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Tell HN: Goodbye HTML Gmail

• mydriasis 3y ago
  I don't _need_ full GMail feature functionality. It's not necessary.
  • papruapap 3y ago
    Old stuff stills need to be maintained and sometimes old stuff starts requiring the new stuff to work as before. Not to mention maintaining old CI/CD pipelines and Google custom builders.
    • klardotsh 3y ago
      It's not as if Google is exactly hurting for profit, build time, or engineers trained in checks notes basic HTML forms. This is a "fuck you" to folks on low-powered devices, low-bandwidth connections, and anyone else not generally monetizable through their horrendously slow bloatware UI and product tie-ins therein.
      • dangus 3y ago
        Which low end devices can’t run the current version of the mobile gmail site? Who isn’t able to run it? The smartphone penetration rate in sub-Saharan counties has doubled between 2013 and 2017. Countries like Ghana and Senegal had about 30% usage in 2017, and South Africa was over 50%. And 2017 was 6 years ago, so we’re probably at the point where the majority of people in some of the least developed countries on earth are using smartphones that can run a lightweight mobile site with some JavaScript like gmail. At least half of Africa has LTE connectivity, while over 75% has 3G. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/10/09/majorities-in-sub-saharan-africa-own-mobile-phones-but-smartphone-adoption-is-modest/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/10/09/majorities-in-... https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/blog/mobile-connectivity-in-sub-saharan-africa-4g-and-3g-connections-overtake-2g-for-the-first-time/ https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/blog/mobile-connec...
        • rakoo 3y ago
          I live in a rich country and can afford a smartphone but I don't want a site that needs JavaScript to work. I don't want 4G or 5G or above to be mandatory to work well. Because this is completely at odds with what we should be doing environmentally wise: keep existing devices as long as possible without needing to buy new ones, and just use less energy overall. Don't change a website because it feels old, because that's energy that could be used elsewhere. Don't require heavy interactivity. Don't require Yet Another network.
          • dangus 3y ago
            You don’t want to have 4G? Hate to break it to you, in the US 3G has already been shut off. There is only 4G/5G. The same will follow for all other countries. LTE is more cost effective and better for cellular carriers and users. This idea from the hardcore tech Luddite community that the web has died the moment we have to run a line of JavaScript is completely ridiculous. My computer from 1999 could run JavaScript in the browser. It’s time to get over it. Plus, email has an alternative with mail clients, which are a better experience for users with poor data connectivity, anyway.
            • xethos 3y ago
              Not OP, but I don't think the point is 3G vs 4G. I think (and hold the same ideal myself) that requirements should be kept as low as feasible. HTML gMail is there, it works, it's unlikely its maintenance would break the bank for Google - so why kill it? We will be pushed to 4G sooner or later, but lower requirements helps at any major events with lots of traffic on cell towers, or a slow, spotty, over-subscribed wifi connection at an airport or hotel. It helps when your main device breaks, but you don't want one app with high memory requirements to kill everything else on your (old) backup.
              • dangus 3y ago
                Here’s my guess: nobody’s actually using the HTML gmail anymore because device and network capability has improved tenfold or more globally in the last decade or so. The amount of people who moved from feature phones to smartphones is basically everyone. Slow and spotty connections are a nostalgic memory for most people, and even if they’re not, Google provides low bandwidth alternatives via their app and third party mail clients. It’s fine that this service doesn’t cost much money to run but if nobody’s using it there’s no point.
• sysadm1n 3y ago
  Damn. I loved the basic HTML feature in Gmail when logging in on a slow-as-shit 3G connection, or I was behind several proxies and latency was an issue. More enshittification by Google.
  • voganmother42 3y ago
    Agreed, it is/was far superior for poor connections
  • dewey 3y ago
    Wouldn’t just pulling emails through IMAP / POP take even less bandwidth?
    • lycos 3y ago
      Unrelated but made me think of this anecdote; Many years ago I met a tech-savy captain who did have satellite internet on his ship, but it was incredibly expensive (not sure about current pricing), so he only used it briefly every now and then. To receive e-mails (and some other things) he had a server somewhere which fetches everything and then zips it up as compressed as possible and when online synced it to a local computer/server that's onboard. It was pretty fun/interesting to see creative solutions like that to deal with very limited bandwidth in practice.
      • smitty1e 3y ago
        Some 20+ years ago I was a frigate Commo on the great circle route from Pearl Harbor to San Diego. We'd pull email down over Inmarsat, but the geometry was such that the ship literally had to come to a different course and speed to keep a lock on the bird. Physics matter sometimes.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • benguild 3y ago
        yeah, cruise ships with bad internet were a great use case for Basic HTML Gmail
• meristohm 3y ago
  Another reason I'm deprecating Gmail. I'll keep it around awhile, but it's already not my main email provider. I paid for ProtonMail early on and will probably pay for it again at some point even though my use of email in general is comfortably within the free tier.
  • dotcoma 3y ago
    Same here, but I am backing Tutanota.
  • palata 3y ago
    > I'll keep it around awhile, but it's already not my main email provider. Just a reminder that if you had your own domain, then you could seamlessly switch between e.g. gmail and protonmail without having to change your email address. That is really convenient and gives you the freedom to change email provider whenever you want.
• endisneigh 3y ago
  wow, they're not going to support the basic html view forever? terrible company. how else will I check my email in w3m?
  • prmoustache 3y ago
    why aren't you using mutt or pine?
• billwear 3y ago
  Guess it's time to cut and run. I've been mirroring Gmail with Proton paid for a couple of years now. Don't use the HTML version, but might as well kick Google to the curb.
  • palata 3y ago
    Are you using your own domain? Took me a while to realize that, but once you have your own domain, then the provider becomes a detail: you can switch provider without having to update your e-mail address everywhere.
• benrutter 3y ago
  I don't really understand the motivation for this- its not like basic HTML emails is a difficult thing to support. I’d highly recommend posteo for anyone reading this, wanting a privacy focused html-only email service.
  • paco3346 3y ago
    This isn't about html content in emails, it's about the legacy non-SPA version of the Gmail web client.
    • circuit10 3y ago
      I think they were referring to the email client itself being HTML, but it was worded a bit confusingly
    • hotnfresh 3y ago
      It’s the only gmail version that’s not sloooowww and doesn’t eat many hundreds of megabytes to low-gigabytes of memory just for an email client. This’ll be a good push to finally move everything to Fastmail.
• junon 3y ago
  Those looking to jump ship and use a custom domain, I've been very happy with Migadu. I've set up a wildcard inbox system (really easy) such that every website gets its own address, cutting down on spam and unwanted automatic subscription noise.
  • navanchauhan 3y ago
    Seconding using Migadu here. They also provide an educational discount if you’re a current student
  • aiudg33 3y ago
    they look cool but (e.g.) 20/100 sent messages a day for the micro/mini plan seems super low?
    • tredre3 3y ago
      I thought so too because 364 days of the year I will average 0 sent but that one other day I might have a conversation and I don't want my messages to be blocked when I reach 21. Thankfully they allow some margins and after that they just delay messages to the next day: https://www.migadu.com/pricing/#what-after-reaching-limits https://www.migadu.com/pricing/#what-after-reaching-limits So micro seems like a pretty good deal that I'm now considering myself!
      • agotterer 3y ago
        Do they do a good job of getting into the inbox and staying out of spam? That’s the main reason I stay on gmail, it’s so hard to find a provider with shared IPs that reliable land in the inbox.
        • junon 3y ago
          I use a wildcard domain for this. Every site gets its own address. Each whatever@ gets a mailbox on the left side of the screen, which you can individual hide or turn off automatic fetching if you want. Keeps things clean and you don't have to worry about spam so much.
• allan_s 3y ago
  If at least they can stop pushing a bigger and bigger non dimissable banner to force using the gmail app when viewing from a web browser. We add that discussion in our company, so yes I get why companies when to push app usage. But please make it dismissable. You have to accept that you will have a small portion of people that for a lot of reason will never use your app, don't try to force it on them. Otherwise you're just polarizing your user.
  • djbusby 3y ago
    Looking at you Reddit (well, not anymore). Such an annoying banner there i was "forced" to have to use their API into my feed-reader.
    • ForHackernews 3y ago
      Didn't reddit just kill their API? There's an end-game for all of these services and it's not "happy interoperable ecosystem with multiple third-party clients coexisting"
      • hunter2_ 3y ago
        The API is still free for individuals to get a key for personal use. It's recently no longer free for getting a key that you'll bake into something widely distributed to many users (like a turnkey app). It's also now forbidden to distribute a turnkey app that lets the end user paste their personal key after build time (app must only use a single key, so the developer gets billed). Interesting that whatever reader djbusby is talking about doesn't fall afoul! Is it something that's specifically compatible with Reddit's API off the shelf, or did you create that layer yourself?
        • plorkyeran 3y ago
          The apps don't supply a mechanism for supplying your own API key; you have to patch the app to replace the bundled one with your own one.
      • 3y ago
• Tagbert 3y ago
  I switched to using the Mimestream app for my gmail and it has been fast and easy to use.
• daft_pink 3y ago
  Apparently, the saying, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain is true.
  • palata 3y ago
    Google has been the villain for a while now.
• calvinmorrison 3y ago
  if I could just get google workspaces 'chat' on the mobile browser that would be amazing.
• tekknolagi 3y ago
  Where did you see this notification?
  • ojintoad 3y ago
    This tweet at least has a screenshot with the same language, so probably a direct email. https://twitter.com/lukwam/status/1703829400712544623 https://twitter.com/lukwam/status/1703829400712544623
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• failuser 3y ago
  On one hand this is not a big deal, on the other one this is a fallback option on a slow connection and no access to IMAP apps. Someone’s day will be ruined.
  • greggsy 3y ago
    The vintage computing scene mainly.
    • failuser 3y ago
      An interesting point. I wonder what is the best self-hosted alternative is. There is a need for vintage web for vintage machines, and that includes email services.
      • greggsy 3y ago
        The hobby vintage computing scene very rarely plays a part in important recovery or support situations. I would hazard a guess that the number of real and important situations where a critical and irreplaceable legacy system requires access to *Gmail* is close to zero. These systems are unlikely to have access to the internet, and if you’re connecting an *unsupported browser* to a legacy webmail solution, you’re doing things very, very wrong.
      • palata 3y ago
        > I wonder what is the best self-hosted alternative is. What are you thinking of self-hosting? The email server? There are plenty of alternatives to GMail. An email webclient? Just use a non-web client, there are plenty of those too :-).
      • Nodebuck 3y ago
        > I wonder what is the best self-hosted alternative is. For a webmail client probably https://squirrelmail.org https://squirrelmail.org. It's over 2 decades old, still maintained, and kept to its original simplicity.
  • vdfs 3y ago
• tlavoie 3y ago
  As an alternative to moving providers entirely, Gmail still works without using the browser interface. My iPhone and desktop email clients both handle multiple providers, where Gmail is just one of a few. In other words, you can change clients immediately to try it out, and still switch email hosts if you choose and like the client later.
  • kccqzy 3y ago
    Man it makes me feel old that there's a need to point this out. Have most people never worked with native mail clients (MUA is the technical term)? Memorizing the POP (before IMAP) and SMTP servers for my email providers was quite necessary when I was young, especially since I liked reinstalling my OS often.
    • partdavid 3y ago
      Is there a better story for authenticating this than manually generating and storing a long-lived API key in my mutt configuration?
      • lxgr 3y ago
        Gmail supports OAuth 2 for IMAP and SMTP: https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap/xoauth2-protocol https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap/xoauth2-protocol No idea how feasible it is to integrate that with mutt in a client-only integration or if you need a backend for this, though.
        • ravetcofx 3y ago
          It's easier and more reliable to make an App password from my experience
    • stevage 3y ago
      I haven't used a mail client for my personal mail in at least 20 years. Unless you count the Gmail android app.
• uwagar 3y ago
  i knew they'd do it. just like they did to googlecode.
• tombert 3y ago
  I personally use plaintext for all my email, largely because I want people to be able to choose whichever font they'd like to read my email, but also because I want people reading my email to know there's no hidden bullshit like tracking pixels or images or anything crazy like that. In a very literal sense, I feel with plaintext email, what you see is what you get. Sadly, it's getting increasingly hard to work entirely in text mode for email nowadays; people don't have any issues reading my text mail but almost 0% of all my incoming email is plaintext compatible; for mutt I have to run most of my emails through w3m before reading them, which isn't a huge deal but I kind of wish people would just send plaintext unless they have a specific reason not to.
  • hk1337 3y ago
    I don't think that's what they're referring to. I think it's referring to the view in the browser. The email contents itself might still be html/rich text and/or plaintext but viewing in the browser, you have to use the new Gmail UI instead of the original Gmail HTML Basic.
    • tombert 3y ago
      Yeah, fair enough; that's what I get for not actually clicking the link before commenting. My dumb fault.
  • NegativeK 3y ago
    I had to tell a CTO that we can't do plaintext marketing/communication emails because they're much less effective for the average user. I feel like they died a little that day. You, the CTO, and I all prefer plaintext emails, but we're very much the minority.
    • tombert 3y ago
      Yeah... It doesn't affect me, but there are objective reasons for letting people choose their own fonts. My dad has dyslexia and generally has an easier time reading Comic Sans than other fonts. For (I think) obvious reasons his company isn't going to start sending all their HTML-formatted emails in Comic Sans, which means he artificially has to spend more time reading emails than he might otherwise, unless he wants to copypaste the message bodies into MSWord and convert it.
• JZL003 3y ago
  No! I use it constantly because in normal gmail I can only have like 5 versions open ( I have a lot of tabs) before my mac pro explodes. But for HTML gmail I can leave emails open for reference without exploding. I use it so often, it loads so fast for multiple email accounts, instant refresh, it was so good
  • noduerme 3y ago
    I'm surprised I haven't heard this argument more. It's an absurd amount of javascript.[0] I'd think the effect on battery life would be at least as important to many people as the bandwidth of loading it. [0] Just checked, and I get 8.22Mb of heavily compressed JS to load Gmail!
• gorenb 3y ago
  This is a tiny bit sad, honestly.
• smegsicle 3y ago
  great i love waiting for a web app to boot itself up to display a table of email headers
• Animats 3y ago
  So what do you get when Gmail sends email to a non-Gmail address? A link to Google?
  • jsnell 3y ago
    What in the world are you on about?
• davotoula 3y ago
  That would explain why they added selection of multiple emails (after 10 years of request) for deletion im the app. It was the only feature I was using the basic html for.