10,000 people want Gmail to go IMAP (and why you might want to try AOL Mail)

By Steven Rosenberg on June 29, 2007 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) |

Gmail users pretty much know that if you don't want to use the Web interface for Google's free e-mail service, you're limited to POP access, with which all of your mail is downloaded to the client computer and deleted from the server (or, at your option, left there for you to delete later).

But while Googling for infomation on Gmail and IMAP -- the protocol that allows all of your mail to remain on the server -- I found this petition, signed by 10,000 geeky types, calling for Google to offer IMAP with Gmail.

The page, well worth a read, describes what POP and IMAP are and why Gmail and Yahoo Mail should offer it. Also, the author spends much time describing the functionality of one of my favorite mail providers, fastmail.fm, which offers IMAP service. Fastmail.fm's free accounts are Web-based and IMAP only, and the company isn't shy about telling you why IMAP is better than POP.

From this page: A 2004 (but still relevant) Washington Post story on why IMAP beats POP.

And a commenter here recently informed me that AOL Mail offers IMAP connectivity. In fact, it looks like AOL offers both IMAP and POP.

A reason for AOL to exist (besides AIM)? I'm thinking so.

The word is that it takes more servers -- and more money -- to offer IMAP, but I wonder if not needing to download all the spam that clogs e-mail accounts these days via POP makes up for the larger number of connections to the server by those using IMAP. And since Web-mail users are basically connecting via IMAP anyway, what's the harm in actually offering it as a choice.

I know what the answer is, at least for Yahoo Mail: They can't show you ads when you're not using their Web portal.

2 Comments

Tae said:

Hi Steven,

I think I recall your name from the old Mailblocks days (I was on the original Mailblocks team that got acquired by AOL).

Anyways, I wanted to confirm that yes AOL offers free IMAP and POP3 access for all mail accounts. While it's true that ad impressions can be reduced a bit, it's more important to let users access their email the way they prefer to.

Web access to the AOL accounts is available at: mail.aol.com. The Mail blog that I write that speaks to more details about AOL Mail is at: http://journals.aol.com/websuiteblog/productinsider/

Thanks,
Tae
"The AOL Mail blog guy"
websuiteblog at aol dot com

July 2, 2007 11:57 AM

Steven Rosenberg said:

Tae, thanks for the info -- I'm going to take a look at your blog.

At this point, AOL -- which used to have the best marketing in the world -- just can't seem to "sell" what they're giving away. AIM is still really popular, but Xdrive, AOL Mail and the AOL antivirus service are all quality offerings.

Yahoo has a similar problem with Briefcase -- it's like Xdrive, but not as good, and nobody knows about it.

But when it comes to free mail with both POP and IMAP, I think AOL stands alone.

July 2, 2007 2:06 PM

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