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Bangalore:
Google announced on June 28
2012 that Gmail has a whopping 425 million active users,
putting it
way past Microsoft's Hotmail service, which stands at 325
million
users (
Gmail
usage is growing at an explosive rate, and Microsoft has been
forced into action to keep up, releasing Outlook.com as the
revamped
new-age email offering to force users away from Gmail. While it
has
its own
of
perks, Gmail still offers things which will help to retain
its
loyal subscribers. We look at 5 of those features below:
1) Add Some
Masala To Your Mail
Loyal
Gmail users will be well aware of
Labs
which offers many experimental features that can be added to
your
Gmail interface to improve your user experience. Google has
always
been a supporter of open source development, so it's no
surprise that
a myriad of experimental plug-ins have been submitted by
developers
for your own benefit. Examples of some cool plug-ins are
previews in mail
(which presents photo previews from Flickr inline in Gmail)
and
Canned
Responses
which are template messages that can be saved and sent
quickly).
2) Secure Your
Account Better
Security
experts have been critical of Outlook.com's security because
it only
offers users a maximum 16 character password to pick.
Meanwhile,
Gmail offers as many as 200 characters for its passwords. And
yes, it
is a big deal! It is easier for hackers to figure out a 16
character
password than it is to guess a 200 character password.
Moreover, it
should also be noted that email ids such as donotreply@outlook.com
were
already
taken up when checked, which may be used by phishers to
launch mail scams in the future. Meanwhile, Gmail has proved
that it
has great filtering systems to detect spam mail, so users are
rarely
troubled by junk mails.
3) Access your
mails any way you want to
Users
want to have the freedom to send/receive mail from other email
aliases into a single consolidated email view. To be able to do
this,
the email service will need to support certain protocols. As
such,
users will be disappointed to know that Outlook.com only offers
POP
support while Gmail offers both POP and IMAP support. Hence,
email
users will be able to receive/send from the Gmail server on a
wider
variety of email clients as compared to Outlook.com.
4) Gmail is
still the Usain Bolt of email services
Speed
matters for customers. With processing power and internet speeds
growing exponentially every year, email users expect their
services
to load lightning-fast. We did tests on general email loading
times
and search times on both Outlook.com and Gmail, across Chrome,
Firefox and Internet Explorer. Through our use-case
experimentation,
we found that Gmail loads mails faster than Outlook.com and the
search function in Gmail is significantly quicker than
Outlook.com,
probably owing to Google's search engine prowess. While
outlook.com
is by no means slow, Gmail still leads the pack.
5) Consistency
Is Key
If
you're using the beta version of Outlook.com, you will notice a
jarring change in interface when one switches from the mail view
to
the calendar view. The entire interface changes from the
snazzy-looking Metro style to the old and outdated Hotmail.com
interface. We found this change in interface quite disturbing.
Meanwhile, Gmail maintains a consistent layout between the Mail
view
and other views, such as Google Calendar and Google Drive. While
Microsoft has said that they will also revamp the other views
available through Outlook.com, they have to deliver before they
come
up to par with Gmail.