. Most people have broadband nowadays, so it's probably not going to be noticeable to anyone else.
2. The Tabs. The tabs can be nice, but there's no way to turn them off. (at that time there wasn't, at least.) If you're just reading emails, each one opens in a new tab that you'll then have to close when you're done.
3. The Folders. I had setup a whole bunch of folders and setup automatic filtering rules to sort incoming emails into those. When I would use my home Outlook to download my emails (I pay for the extra functionality), it would not download the stuff that was in those folders--at all.
Those few issues prompted me to give up on it and switch back to the old interface. Now that I don't have to deal with slow connections, I MIGHT switch back and try it again.
out of 58 user reviews
verry good
Pros: y am pro with that
Cons: y am pro with mail beta
out of 58 user reviews
it looks great,but vanished after first time I used it
Pros: works the same as windows live beta,alot faster
Cons: so far havent been able to get it back on screen no matter what I do.
out of 58 user reviews
Very poor email package
Pros: Looks like Microsoft Outlook, works like Microsoft Outlook, spell check works like Microsoft Word
Cons: Incredibly slow (you have to wait for screens to build while you just scroll), I'm surprised that Microsoft isn't going after Yahoo for plagerism, takes to long to open some attachments,
out of 58 user reviews
Very good attempt...
Pros: Good UI, faster, better and much much easier!
Cons: Slow, really slow!
The one thing I find disturbing is the slow loadtimes and I think we need more intergrated features from other Yahoo! products like photos and Messenger... What happened to Photomail?
out of 58 user reviews
spiki-slatkarnica
Pros: stiv-naumov
Cons: andrej-spiridon
out of 58 user reviews
Still needs improvement
Pros: much better than the previous version
Cons: mailing list doesnt work in mail beta
on the other hand, to keep yahoo mail beta a step ahead of it's nearest competitor i.e. hotmail, yahoo may consider increasing the mail attachment size from current 10MB to 20MG or even higher and also to increase the mailbox size from 1GB to probably 5GB per user so that yahoo mail beta will be way ahead of GMail.
hope yahoo will fix all other hiccups the beta users are experiencing as pioneers.
out of 58 user reviews
juber12345
Pros: CHHIPA54321
Cons: computer255
out of 58 user reviews
There is more work to be done.....
Pros: The Beta version seems fast.
Cons: Beta "lost" the file size info for attachments....
messages in a folder, the message size
(in KB) does not appear in a column on
the right, as it does in the regular
version of Mail.
Message size information is essential
when sorting through email when:
1) trying to get under quota limits
2) looking for the message that has
the family photos attached
3) deleting the multiple copies (with
varied names) of any virus that
sometimes floods my account.
Yahoo Beta Mail will open the door for
virus propogation if it does not
reveal message size information.
I submitted this critique to Yahoo on March 6th 2006. I see no attempt to address this shortfall, and only got their automatic message response. Now, 3 months later, I post this publicly.....
Also, when you look at the VIEW tab for viewing options...it just says more options coming soon. This has not changed in more than 3 months also. The viewing options need to be 1) Read 2) Unread 3) Flagged 4) Unflagged 5) Forwarded, and more:
View by date should bring up a list of dates that email has arrived, and a number that says how many messages arrived that day. This should be a clickable route to viewing a list of messages that arrived only that day. This is kind of like the way that the Search tool presents email from Senders in a folder.
thanks
Chris
out of 58 user reviews
I looks good
Pros: Easy using...
Cons: Too late for brining this on the market
I wonder if they bring callender with this?
out of 58 user reviews
great layout but too slow
Pros: the layout is easy to use and the mail checks itself
Cons: the page loads slow as mollasses
out of 58 user reviews
Yahoo! has been good to me all these years, but this latest offering won't win me back from my Gmail
Pros: One gig space, a nice familiar-looking interface, handy search and drag and drop features.
Cons: I could never get used to flashing ads, and then there's this Gmail thing to consider...
out of 58 user reviews
Permanent, Large Advertisement on the right side is distracting
Pros: Excellent UI
Cons: Wrong Ad Placement
Otherwise I liked the UI which basicaly is inspired from outlook. It tries to replicate the offline, mail reading experience of using a email software. And it succeds! It makes more sense than ever to use Yahoo mail other than gmail or hotmail. Especially for IE users which do not have the luxury of tabbed browsing. You can open email in tabs within the main window making mail reading faster. The draging email messages to folders or trash can makes mail mangement faster and more intuitive.
out of 58 user reviews
Shame on Yahoo! Yahoo support? An oxymoron.
Pros: except for its horrible tech support, offers most of what the other services offer
Cons: Unreliable service with virtually nonexistent tech support.
out of 58 user reviews
Very bad experience
Pros: moving messages is easy
Cons: slow, ugly GUI, pathetic customer service, extremely unstable
The service itself is abysmal. E-mail account which I check on daily basis was deactivated as dormant which it clearly was not. Customer service responses with automated, irrelevant mails. If you manage to get a response from a person, it's clear they haven't read your mail. Yahoo!s message to me was that I will not get my mails back and that they don't know what went wrong.
Terrible and unstable service, uncaring service provider. Avoid.
out of 58 user reviews
Great concept, average execution
Pros: Not Available
Cons: Not Available
out of 58 user reviews
I am chomping at the bit to try it...no invite yet. Boohoo! Are you listening, Yahoo?
Pros: I really like the original yahoo mail but I'm thinking after looking at the beta photos, I will like it even better
Cons: I can't tell in the photos and it's not mentioned but i hope they allow me to use more fonts and add additional stationery. I like the creativity of Incredimail but I don't need that much.
out of 58 user reviews
This is as good as Web mail ever gets
Pros: Familiar, easy to use interface
Cons: None that I am aware of
out of 58 user reviews
Great product, will be even greater soon...
Pros: Interface similar to Outlook, Very fast, Great mail options and management of external pop3 accounts
Cons: It's still in beta mode, and many features which Oddpost had, they still haven't incorporated.
Since it's still in beta, there are some features missing, but I'm sure by the time they are finished testing and upgrading everything, it will be the #1 e-mail provider.
out of 58 user reviews
Too little, too late
Pros: No scanned advertisement
Cons: No free POP3. More storage on Gmail
). Seriously speaking, while I do have a Yahoo acount, I do not use it because of the lack of free POP3. It's good, nonetheless (that's why I gave it a 7), but I find it easier for me to retrieve all my mail using Outlook. I'll keep using Gmail.
Furthermore, If Gmail didn't come out with its massive amount of storage do you really think Yahoo and other would have increased theirs?
out of 58 user reviews
Seems good...
Pros: Finally you can have that easy to use, clear interface in a Web Email client.
Cons: Can't really think of any as yet.
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