30Gigs Web Mail Launches Into Beta

gaanagaa writes "Neowin reports, that a new web mail service launched today is promising to bring users an email inbox of 30gb." The original intent of 30gigs.com was apparently to create an "'All in one' site for the webmaster and avid computer users. According to the sites 'about us' page, combining personal file storage, GD2 signatures and anonymous email all in one service, which would be free." In their brief review of the service a Neowin user also offers a word of caution with regards to their extremely short terms of service and privacy policy, calling them "shady".

phffff.. 30gig, that's amateur mang

[porksoda]

1 terabyte, right here [hriders.com].

Re:TOS

[XaXXon]

I just read their terms of service. It's almost all about cookies. They basically say how they use their cookies, that they aren't responsible for the contents of the sites their ads link to, and that you may get cookies from their ad provider.

While not being a service I would want to use, they don't seem to be "shady" in that they are hiding anything, just that they do things you wish they wouldn't, but they're honest about it.

This is, of course, assuming their ToS isn't an outright lie.

30 webdrive?

[ZeroExistenZ]

If there would be the ability to have a "webdrive [viksoe.dk]" like there's available for google, this might be interesting.

Otherwise, to keep 30G of chainletters, spam, and the occasional email seems like a waste of space. In the line of google's history, they'd come out with 50G mailboxes in no time to stay current and on top. ;)

Re:TOS

[aussie_a]

I agree, they're extremely forward with what they do and don't do (and one thing they claim they don't do is sell out your information). If the TOS and Privacy Policy is the only reason people believe they're shady, then I disagree completely. Having said that, reading the comments it appears that some people are wary because 30gigs.com isn't a name they know, so they're wary if they'll be trustworthy or not.

SMTP is not a file transfer protocol!

[NerdJock]

I understand that some people need to transfer a lot of data between people and groups, but SMTP is not a file transfer protocol. That should be handled by another protocol, such as File Transfer Protocol or a P2P of your choice or perhaps a repository.

If you transfer that much data you should think about designing a small interface to handle it, to include shortcuts for the functions you use. After all, it has to be a bit cumbersome to work with that much data through a mail client.

Re:phffff.. 30gig, that's amateur mang

[Pleb'a.nz]

Last time I signed up here, you couldn't send email outside of the hriders.com domain.

Re:Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

MS are already working on an improved Hotmail interface, it's codenamed Kahuna [msn.com] and looks pretty much like Outlook.

read the small print!

[r3ddr]

they DO collect your personal info(data)!

Unable to connect to MySQL server: localhost : '': Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (11)

Gmail responses

[r3m0t]

- Do anyone know how much spam you get with this service?
You don't get spam from them. The spam filter has been excellent for me so far - and I've used it for a long time.

- How does it handle attachements and their sizes?
An e-mail can be up to 10 MB once encoded, including the message body and attachments. http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answe r=8770&query=attachments&topic=0&type=f&ctx=en:sea rch [google.com]

- How fast does mail travel through their servers?
Who cares? It probably doesn't take very long.

- How high uptime do their servers have?
24 hours a day most days, but sometimes there are a fwe hours of unreliable service.

- Customizable mail filters to manage mail?
Yes.

- Multiple labels per mail, set by filters?
Yes.

- POP3 forwarding/servers?
Yes.

- Address books?
A basic one.

- Antivirus checks?
No (but viruses probably enter the spam box).

- Do they backup?
Dunno. Don't really care much, either. Google are good at storing data.

SMTP banner

[gumbo]

Note their SMTP banner:

220-server.solostar.ca ESMTP Exim 4.52 #1 Mon, 03 Oct 2005 09:23:15 -0400

It doesn't even have their domain name in there, which is a good sign that they don't have their own server but are using shared web hosting or bought a dedicated server from a host. I doubt there's more than one server available.

Then note the occasional MySQL errors trying to get to their home page.

Then look at solostar.ca, the domain in the SMTP greeting, and all the weird spammy links on their home page.

My guess is this is a site set up by one teenager somewhere and won't last more than a few weeks. It's impressive that he got it up on here, though, so maybe he has a future in future plans that are thought out better than this one...

Re:30 GB?!?!?! 250K oughta be enough for anyone!

[UberTod]

Well...one successful way to fill up your multi-gig account on Gmail is to functionally use the tools people have written to use such a site to it's fullest potential.

I get no kickback for this, and it was a /. post some time ago:

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm [viksoe.dk]

It makes your gmail account a drive on your computer. Great for having access to your own personal sftp anytime you need it.

Review from an actual user

[nacs]

I tried out this thing yesterday for a bit.

Here's the problems:

1) The domain name sucks. Who wants to be [e-mail]

2) The interface sucks. Hard. It's about as plain as it can get (it looks like they're just using Squirrelmail with their own stylesheet).

3) Their privacy policy is vague on what kind of information they share

4) There doesn't seem to be any reputable parent company behind it meaning it's chances of survival are questionable.

Overall rating: THUMBS DOWN.

(I posted this review to Neowin [neowin.net] yesterday BTW).

Re:30 GB?!?!?! 250K oughta be enough for anyone!

[Riddlefox]

Actually, there are a few, depending on the size of the files you want to send, and how persistant you want the storage to be. You Send It [yousendit.com] is one I use (1 gigabyte files, good for 1 week). PutFile [putfile.com] is another one - smaller file sizes (I think 60 megs for the free service), but the videos stay there longer.