Pizzasgood wrote:(For the record, I do still use Gmail. I'm eventually going to run my own email server, but now isn't a good time for me to set that up. So rather than move twice, I'm just sticking with Gmail for the time being.)
I use GMail as my primary email account. It polls a couple of other accounts, and all mail appears in my Gmail inbox. My GMail mail store is a database, searchable with standard Google methods. Labels and filters provide flexible means of categorizing and classifying.
I don't have to worry about my Inbox becoming full and mail bouncing because I've exceeded my space allocation on my email provider's server because I haven't been able to check it for a couple of days.
I don't have to worry about my local email client behaving strangely when my local mail store goes over a certain size. (Older versions of Outlook had problems is your mailbox.pst file grew over 2GB...)
I don't have to worry about malicious attachments because the mail is stored on Google's servers. They never reach my machine unless I specifically choose to download them, and I know what they are and where they came from before I do.
I don't worry about spam, because GMail has the best spam filters I've seen. Perhaps one spam a week actually makes it to my Inbox, and Report Spam means I won't see any more like it.
Yep, my mail is on Google's servers. Yes, they can potentially read it. I don't
care. I have never considered email secure technology, and as a rule, I don't say things in email that would give me heartburn if they became public. You want to read my mail, Google? Have at! Unless you are me, you will be mystified or terminally bored.
If it's
that private, hey! That's what GPG is for. But thus far, I have yet to have a reason to use it.
Does Google know a lot about me? Probably. What can they do with it? Sell it to advertisers, who want to better understand what they might be able to sell me and the best way to make the pitch. You know what? I don't care about that either. Like everyone else, I buy goods and services. Like anyone else, advertising is one way I discover stuff I might want to buy. Advertising that better targets who I am and what I need is good. It reduces the time and effort I have to expend the sort the wheat from the chaff. And I'm pretty good at reading between the lines of a pitch, knowing when I'm being sold a bill of goods, and saying "No!" to offers.
EDIT: For clarification, I don't consider Google evil. Just potentially troublesome.
Like any other publicly held company. I trust Google rather more than I trust M$. I simply recognize their motives. They want to stay in business. To do that, they have to make money. But unlike M$, I'm not effectively forced to use their services. There are alternatives to what they offer. Thus far, Google gets the nod here because their offerings are better than the alternatives.
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Dennis