Not just for POP3...
I've had problems with googlemail bouncing messages too over the early part of this week. I use the web interface, which assures me that I am ".. currently using 63 MB (2%) of [my] 2880 MB".
Is arrogance a job requirement when trying to join Google? This story starts with me being furious. "I was bloody furious when my email provider suddenly, and without warning, started bouncing incoming messages." You would be, wouldn't you? Call me fussy, but I've been told this is the sort of thing which can give a small, …
I raised this issue recently with a Google engineer. How long before someone takes issue with the "beta" label of one of the Google services in the courts? It's currently a get out of jail free card for anything on offer but at some point some numpty is going to rely on one of these services on something for their business: you shouldn't be doing anything related to your business on anything without a service level. You know this and yet you still do it.
And you don't clean it up? Or delete it? Or download and archive stuff you want to keep and remove the originals from the server? Or do any of the other numerous things that count as elementary data archiving/information and contact management/call it what you will?
Hmmmm...methinks that, in this case, we're dealing with a slight case of PEBKAC.
It would serve you right if they suffered a major server outage and you lost the lot. Or if they started charging you extra for all the wasted disk space.
You silly twisted boy you.
When did Guy Kewney change his name to Phil Space?
1. User has problem, can't figure out why.
2. User rings up Google, they tell him.
3. User writes page-filling article and probably gets paid by the word.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Google. I don't use Gmail. I think Google do plenty of evil, actually. But this is just user-whining.
1/
"[...description of fruiteful complaint / resolution scenario...]
That's what you'd get with most IT companies."
Is it??? Not in my experience!!! You must have been very very lucky in the past. I EXPECT IT companies (and esp. telecoms companies) to be expensive, unhelpful, unreliable, useless, and lots of other words starting in "un"...
2/
I gave up using other people's email systems a LONG time ago. I have never found one yet that actually works reliably over an extended period of time. As for "free" email - well, you get what you pay for. If you want reliable email, run your own server. It's the only way forward
3/
If you are using POP to download your email, why don't you set it up to automatically delete the email from the server? That's normal POP usage procedure. Or doesn't Google let you do this?
Come on... you're getting a free service for nothing. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Google is first and foremost a business. As a business with limited resources, they have to prioritise what they do next, they can't do everything at once. Even if they automatically *DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT* when you reach the limit, it'll still have pretty much no impact on their bottom line, because the proportion of people getting there is so small.
So I would say you should be thankful they even took note of the issue (if they did).
Remember: Google don't owe you a damn thing - not even to give you the time of day. You're using a free service, that works astonishingly well and is more reliable than many paying ISP's for almost 100% of the time. Stop b*tching!!
So, you were recommending that people switch to a beta product, and are surprised that said beta product has minor issues that wouldn't be tolerated in a production release.
How, precisely, is this Google's fault?
Then, rather than follow Google's standard method of reporting a feature request online, you chose to phone Google and are surprised that they don't take feature requests over the phone. Hrm.
1) it's free
2) Google makes money by displaying ads to users
3) you don't see those ads with POP
So how does our intrepid "reporter" figure that Google is at all incented to solve this? They've already made it easy to archive/delete when you're using POP.
I swear, sometimes the editors here are as thick as the authors.
Who gives a t*ss? Do you really think that with the millions of users that Gmail has they are really going to listen to one bleeding heart story about your own user stupidity? You know how much space you have, you know how to check to see how much you are using and it's a free service that is still in Beta. What they do is collate the issues that users are having and then work on the most serious problems first. Your tiny and unimportant lack of user ability is not likely to make that list and no amount of bleating to the masses via the vanity site that is El Reg is going to change that.
Leave them alone and let them get on with something more important.
"f you are using POP to download your email, why don't you set it up to automatically delete the email from the server?"
In short: no. You have to tweak a setting in gmail itself to get that to work because, by default, it keeps e-mails even if you've told your pop3 client to delete them.
A see more than a few posts basically amounting to "They give it to you for free, why are you complaining?" Just because a servie is provided for free doesn't absolve the provider of providing a decent service. Users have certain statutory rights no matter what the price of a service they're using (free or not) which means that they can expect a reasonable level of service whether or not they paid for it. Of course this problem isn't unique to google, but that doesn't absolve them either; the excuse that "everyone else is doing it too" doesn't cut it.
You know, when you set up your POP3 account in Outlook and I dare say in Thunderbird too (don't use it, don't know) that allows you to delete the server copy of your mail when you download it to the client.
That would sort the issue, surely. Plus it avoids Google sending out emails about your remaining space and the need to look at the web interface to check remaining space because, unless you receive a limit-busting email in one hit, it would remain constant from one attempt to check mail to another.
I think this gmail stuff was just an intro to bitch about NewsWireless not getting googled. I think he filed a whole story on that one as well.
I agree with the previous poster. If Email is seriously important to you shell out the less than $100 a year for your own (shared) server.
Google sucks however. It's just that articles like these detract from the real issues surrounding what will become Monopoly 2.0
So you have hit on one of the reasons ISPs don't like pop3. People get mail into their account and leave it on the server even when they don't want to keep an copy. Causing filled mail boxes.
As it is clear that google does offer a system of notification for full boxes, and having worked an a team running a large (50k+ active users) mail systems quota notification systems are a pain both technically and administratively.
The better solution than a pop3 desktop client for such an inherently web based services is one of the many nice Firefox plugins to help you keep on top of your gmail.
Maybe just be easier to buy/hire an account on a server which offers IMAP? easy syncronisation between multiple client devices locations
use a real client instead of an interface shoe horned into the browser, maybe take advantage of the "miraculous" work offline capabilities offered by any email client ever??
back on dial up when you would only connect online to send and receive...
i strongly believe in using the right tool for the job, which is why i have never come across a satisfactory webmail client and don't believe i ever will. At best a webmail interface should only ever be a backup interface, never the primary.
- You sign up to a crappy webmail account with the Evil Empire.
- You obviously have an ISP, and I presume that ISP gave you one if not more proper POP3 email accounts.
- You then use the aforementioned crappy account, and then get paid for writing how crappy it is.
Your moaning is like me moaning about the fact that my employer doesn't provide me with champagne and chorus girls. Only I'm not moaning.
After all, if you use POP3, you never see the adverts. Unlike Yahoo and Hotmail who charge a small fee for POP3, Google don't make any money from it, and they have to hope they one day you will start using the web mail, maybe from work, or while on holiday, and so you'll see their adverts. Yahoo even offer a free POP3 service to UK customers, on the understanding they may receive the odd advertisement though email.
So if you have to log in once in a while to check your quota, Google wins.
There are very few companies left which provide customer service. Some do, but they are few and far between.
To be fair, complaining about the service you received is a bit harsh - yes the arrogant waste of space on the phone shouldn't have a job dealing with people - but take it from her point of veiw, how many idiots does she have phoning her for complete crap.
GoogleMail isn't free, google make revenue from it by the virtue that you use a tool they advertise on. Without us Google would make no revenue because people wouldn't advertise on an empty site. So, Google should try and keep customers a little more sweeter than they did.
But, again, for no monetry cost for you, you should just get on and say "Meh!" If enough people want the service they will complain and it may happen - so 'complaining' is good. Bitching like this about it is a waste of your health.
It could be worse, you could be with Plus.net. Then you'd have had your email addresses distributed to all and sundry while they claim they can't do anything, and it's not their fault because despite Plusnet being insecure, the taking of the email addresses was a criminal act.
Detractors of this article, is the writer not really annoyed because they are ignoring him, not because they will not implement a fix?
If I told google about this problem, it would be fine if they told me they weren't going to fix it, even if "cba" was the reason. But saying "I'll pass it on to the team" whilst obviously meaning "I don't give a crap" would make me annoyed too.
Why not just tell your users how it is instead of "appeasing" them?
Those of you that suggest Gmail is "Free" must place no value on their personal search history; care less; or havn't grasped the idea, that, Nothing in life is "Free"!
It IS a bug, as I use the customised "iGoogle" web page - it doesn't display the mail box availability there either.
Google have scored an own-goal, me thinks.
<<This story starts with me being furious. "I was bloody furious when my email provider suddenly, and without warning, started bouncing incoming messages." You would be, wouldn't you?>>
When I read that, I thought it was going to be for some jaw-droppingly awful reason. But it turns out that you're just an idiot.
Gmail provide POP3 primarily as a courtesy for people who want their own backup. And you've paid sod-all for it (especially since you're not getting any of their ads over POP).
Get over it or get an exchange server (I know which I'd rather do).
Fair enough point you're making in the article, but do all other POP3 providing email services send you a warning when you're reaching the server-side storage limit? It's not clear whether you're complaining about Google not providing a service which is accepted as standard, or whether you're complaining that Google isn't providing an extra service which you want them to but they could not have justifiably thought of in advance.
I suspect it's the latter.
By the way, I've pointed this out before, as have many others: Stop assuming you should get better customer support just because you're a journalist. It's petty, selfish and won't do you any favours in the long run.
On the one side, yes, you should be clearing your mailbox before it gets to 2 gig.
Then again tt sounds like it bounces at a much lower limit
The real story is the second case - the 'blog' issue.
At some point Google's services become a production service depended on by millions of people. When you're not informed that your site has been rejected, or why it has been rejected this has real implications - both for the site owner, and the Internet users who are worse off due to not being able to find the article (assuming it's good).
Google isn't exactly being transparent about sticking to its 'don't be evil' tagline.
Just because the site is free it doesn't mean that Google are doing this for the greater good. There's a business model making money out of us users either via advertising or a subscription to Apps Premier. I would contend that users are entitled to expect a certain level of service in return and it's in Google's interest to keep us all coming back for more. If someone has a bright idea why shouldn't it be acknowledged???
From prior experience, Google are terrible at taking constructive criticism on the chin and saying which things are good ideas that will go on the roadmap (like this), which are nice to have and which are rubbish. I'm not sure if it's an emotional reaction by people so addicted to the Kool Aid that they cannot conceive of anything being wrong, arrogance or incompetence.
If a journalist can find a back door and someone that'll listen - bloody marvelous.
Let me get this straight... you call the press office reporting a bug, and then you are upset that they don't immediately get a GMail developer on the phone to tell you that it is going to be fixed?
Let's go over the multiple problems here:
1) The service is free.
2) I was not aware that the press office was the normal place bugs are reported to.
3) It's primarily a webmail service you know... I think they expect you to actually logon to your account on the web now and then.
4) This is not a bug, it is a missing feature. There is nothing to "fix".
5) I did not know that members of the press were so far above us mere mortals that they can justifiably demand that the development staff call them back on the telephone to be assured that requested features will be added to free products post-haste.
6) There is a "suggest a feature" link in the Help section, you know.
7) Has it been mentioned that the service is free?
those suggesting to setup POP3 to delete mail from the server are kind of missing the point of gmail.
anyone getting a significant volume of email will have long since given up manually reading, deleting, and filing mail and will instead rely on a good search facility.
ok, so Guy threw a bit of strop but in his defence Google do advertise "Lots of space
Over 2881.077733 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message."
A less reasonable person than myself might interpret that last bit as a promise or contract.
But who wants this crap? Gmail is *crap.* I run my own IMAP server. It has RAID, it gets backed up once a day. I store my messages in mySQL. I've got like 14,000 of them, going back to '97. The thing has paid for itself, and I *know* where my data is.
And it's not on google. Ever.
This article is one of many recently posted that appears to be directed at a different group then what The Register was known for. The Apple laptop problem, the iPhone rants, etc. Instead of news for IT Professionals, we are getting stories of end users, apparently for end users.
Do you expect sympathy because the Senior Developer was too busy developing to answer your feature request? If they handled every feature request that way, when would they actually write the code? Are you any different from the "reporter" who bought a consumer level service agreement and didn't receive business level support?
Or are we no longer the target readership of El Reg? Has someone decided you'd make more money targeting End Users? If this is typical of your articles, is it any surprise they are classified as "Blogs"?
"I was stupid enough to trust my business mail to a service that I was well aware was free, and in beta. However, because I've been with the service a long time, I somehow feel that they should take my abuse and fix my problem immediately.
I don't understand that like most technical problems, mine was caused by user error. I am now trying to tap into anti-megacorporation feeling, and make myself feel better, by publicly bemoaning the terrible treatment I've received."
I think this article would've been better if they'd got Guy Koma in. :)
Think the comment about ISP's not liking POP3 is untrue, its IMAP we ISP mail admins hate, leaving all users mail on our servers, least with POP3 (if setup as per most ISP instructions) takes the mail off the servers and leave a nice clean mailbox, maybe a little white space but thats allowed.
The other point is that Gmail has been in beta since the dawn of time, how long does it actually take some thing to go from beta to release, i agree that its prolly so if something did die they can say 'its only a beta' but if its only a beta shouldn't the ads that make all that money for google be switched off?
Google at the end of the day like most of us like to have there cake and eat it.
1 Gb of space for a free non-evil mail service was an amazing offer when it was made. I'm sure google relies on most people not filling it, but they allow you to if you want to. Good on them.
pop3 wasn't available when google launched. Then enough people whined so that they added it. Good on them.
One user found that he wasn't sent a free courtesy warning email when he took advantage of the pop3 service. So he called the helpline, at google's expense (remember - they are making a tiny margin on each user. This user support costs money. If every user called it google would go bust). The user points out that he is a journalist. The free user support operative explains that is not her problem.
What else would the author like? A courtesy phone call and a short course on email management for every user who hits their email limit? And as other commenters point out - it's great to see that Google displays it's non-evil credentials by not pandering to technically incompetent journalists, even if it results in bad publicity.
'It said: "Your site isn't listed, because we don't list blogs."
NewsWireless isn't a blog. Occasionally, the site prints blog entries, but it's a news site with a couple of dozen regular contributors. I pointed this out, and sent them a list of contributors - and, finally, the paperwork went through. But if I had just accepted the first (and second and third) patronising assurance that "your suggestion will be considered!" I'd still be a blog.'
1) Yes your site is a blog. The second link down states quite clearly that it is a blog. They want to deal with journalists. That's not people who write blogs, it's people who work for news services.
2) You even say "I'd be a blog". That's the point, it's your site. It's not a site run by an organisation that reports news, it's your own vanity site where you have appointed yourself editor in chief.
3) Frankly I am a little surprised that El Reg is getting so desperate for content that a blogger can hijack a page with a badly written and badly thought out rant. Next time I have a silly little bugbear I shall make sure I get it published on El Reg and bore the IT world with it rather than making my girlfriend listen to my puerile witterings.
Jesus Christ, If I wanted to hear whining like this I would listen to some of my colleagues.
"I'm just the little guy. Who is going to stick up for me?"
Wah wah wah.
If you are not too busy feeling sorry for yourself take a look online for a few details about google. They have 12k+ employees and they are a multi billion dollar corp. When companies get to that size you no longer get to have the luxury of dealing with people who use common sense. There are procedures to follow, escalation processes and the kind of brief training curriculum that results in the "I can't do that sir... the computer says no " kind of service.
This rant was about a sharp as a rubber ball and tantrums make for poor reading. Go log in to this free, beta service and clear a few things out.
j
Some posters have said what's the problem with just logging in and deleting mails via the web interface.
Well Gmail doesn't allow sorting by mail message size / attachment size. It doesn't even show this information. So it is impossible to make a quick and efficient clear out of the biggest files that are clogging up your account. Those 10mb powerpoint presentations for example.
The NGO I work for moved over to Google Aps a year ago, and several users just hit the 2gig limit - via Pop3 and also didn't get a warning.
It sucks. But it's worse that they make it so difficult to have a clear out.
DC
"Here's what is supposed to happen:-
1. I ring up the Google press office"
So your first thought, when finding a potential glitch in a system is to phone "the press office" and the best outcome is writing a report on the issue ... "there was a problem with the email system but I resolved it".
Here's what's really supposed to happen.
1. I went to the web interface, noticed I was at my limit and deleted some old mail.
The chances of google taking an interest in developing a change for the miniscule number of users who access *only* via POP *and* can't be bothered to manage their storage would be tiny.