Yahoo mail beta is goes forward--just as I take a step back

Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 23

I struggled with Yahoo’s mail beta for three months. After my initial euphoria, when I gave it a thumbs up in a review of Gmail, It seemed to get slower and slower, and a couple of weeks ago, there was an apology on the site—and an offer to return to the classic e-mail. I jumped at it. I have been enjoying much faster service ever since, though without a lot of the desktop-like features of the Beta.

Now I see that Yahoo’s offering the beta to a wider audience. Are the problems solved? Is it safe for me to go back?

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Reader Comments

David Porter

January 23, 2006 12:22 PM

Steve,

I have been using the beta version for a month or so. I have enjoyed the upgrade.

I am awaiting to see how well their RSS feed works. So far that has been dissapointing and therefore I am still using Bloglines.

I don't use it for my "everyday" e-mail but for an "on the road" system, it works great.

Sam Harrelson

January 23, 2006 08:21 PM

I really really wanted to like the Yahoo beta mail. After about 2 months of trial, I've gone back to Gmail. It seems to me that the future of the web lies in tagging, and relying on a *SLOW* Outlook-esque experience just didn't work for my needs.

If Y! would only add speed, tags (which they could so easily do with the del.icio.us and flickr acquisitions), and a decent RSS engine, I would love to hop on board again!

Doug Thacker

February 1, 2006 11:36 PM

I was a beta user of Yahoo 360 and really enjoyed that. Like the user above, I *wanted* to like the new Yahoo mail. Instead, I found it unusably slow. Unusably. Slow.

I switched back to the regular Yahoo mail in a flash. A few weeks later I tried the mail beta again. Still slow.

I hope they never release this thing to the public, and/or force me to use it, until it's gotten a great deal faster. If anything, faster than regular Yahoo mail. Otherwise, don't bother.

James Fredricks

March 1, 2006 04:28 AM

Not only is Yahoo Mail slow, the new My Yahoo is unusably slow too. Yahoo has gone completely AJAX crazy, throwing it into everything like the days when every site had to have a Java Applet menu navigation.

Mike

April 20, 2006 08:07 AM

Agree it slow. Yahoo (and so many others) don't seem to realize that speed always trumps "features". Unfortunately, the old Yahoo has slowed down also

rmr27

June 20, 2006 06:29 PM

the features are nice, but it's unusably slow! just switched back to the old yahoo.

terry van der walt

August 9, 2006 02:59 PM

My mail is fine, I am just trying to get in contact with Step Hen Baker, a friend from high school in South Africa.

Theodar R

October 9, 2006 01:31 PM

Yahoo mail has virtually stopped! I've ben trying to open a mail and print the attached image (just 400kb) for three days, but I've still not been able to get my hands on it. Navigating past each page takes a miracle!!!

Asad

June 21, 2007 02:33 AM

the new yahoo beta is the worse as i'm not able to open any email it just loading, do something otherwise i will stop using it, i feel gmail is more faster then yahoo beta.

Eethore

March 27, 2008 04:24 AM

slow...very slow!
hate it so much!

still far far from gmail.

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In Blogspotting Senior Writer Stephen Baker and Associate Editor Heather Green take a look at how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society. Whether its blogs or wikis, data crunching or data targeting, technology’s advances are reshaping the world that we live in.

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