Why Gmail Sucks Balls

I’m stubborn.  That’s the first thing you should all know about me.  I also hate change (I guess that’s the second thing).  You know how your grandparents didn’t want to learn how to use a DVD player because it was too confusing and they would rather rewind VHS tapes with their external tape rewinder?  Yeah, I’m like that with some things now, the most important being Gmail.  Here’s a recap of my online, email client history and why Gmail is worse than any downloadable email client.

In the golden age of technology there were two things you could count on: the Ti-83 Calculator and Hotmail.  Now, seeing as I’m 22 years old and most of you probably have no idea what these things are, I will explain them to you, and, as always, I will digress a bit.  The Ti-83 Calculator was originally released in 1996 with Ti-83 Plus being released in 1999.  The later is one of the most popular calculators to date and seemed to defy basic economic theory.  Seeing as I am an engineer and have taken one high school economics class, I know everything there is to know about the economy and should therefore be trusted about my economic theories. This calculator has never gone down in price, which does not make any sense.  It sports a black-and-white screen with resolution worse than the original computer punch cards and is about the size of a brick.  Many calculators superseded the Ti-83 (such as the Ti-89) and yet it remains at $99.99.  This brings me to the first point of my post: FUCK the Ti-89.  To me, Ti-89 users are like parasites; they see that you are using an “inferior” 83, are forced to tell you how much better the Ti-89 is, and then look down upon you when you say you are happy with your current calculator (side note: replace 83 with PC, Ti-89 with Mac, and calculator with computer and you have every Macintosh user in the galaxy).  Like your sweet old grandmother, I don’t want to learn how to use a Ti-89 calculator even though it can solve a system of equations and makes it is easier to write programs and does whatever the hell else it actually does.  I am happy with my Ti-83 just as your grandmother is happy with her VCR, or Betamax player if she is a badass and likes AKs and energy drinks and shit.  What the hell does this have to do with Gmail you ask?

FUCK Gmail (my second point of this post).  Like LA Gear, most of you have probably never even heard of Hotmail, but like LA Gear, Hotmail was the shit.  Hotmail was a free, online email client launched in 1996 that let you get your email from any computer, which at that time was a luxury.  It sported pretty much all the features you needed and was, for the most part, stable.  In my mind, Hotmail was the best online email client and straight up shat on ISP-based clients such as AOL and Netscape’s email thing and all that other garbage.  Hotmail was doing very well until 2004 when Gmail was released to the public and everyone lost their shit.

Gmail, as it turns out, swept the world due to its easy-to-use philosophy and all of its add-ins like Gchat (whoa…Gmail, Gchat…seems kind of like iPhone and iMac only with a G).  It also gave you tons of online storage space (currently ~7 GB), which was awesome if you were getting 100 emails a day with 30 MB PowerPoint presentation attachments…which no one does.  I am currently using 0% of my Gmail space (54 MB).  Yes, I use Gmail even though I think it is the worst thing ever.  In the summer of 2007, I caved and snagged myself an @gmail.com email address due to peer pressure and the need for an alternate email address other than my school address (I stopped using Hotmail because my Hotmail account got way to much spam).  The good thing about Gmail was that it grouped your emails into “conversation” so you could see the email history chain without having to search for past emails.  And that was the end of Gmail’s positive aspects.

Have you ever wanted to add the sender of an email to your contacts?  Initially it was automatic but that was soon changed after people got pissed that Ticketmaster made its way to their contacts list.  Now, to add a contact, you must copy the email address, click contacts, click add a new contact, type in their name, and paste in their address.  Why is there not an “Add to Contacts” button in the actual email?  This would make it easier and not require you to change the page you are on, which is another big problem.  Any downloadable client lets you open multiple email messages without reloading the page (fuck pop-out), lets you preview emails, add senders to your contacts, drag and drop attachments into emails, and organize your inbox into separate folders.  I don’t want Gmail’s stupid labels; I want to open multiple folders simultaneously to look at my emails. Want to send someone an email with a prior email as an attachment? You can’t.  Want it to send a return receipt when the recipient reads your email? You can’t.  Have you ever tried to use the spell check? It sucks.

Is there a solution to my problem?  No.  If I download an email client like Thunderbird and link it to my Gmail account I can’t use Gmail’s only good feature, the conversation grouping.  For now, I’m stuck.  I don’t want MSN Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail and I don’t want Gmail.  At this point I’d rather just send my messages the old fashioned way, through snail mail and the mighty, multibillion-dollar losing USPS.  Nowadays, everyone is pretty much stuck using Gmail as their client even though some people may hate it. People are also stuck using iTunes as their media player, which is almost great but also sucks, and yes, I will rip that apart sometime soon.

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  • owlpic

    Its easy to hate on something. Lets see you create something as slick as gmail.
    I don’t think this blog or supertrunks measure up.

    You wan’t to go old school, fire up some juno. That was a whole generation introduction to electronic mail.

  • http://none Bill

    I have gmail. And I think it totally sucks. And there is no easy way to tell them the problem. If you have an easy contact there to fix problems that would be great!

  • Adam

    Fuck gmail!!!

  • http://theinternetz Anonymous

    wat that’s derp logic. Out of all the email clients out there you hate on Gmail? Gmail is the slickest email interface you can get (unless you use MS Outlook) and it’s linked to more than just your email, so you can use the same user and pass to access Jewtube, Picasa, and a host of blog sites when you subscribe. Hate on hotmail or Comcast mail instead because they REALLY suck.

  • http://welcometofreshmanyear.com Darkhorse

    Anonymous, I agree with you. Hotmail and Comcast mail suck even more (I have had both) and I’m glad gmail exists. However, gmail lacks certain functionality that other clients don’t, including an “add to contacts” button. Now you could say this is done automatically but it always finds a way to mess it up. Having the same username and password for other sites is great but that doesn’t improve the email client. That just promotes Google and its growing conglomerate. Gmail could introduce a downloadable application like Thunderbird that manages your mail that would also keep the conversations grouped. This would cut down loading and eliminate pop-outs etc.

  • F. Gmail

    Quote: “Its easy to hate on something. Lets see you create something as slick as gmail. I don’t think this blog or supertrunks measure up.”

    He doesn’t have to create anything. Gmail, google, arrogant managers et. al. are not above criticsm. YOUR post tries to stifle free speech. YOUR post implies HE shouldn’t have written an article. Arrogant. Like gmail. Gmail is missing about 10 really basic functionalities that have been around in other software products for years. But instead they spend their time making it all “fancy”.

  • Dude

    GMail sucks ass, by far Yahoo Mail is the best, I’ve had an account since 97, I even pay for addons. I hate GMail, I ended up being subscribed to some mailing groups through GMail try that and see how much like GMail.

    Your inbox is bombarded and you have no way of filtering or getting a clear track of the conversation flow.

    With Yahoo (as pretty much any good mail program) you can simply apply a filter and have a dedicated folder for those messages.

  • http://www.crankthesound.com steve

    How about NO FRIGGIN DECENT SORTING???
    Alphabetical by name or sender or subject — FUCK YOU!
    sort by size? — FUCK YOU!

    Gmail sucks.

  • Mr l337

    You’re 22. You don’t know anything. Shut the fuck up. The Ti-86 is better. Gmail is better. Hotmail is crap and so is yahoo.

    Why don’t you just use pine or mutt or something like that if you really want to pretend to be stubborn and old school

    No one give a crap about LA Gear or any other crappy shoe with a pump or lights in the sole. Google mail is light years beyond what Hotmail or Yahoo put out for general consumption.

    iTunes does blow though and so does this blog entry.

  • http://welcometofreshmanyear.com Jumbro

    “Why don’t you just use pine or mutt or something like that if you really want to pretend to be stubborn and old school”

    what does it meeeeeeeeeaaaaan??????

  • darkhorse

    I was never “trying” to be old school with LA gear or the Ti-83. I just don’t want to take the time to learn something new (83) and was simply stating that LA Gear was the shit 15 years ago. A lot of the people commenting on this post have had legitimate complaints. I love how you just tell me to “shut the fuck up” and don’t offer a single reason why you think Gmail is the best. Like I said, I use Gmail even though I don’t like it. I use it because it is sleek, but it could be greatly improved with the ability to sort or with bug fixes to the multiple inboxes capability. I don’t even know why I am explaining myself. I couldn’t care less if you can’t understand the overall point of my post, and I don’t know what pine or mutt is but I’m sure they are equivalent to “Mr. Hands” and “hatchet vs penis” respectively.

  • http://none john

    I hate gmail. I have not been able to access my gmail for a week, and there is no one available to call. I’m going back to yahoo or hotmail.

  • http://forexonautopilotonline.com/ forex on autopilot

    Ymail is better… Reading pane is enough

  • Anita

    As someone old enough to recall all things old school which were mentioned, I found your commentary charming and funny. I “got it”. Maybe that comes with maturity :-) . Nice work.

  • ME

    true gmail sucks like shit. It’s new and it fails. Gotta love google chrome though.

  • Mn_100

    use hotmail man , its d best out dere, make a new account, its got better spam protection , + sweep , so u can store d contact frm where u get spam and it deletes dem automatically enjoy !

  • Yourmother

    Im sure your opinion of your hotmail experience when you were 8 years old counts for anything.

  • Wishing GMAIL would get a clue

    I hate gmail too. I can’t believe the folks at Google can’t come up with something better. The sorting is the biggest issue and then there are those emails that just up and disappear!!! The worst is that if you buy a Droid, they force you to use it if you want to be able to do basic stuff with your email (like cut and paste). I had an .att account and it was great. I never had any issues and only switched to integrate with my Droid. Google needs to get a grip and do the public right if they want to force us to use there crap and I do mean crap!

  • http://www.facebook.com/mike.arkadevich Mike Arkadevich

     I actually think that the new aol mail is pretty cool. 

  • Higzy

    Me: I forgot my password to my Gmail account

    Gmail: No Problem, just request to change your password and it will be done

    Me: Huh??? Now why would I request to change my password if I am not able to access said Gmail account in order to retrieve the ‘NEW’ password??? Are you fucking retarded?!

    Gmail: Yes, but we would like to spread our retardedness upon you and everyone who uses our email service

    Me: Good riddance, fuck face!

  • Test

    How about GMX.com???

  • Michael

    41.6% of email clients are Microsoft-based solutions.  Hotmail remains the leading webmail client.  http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats/email-clients/

  • Thissucks

    G-Mail Sucks DICK!!!!! I fucking HATE it!!!!!!! Works like shit!!!!!!!!!!! Stupid as fuck that would have to sign in to your account from another e-mail provider Accounts. WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!! Why would I sign into my G-mail with a …………@live.com!!!!!! STUPID FUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET IT RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

  • Nemo

    Actually the group by conversation functions is the WORST feature gmail has.  I only started using it after I found out you could disable it.  Try reply all and see what happens. 

  • Steve Jobs

    Gmail is the best. Fuck you jack-a-lopes! 

  • Higzy

    Steve Jobs says: “Gmail is the best, fuck you …blah bla bla

    Considering you are on welfare and truly have no other option but to go with a free email service such as Gmail, I would have to agree with you. However, when you are part of the working class, you have options to REAL email service.

    Keep beating that chest of yours, Steve ..one of these days someone besides yourself may even give a fk. Stay positive.

    Cheers

  • Rodc

    Gmail is creepy and if you are concerned about your privacy its even more creepy, but its all a fad personally I use my own e-mail from my own domain which is best as it is more credible and professional http://www.shipacne.com

  • Notsatisfiedwithgmail

    i created an account with gmail yesterday, and today i moving all my emails back to hotmail again, for a simple reason 7.5 gb of mailbox size just isnt enough, so bye bye gmail and call me back when you have a decent size!

  • Art_hove

    I second the motion, you can’t get me at aahson1@gmail.com. according to google the account still exists but it’s not me anymore. Now my password is art_hove@hotmail.com but I can’t get to my inbox..IT’S IT’S…….GREEEEAAAAT!!!!!!!!!!

  • Johnlowenthal

    Gmail was the first client to introduce threaded conversations. You don’t even mention that in your rant, and that was its BIGGEST selling point. Everyone else copied after that. Eat a dick.

  • Johnlowenthal

    You are a moron. They can’t give you your old password because its technically impossible. They store the passwords with one-way, I repeat, one-way SHA encryption. They have no way to decrypt your password and tell you what it is. Holy crap you are stupid. Do a little research.

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