Yahoo To Update Mail Service

tonyq writes "Yahoo! is beginning beta testing of a completely reworked UI for Yahoo! Mail that incorporates DHTML technologies. The web-based application resembles a desktop e-mail client. Features include message preview; drag-and-drop filing; the capability of quickly searching e-mail headers, body text and attachments; and the ability to view multiple e-mails at the same time in separate windows and scroll through all message headers in a folder rather than one page at a time. Other niceties are auto-complete, right-click menus and standard keyboard shortcuts. A user who got an early look has graciously posted screenshots. Yahoo is also taking signups on their what's new for Mail page."

Re:yahoo's answer to gmail.

[winkydink]

Yahoo doesn't need an answer to Gmail. They have an order of magnitude more users (63.3 mln vs 5.4 mln).

Beta-test is US only

[RonnyJ]

Yahoo is also taking signups on their what's new for Mail page.

Unfortunately for a great number of people (including me) who don't live in America, the page states 'The beta version is only available to Yahoo! Mail users in the U.S.'.

Re:Argh.

[tonyquan]

yes, the new interface is optional and you can switch back and forth between old and new.

The new interface is optional

[brianerst]

According to this [com.com] article, the new interface is optional. You can actually switch between the two interfaces.

Zimbra's offering is very similar to Yahoo's

[Anonymous Coward]

This new company called Zimbra launched a few days ago a web-based email application that looks very similar to Yahoo's new mail service.

I guess it sucks to be them (Zimbra) now. They thought they created a very innovative email app.

Some screenshots:
http://www.zimbra.com/screenshots/ [zimbra.com]

Re:yahoo's answer to gmail.

[winkydink]

Well, once you get one, you can invite yourself a whole bunch of times and set up 10 or 12 there too.

The numbers represent the number of unique visitors to the email portion of the site each month. RTFA.

Coral link

[fejikso]

The server is beginning to be sluggish...

Try the snappy Coral link:
http://patcavit.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/09/14/y-mai l-beta-impressions/ [nyud.net]

Wow. Tabs for multiple message windows!

[WoTG]

It's too bad that I've been phasing out my Yahoo email account. Anyone know of an opensource webmail package that is even close to this interface? Squirrelmail is looking a little shabby in comparison.

PS. Screenshots are /.'ed. Try mirrordot or coral cache [nyud.net]

Re:It looks impressive

[Elwood P Dowd]

I lost you some where between "web-based mail" and "installed"

He installed it on his web host, smart guy.

Re:Still no encryption?

[temojen]

If you want worthwhile encryption on your email, use a host based email client that supports GPG. If your email is open to the world as it flies between servers and sits in their caches and spools, it doesn't really matter if it's open to the world as it flies between you and your webmail host.

Yahoo 2Gig account = $19.99/yr =! free

[Brigadier]

Get more control and more capacity. Mail Plus includes virus protection from Norton AntiVirus, personalized spam filtering with SpamGuard Plus, no graphical ads, POP access, 20MB message size, virtually unlimited storage 2GB and more. Learn more.

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less than $2/month

Re:"Bigger" Doesn't Mean "Better"

[Bogtha]

Take Gmail. It's clear, concise, and uses Basic HTML to navigate.

The special version provided for older browsers does. But normal GMail certainly doesn't. It's really frustrating to try and open links in new windows only to find that they aren't links at all but some kind of pseudo-link created with spans and onclicks that doesn't work properly.

Google really don't have a clue when it comes to Javascript. Yeah, they come up with good features, but their implementation sucks. For example, it took them two years to fix a relatively simple Javascript security hole in their site, [jibbering.com] which could have allowed phishers to use Google to con people.

Frankly, DHTML is just the web-equivalent of "Feature Bloat".

Er, GMail uses what most people describe as "DHTML". You are saying GMail is better because it doesn't use something that it does, in fact, use.

I saw DHTML in practice when Barryworld still existed. The DHTML interface was so slow, and so horrible (Even on a 4MB Line, with Dell Optiplexes)

You know how GMail is so much faster than most other webmail services? That's because they use DHTML.

You've got some very odd ideas about DHTML. All it is is Javascript that alters the composition of a page. There's nothing inherently slow about DHTML; in fact in many cases, DHTML is used to speed up web applications.

based on technology from oddpost.com

[Dzimas]

Yahoo bought out oddpost in 2004. If you'll remember, they were the first to put together a really slick DHTML-based email application. What you see here is a result of merging the technology Ethan and Ian had developed with Yahoo's infrastructure (plus a great deal more - tabs and other features that aren't part of oddpost). Glad to see a little dotrebound company like Oddpost make a mark!

Re:Coral link

[TopSpin]

Unfortunately, the images are (not) being served from another server entirely; tivac.com, which is now also slashdotted... Here are the images linked through Coral.

contacts.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
drag.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
nodrag.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
editcontact.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
message.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
resized.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
indent.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
centered.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
rightalign.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
addcontacts.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
colors.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
smilies.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
autocomplete.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
hyperlink.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
hyperlinkoptions.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
writing.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)
confirm.png [nyud.net] (long lines make slashcode happy)

Re:GPG

[MasterOfMagic]

The Hushmail [hushmail.com] service uses PGP and allows you to encrypt your messages with PGP and recieve PGP encrypted and signed messages. Be sure to pick a good passphrase!

SSL not needed for logins

[GCsoftware]

Actually, it's not strictly necessary to enable SSL for secure logins provided the user has javascript enabled (Javascript, yes I know, urgh).

The easiest way to do it securely with Javascript would be to send a challenge to the client over regular HTTP, request the user's password, combine the challenge and password and run it through a hashing algo like MD5 or SHA to produce the respone.

The server then takes the challenge and the stored password, hashes them and if the hash matches that sent by the client, the client is authenticated. Voila', secure authentication without SSL, and the unencrypted password never went over the wire.

Actually, this guy called Paul Johnson did exactly this, and you can get JS implementations of a lot of crypto algorithms from his site [pajhome.org.uk].

Could be useful if you don't want to buy an SSL cert for a small personal site or something, but obviously is not a replacement for SSL, which provides other really Good Stuff (tm) such as the authentication of the server to the client.

PS: I'm in no way connected to this Paul Johnson guy, nor have I tested his code. Caveat lector.

Re:DHTML: Why isn't it in that broad use?

[Roguelazer]

DHTML (as in using JavaScript to manipulate page elements) is usually much slower than even Flash (and anybody who's read my comment history knows that I hate Flash with a passion). JavaScript is a simplistic language that usually doesn't have a "nice" way of doing things. When you're using DHTML and having to deal with both JavaScript slowness and the browser having to move around styled HTML elements, it can get pretty hairy. Google uses DHTML for, well, almost everything, and even their extremely nice code can often bog down my Athlon XP+ 2800+/1GB. Reconciling the modern demands for real-time interactivity with the stateless, text data of HTML over HTTP and the requirement of backwards compatibility is a demanding challenge with buzzword-laden "solutions" such as AJAX, DHTML, Java, and Flash. Time will tell which, if any, will persevere.

Re:It looks impressive

[pete-classic]

You're certainly welcome for the small bit I contributed.

I said "my baby", but I'm really more of an estranged uncle. The project was Luke Ehresman's brain child.

And there are a score, or more, developers who deserve far, far more credit than I.

Anyway, I'm glad you like it. It still gives me a little thrill whenever I see it in use or see a reference to it.

Thank you for exposing people to Free Software, and thank you for fulfilling the important and often overlooked role of providing commercial end-user support.

-Peter

Since it's Yahoo!, we can be sure of one feature:

[bombadier_beetle]

There's almost certainly a feature that forwards politically incriminating emails [timesonline.co.uk] to the Chinese authorities.

F*ck Yahoo.

Re:GPG

[Anonymous Coward]

try www.cryptomail.org
1.0 alpha avail for download, not yet rolled out.

Other Ajax/DHTML/XUL WebMail interfaces

[blackhaze]

Ok, so the new Y! looks alright - But is this really anything *new*?

Seems like when Y! bought out Outpost ( a webmail app ) the original dev team must be responsible for part of the new Y! WebMail.

IMHO there is a much better WebMail application called @Mail at http://atmail.com/ [atmail.com] - Beats the pants off Y!'s attempt of a desktop WebMail application, it also have a native XUL/Firefox interface that kicks over Gmail's bland GUI.

Alas it's great to see some competition in the Webmail arena - I wonder what is googles next punch.

Re:Other Ajax/DHTML/XUL WebMail interfaces

[blackhaze]

Sorry, the original WebMail app Y! bought out was http://oddpost.com/ [oddpost.com] - Not outpost ;)

Re:SSL not needed for logins

[ScriptedReplay]

In fact, that's how Yahoo has been working since at least a long time: the server sends a challenge that the browser appends to the MD5 hash of the password and sends the MD5 hash of the combination back.

Re:Compatibility?

[Aimak]

Because it can be clearly read from one of the given links [patcavit.com]:

It works in both IE and Firefox (both the 1.0.x branch and 1.5 Beta).

Re:Zimbra's offering is very similar to Yahoo's

[mikis]

Zimbra is much more than just mail client. To quote a SitePoint [sitepoint.com] mailing list,

"Billed as an online collaboration server with an AJAX-powered Web client, Zimbra will run on a Linux server and behave as a dedicated email, calendar, and directory server (in fact, it has Postfix, an open source email server, built in), accessible with desktop email, calendar, and address book applications like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird/Sunbird, Apple Mail/iCal, and others.

"But Zimbra also provides an enhanced Web interface that works much like Gmail, except that you can extend it with your own plug-in modules to link it to other applications you use, like Skype or Google Maps.

"What we're basically talking about is an open source alternative to Microsoft Exchange, with an AJAX-powered Gmail alternative as a Web interface instead of Outlook Web Access.