Yahoo Mail useless -- try Gawab.com instead

[Blinky the Shark]

As www.gawab.com/prevsfree.html shows, the 15MB mailbox is not available in
their free service. Instead, they offer 4MB (a third less than Yahoo's
"measly" 6MB). And if you're willing to pay for a mailbox, Yahoo gives you
25MB, 50MB, or 100MB a year (depending on cost), as opposed to Gawab's
15MB.

This is true only if you pay for the service, in which case it should be
compared against Yahoo's pay service. And they can't be compared, because
unlike Yahoo (http://mailplus.mail.yahoo.com/help), Gawab doesn't post their
prices. Instead, you are expected to fill out a form giving them a valid
email account and phone number, and they will contact you with the price.

Comparing free services, gawab looks even nastier. Unlike Hotmail, Yahoo,
MailAndNews, to sign up for Gawab:

- You must have a currently active Web site.
- They must be able to connect to the URL
- You must provide a current contact email address
- You must provide a contact telephone number

(taken from http://www.gawab.com/services.html?)

According to WHOIS, the Gawab domain was registered only three weeks ago.
Given what I've just detailed here, it's hard to consider the original
poster's raving endorsement as being impartial. I'm hardly a fan of Yahoo,

I actually wondered about that when I first saw it -- long before you uncovered
the Real Deal, here. It seemed a little too breathless, to me.

but to describe it as "lame" when compared to Gawab appears dishonest. Gawab
seems to offer less storage for more money, and is personally intrusive in
doing so (notice with the free account that "Gawab.com has the right to mass
mail your users").

That's especially ugly.

Someone said that ads only go on outbound mail. Wellyeah! *You* (the
sender) are already signed up -- why would they keep laying ads on
*your* email? It's all of your friends they want to advertise to.

I' recommend anyone considering this to do a lot of research before handing
out contact information, let alone money, to them.
Agree.

In contrast, the www.myway.com site mentioned in the thread states that
"Unlike other portals, My Way will not rent, sell or trade your personal
information". They also only asked for a first name (optional, for
personalization) and have a customizable spam filter (the original complaint
against Yahoo). Likewise, the service at www.mail.com has fewer restrictions
and more features (including the ability to use @techie.com as your domain).
If Yahoo and Hotmail are unacceptable to you, either of those two seems like
a better value than Gawab.

Good research, William. All in all, this makes other options look pretty good.

 

[Claude Metz]

As www.gawab.com/prevsfree.html shows, the 15MB mailbox is not available in
their free service. Instead, they offer 4MB (a third less than Yahoo's
"measly" 6MB). And if you're willing to pay for a mailbox, Yahoo gives you
25MB, 50MB, or 100MB a year (depending on cost), as opposed to Gawab's
15MB.

I haven't read the page at the link you supplied, *but* the free
account I signed up for yesterday is in fact 15MB.

This is true only if you pay for the service, in which case it should be
compared against Yahoo's pay service. And they can't be compared, because
unlike Yahoo (http://mailplus.mail.yahoo.com/help), Gawab doesn't post their
prices. Instead, you are expected to fill out a form giving them a valid
email account and phone number, and they will contact you with the price.

This is just not true - in my free gawab.com account I am indeed
accessing pop.gawab.com and smtp.gawab.com with Pegasus Mail.

Comparing free services, gawab looks even nastier. Unlike Hotmail, Yahoo,
MailAndNews, to sign up for Gawab:

- You must have a currently active Web site.
- They must be able to connect to the URL
- You must provide a current contact email address
- You must provide a contact telephone number

(taken from http://www.gawab.com/services.html?)

This is just not true in reality. My signup for a gawab.com free
account was quick and easy. The only information I had to provide was
my fake name and password.

According to WHOIS, the Gawab domain was registered only three weeks ago.
Given what I've just detailed here, it's hard to consider the original
poster's raving endorsement as being impartial. I'm hardly a fan of Yahoo,
but to describe it as "lame" when compared to Gawab appears dishonest. Gawab
seems to offer less storage for more money, and is personally intrusive in
doing so (notice with the free account that "Gawab.com has the right to mass
mail your users").

I' recommend anyone considering this to do a lot of research before handing
out contact information, let alone money, to them.

I recommend actually signing up for a free account at gawab.com and
trying it yourself before drawing conclusions.

In contrast, the www.myway.com site mentioned in the thread states that
"Unlike other portals, My Way will not rent, sell or trade your personal
information". They also only asked for a first name (optional, for
personalization) and have a customizable spam filter (the original complaint
against Yahoo). Likewise, the service at www.mail.com has fewer restrictions
and more features (including the ability to use @techie.com as your domain).
If Yahoo and Hotmail are unacceptable to you, either of those two seems like
a better value than Gawab.

myway.com sounds good, but gawab.com is excellent. I already have
mine set up with 9 filters to automatically delete swen worm.

 

[Paul]

As www.gawab.com/prevsfree.html shows, the 15MB mailbox is not
available in their free service.

Well, http://www.gawab.com/images/user_photo.jpg says 15 MB for the
FREE service, so I don't know what's going on here.

Instead, they offer 4MB (a third less than Yahoo's "measly" 6MB).

A quick check of http://mail.yahoo.com/ shows Yahoo's mail is only
offering 4 MB too -- so Gawab/Yahoo are currently even (perhaps).

[POP access] is true only if you pay for the service

Totally wrong. I've been using my FREE Gawab account with Outlook
for a few days now, with no payment -- exactly as Gawab advertises.

to sign up for Gawab:

- You must have a currently active Web site.
- They must be able to connect to the URL
- You must provide a current contact email address
- You must provide a contact telephone number

Really? I did NONE of the above.

According to WHOIS, the Gawab domain was registered only three weeks
ago.

So? The average web user is not going to be aware of such things.

I'm hardly a fan of Yahoo, but to describe it as "lame" when compared to
Gawab appears dishonest.

Dishonest? I'm just sharing a FREE mail alternative to Yahoo because
Yahoo's mail account has become USELESS to me due to spam/viruses.
At least Gawab lets you DELETE spam from the server, unlike Yahoo which
only sends it to the Trash. That's why my Yahoo account is useless: the
Trash fills up so quickly that I can't accept any legit mail. How can
Yahoo be superior to Gawab in that very important respect?

Anyway, I don't know why you're going off at Gawab like this -- seems
like you're somehow connected to Yahoo?

 

[Paul]

Good research, William.

See my other post where I debunk a lot of William's "research".

 

[Paul]

Comparing free services, gawab looks even nastier.

Instead of just comparing, why not sign up and experience it for real?

 

[Paul]

According to WHOIS, the Gawab domain was registered only three weeks ago.

According to http://www.gawab.com/about.html the site has been active since
November 2000...

 

[RJB]

William de Haan wrote:

Well, http://www.gawab.com/images/user_photo.jpg says 15 MB for the
FREE service, so I don't know what's going on here.

Yep... that's for the "Premium" users.

A quick check of http://mail.yahoo.com/ shows Yahoo's mail is only
offering 4 MB too -- so Gawab/Yahoo are currently even (perhaps).

Which contradicts your original post.

[POP access] is true only if you pay for the service

Totally wrong. I've been using my FREE Gawab account with Outlook
for a few days now, with no payment -- exactly as Gawab advertises.

Hmm not according to this: http://www.gawab.com/prevsfree.html

Really? I did NONE of the above.

So? The average web user is not going to be aware of such things.

And your point here is? Sounds to me like you advocate taking advantage of
"average web user(s)".

Dishonest? I'm just sharing a FREE mail alternative to Yahoo because
Yahoo's mail account has become USELESS to me due to spam/viruses.
At least Gawab lets you DELETE spam from the server, unlike Yahoo which
only sends it to the Trash. That's why my Yahoo account is useless: the
Trash fills up so quickly that I can't accept any legit mail. How can
Yahoo be superior to Gawab in that very important respect?

It may be free and you're correct that it is an alternative. The rest is
subjective. I personally don't use either. I use my ISP for most mail and
use Hotmail as a spam trap. I could care less if they delete or suspend my
account.

Anyway, I don't know why you're going off at Gawab like this -- seems
like you're somehow connected to Yahoo?

I don't know why you're going off on him? Sounds like you're connected to
Gawab. Don't get me wrong here... I'm not advocating either. But when
William takes the time to point out the downside I sense something fishy
when he get jumped on.


--
RJB
9/24/2003 11:15:44 AM

"But mom, I don't want a gay dog. I want a butch dog. I want a
Rin-Tin-Tin."
-- Stan Broflowski (South Park)

 

[William de Haan]

Well, http://www.gawab.com/images/user_photo.jpg says 15 MB for the
FREE service, so I don't know what's going on here.

Well, I quoted my information from URLs on their site. The fact that
there are contradictions in what they are saying is not a good sign.

A quick check of http://mail.yahoo.com/ shows Yahoo's mail is only
offering 4 MB too -- so Gawab/Yahoo are currently even (perhaps).

Perhaps. I was taking your the original 6MB at face value. But even if they
are even, what's the impetus to switch? Yahoo, at least, is a known
quantity that's been around for years. Gawab was only registered on
September 3rd of this year.

Really? I did NONE of the above.

When did you sign up?

After you posted, I tried to sign up for a test account with Gawab, as well
as Mail.com, MailAndNews.com, and MyWay.com, in order to compare them. The
process to sign up for Gawab was as I described.

So? The average web user is not going to be aware of such things.

That's why I commented on it, so the average user *would* know. There's
nothing wrong with being new, but if you're claiming to provide "a permanent
email address", that requires staying power. Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, and the
like, for all their problems, have shown that they can stick it out over the
long haul. Gawab, in contrast, could close up shop in December for all we
know.

Dishonest? I'm just sharing a FREE mail alternative to Yahoo because
Yahoo's mail account has become USELESS to me due to spam/viruses.
At least Gawab lets you DELETE spam from the server, unlike Yahoo which
only sends it to the Trash. That's why my Yahoo account is useless: the
Trash fills up so quickly that I can't accept any legit mail. How can
Yahoo be superior to Gawab in that very important respect?

By being better in other respects. By not requiring me to provide a
telephone number. By not requiring me to provide a web site. By not
requiring me to permit them to mass mail users of my web site.

Anyway, I don't know why you're going off at Gawab like this -- seems
like you're somehow connected to Yahoo?

Not at all. In fact, I'm quite critical of it. But Gawab falls in the
category of "too good to be true", so I looked into it, and reported what I
found. Of all the ones I tested, I would say that MyWay was the best of the
lot. I compared Gawab against Yahoo because that was the comparison made in
the original posting.

It's entirely possible that Gawab is as you say, and you're getting a free
15MB email account with no strings. In that case, great. But based on what I
found when I looked around, your experience is not is line with their own
stated claims and requirements.

 

[William de Haan]

Instead of just comparing, why not sign up and experience it for real?

I tried. I couldn't. I entered a user name, and email address, clicked
next, and it cleared the fields and asked me to enter another user name and
email address. I did this with three email addresses, and all failed.

Maybe it's because I was using the Opera web browser. Maybe it's because I
was running silent (no Java, no Javascript, no cookies). Maybe something
else was wrong. But I didn't think it was worth the effort to debug.

With Mail.com and MyWay.com, I was able to sign up without the hassles I saw
on Gawab (I already have a MailAndNews.com account, and they are not
accepting new signups at the moment anyway, so I didn't include them in my
comparison).

 

[William de Haan]

I haven't read the page at the link you supplied, *but* the free
account I signed up for yesterday is in fact 15MB.

When did you sign up? It's entirely possible that they changed things
between the time you tried and the time I tried.

This is just not true - in my free gawab.com account I am indeed
accessing pop.gawab.com and smtp.gawab.com with Pegasus Mail.

Well, if it's not true, why are they saying it on their site? I wasn't
paraphrasing; I quoted them directly, and provided the reference URL.

If I am blowing smoke, people can easily check up on me. I encourage them
to, in fact.

This is just not true in reality. My signup for a gawab.com free
account was quick and easy. The only information I had to provide was
my fake name and password.

As mentioned in my previous comment, I tried to sign up, and couldn't. YMMV.

 

[Paul]

Gawab was only registered on September 3rd of this year.

My own WHOIS search shows it as 03-Sep-2002.

After you posted, I tried to sign up for a test account with Gawab,
as well as Mail.com, MailAndNews.com, and MyWay.com, in order to
compare them. The process to sign up for Gawab was as I described.

Not for I. Perhaps you didn't register here (for users, not webmasters):

http://www.gawab.com/register.html

By not requiring me to provide a telephone number. By not requiring me
to provide a web site. By not requiring me to permit them to mass mail
users of my web site.

The Gawab registration URL listed above does NOT require a telephone
number (it's an optional field), and does NOT ask for a web site or
permit mass mailing of anyone. At the URL above. So I don't understand
where you've made the mistake of having to enter such details.

I tried. I couldn't. I entered a user name, and email address, clicked
next, and it cleared the fields and asked me to enter another user name and
email address.

That's not how you register at the above URL. You've gone to the wrong place.

 

[Paul]

Which contradicts your original post.

Seems that Yahoo only offers 4 MB now. But my account is 6 MB from
when I first registered it. Sue me.

I don't know why you're going off on him? Sounds like you're
connected to Gawab. Don't get me wrong here... I'm not advocating
either. But when William takes the time to point out the downside I
sense something fishy when he get jumped on.

Because I don't like being told that I'm advocating a paid service.

 

[Paul]

I tried. I couldn't. I entered a user name, and email address, clicked
next, and it cleared the fields and asked me to enter another user
name and email address. I did this with three email addresses, and
all failed.

Okay, let's put this to rest -- I worked it out. William was NOT signing
up for the FREE e-mail service, but for the FREE webmaster service, which
includes only a 4 MB mailbox, and requires a telephone number, active web
site, and so on. He was NOT creating a new free 15 MB mail account for
USERS as seen at the left-hand side of the Gawab.com site.

So it's all just been one big misunderstanding!

 

[William de Haan]

My own WHOIS search shows it as 03-Sep-2002.

You're right. My mistake, I read it wrong.

Not for I. Perhaps you didn't register here (for users, not webmasters):

I did. I just posted a second ago about this. It looks like coming in with
the Opera browser (as I did) showed the webmaster only last night.

The Gawab registration URL listed above does NOT require a telephone number
(it's an optional field), and does NOT ask for a web site or permit mass
mailing of anyone. At the URL above. So I don't understand where you've
made the mistake of having to enter such details.

I went to the site, and saw "I Want To Know More" and "Login" options, as
well as sidebar ads by Google. I took the "I Want To Know More" option, and
followed the chain. When I just checked it again, now there's a "Users!"
sidebar on the left.

That's not how you register at the above URL. You've gone to the wrong
place.

It sent me to the wrong place. It's been corrected now.

 

[Paul]

I went to the site, and saw "I Want To Know More" and "Login"
options, as well as sidebar ads by Google. I took the "I Want To Know
More" option, and followed the chain. When I just checked it again,
now there's a "Users!" sidebar on the left.

That "Users" sidebar was there all along. Perhaps Opera hid it from
you for some reason. Anyway, see my other post about the misunderstanding.

 

[Salvador Fandino]

I don't think this is off-topic, and it will definitely help some of you!

I've been using Yahoo Mail for years. However, with all these viruses coming
out lately, my Yahoo mailbox has become filled to capacity (6 MB) within a
2-hour period. This means all legit mail coming in overnight (while I sleep)
is being bounced and thus I never see it. EXTREMELY ANNOYING!

I contacted Yahoo to see if they can offer a way to delete filtered mail instead
of just sending it to the Trash (which counts towards the 6 MB limit) and they
said no. Fine.

For people that does not want to change its e-mail address, and that
has POP3 access to yahoo mail (paid or not), I did a bot to solve the
problem for myself, but I have made it publicly available so other
people can also use it.

http://www.geocities.com/sfandino/

It deletes the mails from the mailbox without downloading them, just
looking at the headers and the first message lines. It can also be
configured to send abuse reports with ricochet.

You will need a Unix/Linux machine to run it... well, its a perl
script so somebody could port it to Windows.

I hope it helps (it would also work with any POP3 server, not only
with Yahoo)

Bye,

- Salvador Fandiño

 

[donutbandit]

Anyway, I don't know why you're going off at Gawab like this -- seems
like you're somehow connected to Yahoo?

Maybe it seems to some of us that "if it seems too good to be true, it
probably is."

Yahoo has a long track record. Gawab just started. Only time will tell what
their real intentions are.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Blinky the Shark wrote:

See my other post where I debunk a lot of William's "research".

I did.

Full disclosure, Paul: do you have some kind of connection with this
software or its authors/distributors, other than simply being a user?

Don't mean that in a nasty way -- just curious.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

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charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

On 24 Sep 2003 06:40:19 GMT, Blinky the Shark wrote:

I just looked at it again. They seem to have changed the site a bit.
It looks like they have two tiers: users and webmasters.

That's what I see, having gone there, just now, to see if I can help
getting to the bottom of this.

The "user" account seems to be more in line with what the other
posters talked about. The "webmaster" account is what I described when
I walked

Yes, it does.

through the site. Last night, there was no "user" account listed.

Hmmmmmm. Seems to have been there for others.

I think that there may be some confusion here between the two types of
accounts. I wouldn't be surprised if their site choked on Opera (or
lack of
Possibly.

Java/Javascript/cookies) but worked with IE. That would explain why I
got a markedly different set of specifications than the other users.

Meaning you think they rewrote it, overnight, to accomodate Opera (which
wouldn't have been necessary with a compliant site in the first place,
of course)?

That seems kind of doubtful. If they were one of the browser-specific
sites, that mentality would've probably lasted the night.

Even so, I just tried to sign up for the "user" account. As the
attached JPG file shows, it's still a non starter for me, as their
registration check didn't work.
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/nobin.html

It may very well be that their web interface is hardwired to require
IE and/or Mozilla, and the problems are related to using Opera. But if
that's the case, then I'd recommend against it just on that alone.

Assuming the misplaced binary shows a lack of graphic containing the reg
check information, it is visible in Mozilla, here, but not in Opera.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

I tried. I couldn't. I entered a user name, and email address, clicked
next, and it cleared the fields and asked me to enter another user name and
email address. I did this with three email addresses, and all failed.

For the record, on the sign-up page, there's a lot more information
indicated as "required" than just usr and email.