Does anyone here use Yahoo Mail?

[jbuck919]

I don't, but I inherited a Yahoo account from the Glens Falls Post Star for Academic Bowl, which is how I communicate with all the coaches and volunteers.

If you have Yahoo Mail, then you know what I'm talking about before I say another word. They've completely changed the normal in-box/sent mail format so that every message is now a complicated combination of e-mail sent and received on what they deem to be the same topic. I've never seen anything like it and it's driving me crazy. It's impossible to describe because it's almost impossible to decipher, but if any of you are having the same problem, please commiserate.

[John F]

Never have, never will. They were the first major outfit to provide free email and many signed up with them for that reason. Then along came Google's Gmail and I believe it's been downhill for Yahoo Mail ever since. Certainly none of the people I correspond with are sending from @yahoo.com.

If you can switch the Academic Bowl's email address from Yahoo Mail to Gmail, and I know that would be laborious, I'm sure you will be better off.

[lennygoran]

It's impossible to describe because it's almost impossible to decipher, but if any of you are having the same problem, please commiserate.

I have an email account with yahoo but rarely use it--compuserve is still my main email account. I also am forced to have a Gmail account for the smartphone and nexus tablet--again I hardly ever use it. I'm in some yahoo forums and recently they switced to something called NEO--it came without warning to customers and was very frustrating in the beginning but now it seems to be okay. Regards, Len

[jbuck919]

Thanks everyone. A Facebook friend has also cautioned me about G-Mail, but we'll see. I can't do anything anyway until the season is over in January without risking breaking the lines of communication which I use several times a week going to more than 30 people during the season. Also, I technically share the mailbox with the person who handles the money side of this (the teams pay registration fees, I get a stipend, etc.), even though she never uses it. I'm not worried about any work involved, because what more could it be than making up the contacts list anew and letting everybody know? I'll let you know what eventually happens.

[John F]

Full disclosure: I use my Internet Service Provider's email (Road Runner on Time Warner Cable). It's quite satisfactory. I do have a Gmail account because it was part of registering for Google Groups - why I did that, I've forgotten - but I've never used it to send email, so I can't say anything useful about its interface and possible limitations. I mentioned it because, as a free email service independent of any particular ISP, it's a competitor for Yahoo and perhaps most suitable for that kind of use.

While I'm writing: I don't use the Web interface for email. I want to download incoming email to my hard drive where I can choose whether to archive it or delete. This is partly an old habit, dating back to before there was a Web, but I think it's better for serious email (business etc.) Windows XP comes with an email client called Outlook Express, a down-to-basics version of Outlook which is part of Microsoft Office. I used it early on, but there were widely discussed problems with security, so I switched to a free alternative. Outlook Express may now be as secure as any free email client, but I don't know that.

What I use instead is a program from Mozilla, the makers of Firefox. It's called Thunderbird, it's free, by consensus there's none better in its class though there may be others equally good. One feature that may or may not be unique is that the Mozilla people have made setup very easy, almost automatic; you don't have to find out and provide the receive and send servers of your email service, a minor pain, because Thunderbird knows the addresses, at least of the most popular ones like Gmail. Tbird is a mature product and I believe they're done fiddling with the user interface, one of the complaints about Gmail's web interface which had a major makeover as recently as July. If you'd like to try it, here's where you can download it:

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/download

One feature I like is that Thunderbird provides its own spam ("junk") filter which you can activate or not as you prefer, separately for each of your email accounts. You can set it to use a service like SpamAssassin to shortstop email from known spammers' addresses. You can also set its adaptive junk filter - you mark incoming emails as junk, and it remembers their addresses and filters out further emails from the same addresses. So if you have a crazy uncle or other nuisance whose emails you no longer want to read, you can tell Thunderbird that they're spammers.

[lennygoran]

I'll let you know what eventually happens.

Had a chance to go to my yahoo email--there were just a few solicitations--they opened up just fine in my computer. Then I sent an email from my CS email to my yahoo mail--worked smoothly--did have a more modern look to it much like the NEO style in that forum I'm in there. Regards, Len

[Mark Harwood]

For peace of mind I have several accounts, including G-Mail and Yahoo. The new Yahoo thing is odd. Either I'll get used to it or move some contacts to another account. Commiserations, yes, but at least it still works.
Never did work out how to use the Facebook e-mail account. Nor, indeed, why.

[living_stradivarius]

Gmail is better.

[Chalkperson]

Gmail is better.

Only if you trust Google with your life...I don't...