I'm with Google on this one...

Their use of the From: and Sender: headers is as originally envisaged in RFC-822. If Microsoft choose to screw that all up by displaying 'on behalf of' then it's hardly Google's fault.

Love it!

And thats all I have to say.

Great, more spam

Since Google never deal with spammers using Gmail, I assume this is their getout clause for doing nothing because "it never came from us".

Effective incoming anti-spam system but they point blank refuse to block their own customers spamming the rest of the world.

Brilliant

That is really helpful.

For those that use a googlemail account to aggregate other account also hosted by google (apps for your domain) - i.e. your domain mail is hosted by google and forwarded onto another google account, then set the mail servers to smtp.gmail.com - just tried it, works a treat.

still rubbish

Sending email from my google apps where i have several domains linked still shows the "on behalf of" message and displays my default google apps email and then the one who i told it to send it from.

At last

Been waiting for this for ages, the 'on behalf-of' nonsense was very annoying.

All I need now is for the Android native Gmail client to have a 'send as' option, and I can put all my email eggs into Google's basket now and forever more. Yay!

Not Google's problem

Surely this is an issue with the way certain clients (e.g. Outlook) handle Sender: headers. If people are that annoyed by it, shouldn't they be pestering Microsoft to change Outlook?

@Great, More Spam

How will this be more spam? If spammers have access to an open (or their own) SMTP server, then whether or not they use Gmail to write the email before it gets sent is entirely irrelevant. You clearly don't understand what they've done.

@still rubbish

Did you actually bother to read Google's docco on it (linked off the article) and make the settings change required to make this work? I'm guessing not.

@Poor article from the first sentence

Yes, you've really misunderstood it. The first sentence is entirely accurate, and practically quotes the google blog explanation.

This won't help "Sky broadband users who don't have an SMTP server they can use which doesn't add GMail stuff on" because it Google forward the mail through a 3rd party SMTP server authorative for the domain name if you enable this option. So if you don't have that SMTP server available, guess what? You can't use this feature.

"So really what they've said is that they'll allow anyone with a GMail account to use GMail SMTP servers without GMail getting in the way." - What in the name of fuck is that supposed to mean? Without "getting in the way"? Is that now a technical term?

Read it again.

@Still Rubbish

You need to go into your account setup in GMail and set up the "send mail" server for that email account.

If you don't do that then gmail doesn't know where to send the email!

simples!

I'm with Carl W on this one

Google are removing a valuable audit trail not because they want to, but because Microsoft have (once again) buggered up the user experience.

Why did MS bugger up the user experience?

I seem to remember that it was to stop scammers and spammers spoofing other people's addresses. And now they're just encouraging people to hide the originating address. Spoof, in other words.

>sigh<

On behalf of and stuff

The Outlook "on behalf of" stuff is about right, even if you don't like it. If you're signed in as one person and sending mail on behalf of someone else then the resulting RFC2822 message has the authenticated user (you) as the Sender: and the person you're sending on behalf of as the From:

Since the From: field can be a list of addresses, the value of the Sender becomes even more useful. If I recall correctly, sendmail (among others) will ensure that the Sender: header field and the MAIL FROM address in the SMTP envelope are actually the same.

I really like this new thing from google though. Now I get to send mail through my own server via a TLS connection. The only thing I'm not so keen on is storing the password in the gmail server, but I think I can live with that (others may not be so keen).

Hats of to the boys and girls in the chocolate factory for this.

@James Dunmore

Yes I have my mail set up that way and just tried your suggestion. It works perfectly, thanks!

still rubbish

I did read the article linked. Let me explained the scenario.

I have a google apps account set up to www.domain1.com

I have set up another alias domain called www.domain2.net

I have set up so i can send an email from myname@domain2.net

It shows up in outlook when I wend an email as myname@domain1.com on behalf of My Name myname@domain2.net

If I go to the accounts page and click 'edit info' I get the options to "Send through Myname Mail (easier to set up)" or "Send through domain2.net SMTP servers (recommended for professional domains – Learn more)"

Of course there are no SMTP servers for domain2.net because its set up through google apps.

If I type smtp.gmail.com as the server and put in my google apps username and password it gives the error "Authentication failed. Please check your username/password.

[Server response: 535-5.7.1 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at 535 5.7.1 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=14257 s10sm21955801muh.47 code(535) ]

Not easy is it.

Eh??

Can someone explain to me why anyone would get an GMail account (are they still invite only?), and then use another mail service to send emails *through* the Gmail one...???

I'm completely missing the point of this?!

@Eh??

This is why: I have two accounts - me@gmail.com and me@somedomain.com. I want to consolidate all email into the gmail account for several reasons:

1. Gmail acts as a searchable archive

2. Gmail's webmail client is better than most

3. I want all my email in one place

4. All my sent emails get archived in gmail too

5. I don't want to pay hosting fees for a custom POP/IMAP server

So what I do is set all me@somedomain.com email to forward to me@gmail.com. I can then set up my gmail account so that when I reply to mails originating from somedomain.com, the get sent to look as if I'm emailing through that domain, not gmail. Which can look a bit more professional (and, ironically, means I don't have to give my gmail account details to all my friends, in case I ever want to move away from gmail).

However, for (sensible) anti-spam reasons, gmail guys didn't want to just send mail 'spoofed' as if it was sent from somedomain.com, as that would be a spammer's delight (imagine, I could send mail as billg@microsoft.com - how would gmail know whether I should be able to send with that address or not?).

So now, they're basically saying "if you have access to the smtp servers for somedomain.com, we'll use those to send the email instead".

@@Eh??

Ah right, gotcha. Cheers :-)

about time!

I've had more than one job interviewer be very confused by the "on behalf of" thing, and potentially put off any interviews with me, because my GMail username is an unintelligible mess of letters that looks a little rude.

I understand that Google's been doing the right thing, and that it's Microsoft's implementation that's wrong, but the fact of the matter is that practically all corporations use Outlook.

This makes me love GMail even more than I already do, which is a fair amount.

unfunk

Surely..

Surely this is most useful for people who want to send email via their own domains but using Gmail UI and not fall foul of anti spam measures which often include SPF and PTR record lookups on the sending mail server and the domain that the mail is allegedly from.

So if i send an email from billg@microsoft.com using say smtp.googlemail.com there is no proof as to who I really am , so this is likely deleted by a spam filter.

But if I do it from a mailserver that reverse resolves to smtp.microsoft.com and is named in the SPF records as a valid sender for microsoft.com then of course I am less likely a spammer (assuming of course that smtp.microsoft.com has some authetification mechansiam setup which they'd be daft not to have...)

So this along with incoming mail forwarding will provide a much simpler way for an IT guy to set their mobile workers up with a reliable and familiar email system whilst "on the road".

It amazes me sometimes

How people still manage to moan and groan about free services.

Come on people, get real!