All the functionality in the world coupled with the smoothest user-interface this side of Saturn cannot erase the allegation that Google was started with CIA monies. I do not trust them, and will not be using them for business, pleasure, or even spam email. If I could give them negative ratings on account of this glaring flaw, I would.

I think I'm your basic "no frills" consumer of on-line services and Gmail appears to fill the bill nicely but so did Hotmail, MSN, and a number of other services I've tried out. In fact they do for me about the same thing, send/receive/reply/forward/attach, as the various Outlook, and ancient WANG and Unisys email prooducts I've used since the stone-age of the 1980's.

I think our need to communicate is FAR out powered in relation to our ability to communicate.

Best out there so long as you link up with Outlook...no idea how to use to service on their website...just way to confusing but it is a free link up to Outlook so I can't complain. Long live Google!

It's the best free email provider out there and there user interface for it is great. What I really like about their user interface is that you can customise it to suit your tastes and you can add plugins to extend it's functionality. I switched most of my emails over to being through Gmail despite having an email address for my domain as Gmail is better - simple as that. I also like the power of the filtering though it could be improved by letting people use regular expressions - for those who know how to write RegExp it would make the filters even more powerful than they already are.

As mentioned in previous reviews, Gmail has a really great spam filter which makes it very rare that spam makes it into my inbox. On a couple of occasions I have had genuine emails from people I've received emails from before go into my spam folder, but it's been a very rare event.

It's use of JavaScript is really quite good, but I suppose it should be considering the amazing team of developers at Google's disposal. What I like about their use of it is how they detect slow loading times and will then offer an alternative access method with cut down features to give you faster access. In recent times even their heavy use of XmlHttpRequest has been lightened so that it doesn't kill your browser.

If you couple Gmail with Google Gears or setup your phone to synchronise mail with Google's IMAP sever then it becomes so powerful and you have old emails from anywhere you want without any hassle. Of course you could use Mail.App instead of Gears when you're on a laptop / desktop, but it doesn't feel the same as using Gmail's site.

Now onto the minor niggles that I have with Gmail. The biggest problem of Gmail is not actually the fault of Gmail itself and that is when Gmail goes down like it did today as it means you have no way of accessing your precious emails. Of course though this could happen with any service provider so I can't really fault them for that - just it does affect more people than outages from most email providers. Maybe it's just me being anxious.

Hmmmm... I use google gmail because have big capacity so i did not need to erase my old message everyday, and google also support my language and if you have slow internet connetcion you can use in HTML mode so it will become more faster beside that with gmail account we can log in in GTalk to make a friend.

I can recommended to you all this email providers, easy to use and also have friendly interface. For other features it same with another email provider. The Big Capacity Of Your Email Inbox ? Get it only with Gmail...

Avast ye seven seas of gmail.

If you want a free email account, gmail is the way to go. The spam filter blows everyone else out of the water, the storage space is tremendous, and the site is reliable.

Gmail is very good. Google is the new empire, get on board and take the ride. Microsoft is out of date and probably will stay that way. At least PC users have Google to make their lives easier, let's hope they keep their programming fresh.

I can't figure out why anyone uses anything but gmail anymore in terms of free accounts. The spam filters are fantastic, the ads are inobtrusive, the storage limit is high and increases by the minute, the limit on message size is extremely high in relation to other services, and the have IMAP support so you can synchronize your account even when checking your mail from multiple locations. Google FTW (as per usual). Everyone else is just playing catch-up.

GMail is ok to use, but I've never been too impressed with their system. I've been using yahoo all this time and have been completely happy with their system.

I have been a Gmail account user for quite some time, great storage, wonderful SPAM filters, great free blogs, the best search engine ever, great chat feature, Firefox browser and many add ons, very many additional sites, great email alets, wonderful news alerts from the chosen countries, fantastic help sites and human help over the chat feature and finally great permanent tech support. Shortly we will also have a Q&A site in English nicely reviewd and efficent which we users will certainly enjoy. Google is simply great.

While they are probably the best out there right now, they lose a star for being a little late to the game. Why should Hotmail or Yahoo users switch to Gmail when they already have perfectly functional free email accounts? I'll give credit to Gmail for the high storage space, which prompted both Hotmail and Yahoo to increase their storage capacity as well. I do have a Gmail account, and while it is a good provider, it doesn't have enough to make the hassle of switching my primary account worthwhile.

Gmail is my first choice among many free providers I used or use now. It gives huge space for storage, Web based and POP3 interface, excellent filters, and never down. What else we need?

Great free Web-based email service

Great service.. fast, reliable, with a fantastic anti-spam system, just the best webmail.

it's amazing

very easy to use.   very informative. great site.

highly recommended.


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Gmail is one of the best email providers out there. There tech support is prompt and very polite. The ability to use google talk(googles instant messenger) on the mails home page, searching through the chat history are just two of the many servises provided by GMAIL. thumbs up to dem :)

Absolutely the best web mail service out there

Gmail is pure-and-simple awesome: you receive an excessive amount of storage space so that you do not need to delete a single email; the filters have not allowed a single piece of junk mail into my account; the web interface is excellent programmed and intuitive; and, you can use Mozilla Thunderbird (or another mail client) to send and receive all your mail. No hassles, no problems, no regrets.

Talk about easy to use and hassle-free...GMAIL is the bomb!

gmail offer more free space for their users. saya tak perlu repot - repot lagi menghapus e-mail di INBOX saya.

Overrated - the special features don't hurt the product, but they're not anything spectacular either. For example, people think its so cool that it groups emails into "conversations." Big deal. With other email services, all I have to do is look at the last email from a person and the prior related emails are copied below.

And the big problem with Gmail that people don't mention much is the all-too-common shutdowns of the service. At least once a week I get the "oops...try again in a few minutes" message. Not the end of the world, but pretty problematic when you consider the insanely positive comments about this pretty average service.

Its up to the mark.

fantastic! absolutely great!

especially since the tell time when an email was sent to me.

the best email service i have ever used, great features, speed, realibility and space =)

great spam filtering and convenient conversation threads (although they can sometimes become confusing). Complete forwarding and POP support are +'s...good stuff.

It's pretty good, but I have occassional problems running it with Safari. I don't find it to be as intuitive or enjoyable to work with as Yahoo Mail. Still, I like the feature of email threads.

Gmail > hotmail

hi how r u dear

...and they support the Democratic Party! :)

Gmail is THE best. It runs so smoothly and nicely your wondering how something liek this was never thought of before. Of course the throwing it in your trash then going to and deleting it thing is kinda annoying, but the starred option compensates for it. All in all, it is a very nice e-mail service, and if you use MSN just for the Messenger, simply create a pasport with your service.

Most of the time I like GMAIL. But for some reason some companies where I send emails from gmail look at gmail account as SPAM and don't let it go through. Also the downside with GMAIL is they have 15 MB attachment limit that you can send. And recently I noticed that I can't log in to GMAIL account or can't open the gmail page at all. They often have their service down. I use it but not as my primary service and I wouldn't recommend to have it as a primary email service just yet because it's still in a testing mode where you can expect unstable service which I personally can't afford.

Love it!

FYI, gmail has indeed doubled their space from 1gb to 2gb. 1GB is more than enough for most of us, so would they give us even more? They felt like being generous on their 1 yr anniversary of their beta testing phase.

Gmail is awesome. Period. I also have Hotmail, Yahoo, Mail.com, my Earthlink address, and various email addresses from my websites, but they are all secondary. Not only are the ads context-based (meaning revelent to what you're looking at), but they aren't the flashing annoying things that hurt your eyes. Gmail is still in beta testing, so new features are appearing all the time. Recently, I noticed that, for whatever reason, my inbox space jumped from 1000 to 2054 megs. They also just added rich-text formatting. All in all, Gmail is great and getting better. NOTE: If you need an invite (you can't just go to the Gmail page and get an account), go to isnoop.net and visit the invite spooler. Then donate your invites back to him; you get more.

Nice. Not that I need all the space, but it's nice to have; I do like how it lumps emails from the same person together chronologically to form a coversation. May be slightly less intuitive to use than other programs, but not difficult in the slightest.

I think with the most storage space of all the free email providers, Gmail could easily put Yahoo and Hotmail down the drain. Now I don't have a Gmail account myself (though I do plan to get one soon) so I don't know if there are any other great features in terms of attachments, etc. but I guess if you're the type of person who HATES to delete any kind of mail, Google Gmail is for you.

I love GMail.I've stopped using my 4 Hotmail accounts.

I appreciate Google email service. I like most of their email features except the fact that there aren't any new and different fonts, smileys, colors for fonts, etc. Those things are important to me. But I do like the starred emails and the search for emails instead of archiving and using folders. I do like that feature the most since I use up every available inch of space given to me.

A great email service that's free from Google. This is my 2nd favorite next to the Yahoo Mail.

What was once considered a secret and novelty is now the ultimate free email service provider and most people I know have at least one account. Despite its current popularity I think that keeping it invite-only will make it slightly more difficult to abuse this service, and with 1 GB of storage space why would you ever need more than 1 account? There is no Delete option, which I kind of wish they had, but I do block spam with a filter and it's done a good job thus far.

Great eMail service, I love the interface, and with 1Gig of space you'll never have to delete your emails, and they took that into consideration with their Archive feature. Also I have 12 gmail invites if anyone wants one email me at idarkmatter@yahoo.com

I would highly reccomend everyone atleast try Gmail, once it is out of Beta and open to all. I've tried them all and this is by far the best free web based email available, period. The thing I find so unusual is how open Google is to allowing such open access and use of their services without having to be an active member. I can auto forward to any other account and can also easily configure to send all my messages to outlook without even having to log on to their sit and 1 G storage to boot ? How can anyone else compete. I now see others are trying to keep up with offering free calendars and such...good luck !

1gb of storage plus its from Google which is a great company, get it out of beta already!

Great customer support! I love the way you search, not sort and the ability the archive things.

I'm excited about getting a Gmail account, hopefully it will be released to the public soon. I've become so addicted to the simplicity and accountability of Google that I made it my home page, I couldn't go a day without it, hopefully Gmail will live up to that status.

**Update** OK, I've managed to get my hands on a Gmail account, and I have to say it is really slick. Google search integrated seamlessly in the interface. And you'll need Google search, because with a Gig of storage space, there's no need to delete emails. Cool email tagging and labeling functionality. Everything is nicely laid out, with a neat snippet feature that shows just the beginning of a message. BUT - it's annoying that Gmail is not accessible via Safari or Opera. I mean, come on guys, you're supposed to be techies, right? Opera and Safari are two pretty big time browsers... let's get on with it! ** Original comment: Goodness - not sure if people understand how much space 1000 MB is. It's so much that most people could go years without deleting email. The whole contextual based ads thing is interesting as well - so you're emailing your friend about wanting to go to New Orleans for Jazzfest, and ads advertising the lowest fares and New Orleans Hotels are appearing in the margin? Pretty incredible. And a little scary. Gmail gets four and not five stars as, at this point, all it is is a press release.

There's another great review here: http://www.bladam.com/archives/0404141832.htm I've reverted over to gmail for my main email service. It is very fast, looks great, and the ads are not bothersome at all. They are actually quite helpful and canny in there ability to predict the types of products/services/information you might be interested in. I'm not sure what the previous reviewer meant by email suffixes, but if my gmail address was scott@gmail.com, I would automatically have an unlimited number of aliases. scott+banking@gmail.com could link to my bank account, scott+ebay@gmail.com could link to ebay. I'd be able to filter the email and assign them the appropriate label. If I starting getting spam to my +ebay@gmail.com account, I would know where to go to complain. Scott http://www.klettke.org Cartoons: http://www.excel.net/~rklettke

Good review at slate... http://slate.msn.com/id/2098946/ What I love is the keyboard speedups. I can read most of my mail and search for things without using the mouse, in fact my fingers rarely leave the home row. Dealing with hundreds of emails in Gmail is faster than Outlook or even Outlook Express. Privacy is great! Now that I've been using gmail a while, I note that it implements my #1 privacy feature! Spammers and investigators like to send html mail with embedded unique graphic urls so they can track your IP number and cookie you and associate your browser with your email address if you even look at the message. Gmail opens the message-- without opening the tracking images. It has a link that says External images are not displayed. _Display_External_Images_ So the spammers or investigators don't get to verify you recieved and read the email unless you choose to click an extra link. This is a privacy feature I have wanted desperately for years. I set my Outlook Express to only read plaintext mail for that reason, but I really do want to read the HTML version-- minus tracking images. Now if they would also implement email suffixes, I'd be totally happy.