Attention, Yahoo
By Mitch Berg
I’ve been using Yahoo Mail for quite some time now. It’s always been reliable, with less futzing around with maintenance than I’d have to do running mail off my ISP.
But you’ve packed so much client-side code into the latest version of your mailer – including the wretched embedded Chat client – that Yahoo Mail is as likely to shut down my browser as it is to actually let me see my mail lately. Especially in Linux, where it slows Firefox down to a miserable limbo; not crashed, but not working. And it never emerges./
I’m not sure what you think you’ve done, but please stop before I have to switch to GMail.
That is all.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Load noScript into Firefox and don’t let Yahoo have permissions to run scripts. You get the old interface and it runs far, far faster even under Windoze.
But I switched to gmail long ago except for trash comment registrations, of course. I liked the POP access they gave away free that Yahoo made you pay for, as well as the space.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Yeah, I found a lot to like about Gmail when I compared the two, but if you don’t know your POP from your IMAP, it may be less of a draw. *shrug*
September 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Good tip, Nerdbert. Will have to do that — I’ve had a Yahoo mail account for a decade now, but that chat thing has been deeply problematic.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Nerd – is NoScripts a plugin? I’ll find it. The biggest problem – the script is a dog in IE8/Windoze (and frequently crashes Fox3.5/Windoze), but it absolutely crashes Fox3.5/Ubuntu every single time on my desktop. Much ungood.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Yeah, it’s a plugin.
I’ve never had Yahoo crash Ubuntu, but then again I usually run with noScript anyway. I’ve not let Yahoo run scripts since the upgrade so I can’t say how it behaves now. I’ll have to try it when I get home.
If you’ve not used it, noScript blocks javascript by default from all the sites except the ones you whitelist. You’ll be surprised how much faster the ‘net is with it on, AND it’s vastly safer since nearly all the browser holes are cross-site scripting attacks these days, AND you see far fewer ads.
It’s a bit of a pain to train it, but once you’ve got it running you won’t go without it.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
http://noscript.net/ is it’s location.
Search for it in “Tools”->”Add-ons” for a quick and easy install.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Just to be clear: it doesn’t crash Ubuntu; it just slows Fox down to a stop.
I’ll have NoScript on both machines tonight.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
The only thing I don’t like about running NoScript are the sites that run scripts that include more scripts that include even more scripts.
Nothing makes you love NoScript more than seeing it block 20+ scripts (all from different domains) from running to view a single page.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Well, I know POP from IMAP – but I’ve been using Yahoo pretty exclusively since a bug messed up my shotinthedark popmail account a while ago. Once they dropped the mailbox size limit (it’s unlimited today), it because too hard to think about leaving.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
In general, Yahoo can’t handle peak capacity. I still have a Yahoo account and occasionally get a busy signal. I had Yahoo set as my homepage, and at least once a week, I got a busy signal as well.
Currently, when I sign into Yahoo I still get the “classic” look, which is exactly what I want. However, there are two or three versions, Yahoo will throw at me.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Yeah, I tried the “new” one this past spring(winter?) and I just couldn’t get it to work at the coffee house computers so I immediately switched back to “classic”, where I’m trying to stay.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Yeah, NoScript makes you realize why the web is such a dangerous place with all the scripts loading scripts that load scripts. There was an interesting article that hit Slashdot over the weekend showing one of those Javascript hacks that hit an ad site and wound up infecting the NYTimes. Of course, with NoScript you wouldn’t have gotten hit with that malware (or ad).
Javascript is a hack, and a bad one at that. All the major browsers still have more holes in that software than anywhere else. So running it makes you a lot safer because some times even the ad sites get compromised and serve up malware. I like Chrome, but I doubt I’ll switch until they get something like NoScript hacked up for it.
I don’t have anything against Yahoo mail. I got mine sometime back in ’97 or so and still have it. It was slightly better than Hotmail — more space, slightly better interface, more reliable — so I got one there, too. I just don’t use it too much anymore after I snagged a very early Gmail invite. Gmail was the game changer in free email accounts, especially for those of us who like to keep their mail on their PCs, too. There was a plugin that allowed you to fake a POP interface over the web for Thunderbird, but that was broken by all of Yahoo’s “upgrades.” But having made the switch Yahoo would have to do something innovative and compelling to make me switch back.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I’ve never even looked to see if you can access Yahoo mail with an IMAP client. I know you can with Gmail (I set gmail as 3rd level backup in DNS for my domains to my own mail server, in case I lose my broadband connection). I also forward everything from my mail server to my gmail accounts for redundancy. I can keep IMAP off on the public side of my mail sever, and use the gmail business domain I setup to let devices connect there (like my phone).
If you can connect to Yahoo mail via IMAP, you can run IMAPCopy to move folders and messages to a new IMAP server (like gmail).
September 18th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Hey Mitch, is your email working yet? I sent you one last night.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:18 am
It is, and I just sent a (belated) responise.