More on Google Gmail, web browser choices

Riches Communications Newsletter

Issue 15, July 2004

In this issue:

- Google Gmail impressions
- Web browser choices

Google Gmail impressions

In our last issue we touched on Google's new web-based email, Gmail. Gmail users are now able to invite other users by email to try out the service, and I was fortunate to receive an invitation a little while ago.

The first thing you notice about Gmail is that it's fast. Much of the functionality in Gmail is based on JavaScript, a client-side language that runs in the user's browser rather than on a web server. This heavy use of JavaScript provides an overall feeling of 'snappiness' with Gmail (dial-up users will notice this even more).

The ability to sort and group email messages is what makes Gmail so easy to use. In long email exchanges the numerous replies can get confusing to keep track of in your inbox. Gmail calls these 'conversations', and they are displayed as a single message with tabs for each person's response. They are very intuitive and flexible, and the ability to hide and show quoted text in the grouped messages is a further enhancement. It's hard to go back to a standard POP email client after using this for a while.

There are other features that make Gmail a powerful web mail application - excellent search options, a spell checker, filters, labels, auto-complete for addresses and importing of contacts. During the beta testing period even more features are sure to be added. At the moment, Gmail is certainly a useful web-based email solution with generous space limits and a unique approach to managing your messages.

Web browser choices

Web browser applications are possibly the least interesting applications for most computer users. As most of them are free, there is little in the way of marketing to influence people in their choice of browser. For this reason, you may not be aware of the other web browser alternatives to Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). If you're a Mac user you should take special note - Microsoft stopped development at version 5 of IE on the Mac platform, limiting version 6 to Windows only.

Due to the popularity of Microsoft Windows, IE has been installed onto a huge number of computer systems. But being the most popular comes at a price - weaknesses in the program have been exploited and have lead to problems with pop-up windows, browser 'hijacking' and spyware.

By default, using a less popular browser can reduce these problems, simply because most of the attempts to exploit web browsers are focused on the most popular application (IE). That's not to say the alternatives are not prone to similar attacks but the risks are far less.

Another advantage of alternative browsers is that their rapid development has allowed them to improve on the features available with IE (the development of which has slowed to a crawl in recent times). Tabbed browsing is a great innovation that allows you to have multiple screens active within the one application window, with tabs at the top of the window. While you wait for a page to load you can be reading something in another tab, and so on. Once you get used to this you can't do without it!

Other features and improvements that are fairly common in the newer browsers are pop-up blockers, download managers, built-in search boxes and auto-fill for forms. As far as operation goes they are all remarkably similar to IE and very easy to use - home, reload, stop, back and forward buttons are standard as are bookmarks and history.

If you're still using Internet Explorer consider changing your web browser, especially if you are experiencing strange problems now and again. The number of people using the alternatives is growing rapidly, and the applications are becoming more robust all the time. They are free to download in most cases.

Alternative web browsers:

Mozilla - the open-source browser suite

Firefox - similar to Mozilla but browser only i.e. no email etc.

Netscape - the alternative to IE since the beginning of the internet

Opera - free version incorporates an ad banner