Gmail vs. Yahoo Mail: A Quick Comparison
There is no doubt that Yahoo Mail dominates the market, based on statistics by Hitwise US. But in my opinion, a user’s satisfaction with the service is a better barometer of which is actually better. Choosing an email service depends on one’s preference. Some users may like customizeability, some may like how attachments are displayed, and some may like the security features in the different mail carriers. Personally, though, I’m a fan of great user interfaces, and my preference for my web mail provider would depend on how good the interface is (hint: I prefer Gmail).
I’ve been a Yahoo! Mail user long before Gmail was invented. But as soon as Gmail was announced (and as soon as I got an invite), I was hooked. But some people might still prefer Yahoo!. Here’s a quick comparison of how Gmail and Yahoo Mail (classic) differ these days.
Security
In Gmail, the images are not displayed, by default. This is primarily because spammers sometimes use images in their emails so as to bypass text-based spam filters. There are also known vulnerabilities with how Windows handles JPG images, which could let malicious code be injected into one’s system. Though I still get the occasional 419 scam email in my Gmail inbox, I have yet to see an image-based spam email there. In my Yahoo account, however, more than five image-based spam emails have found their way into my inbox in this month alone.
Both have effective spam filters. As soon as an email has been designated as spam, it is assured that the sender’s emails will get sent directly to the spam folder henceforth.
There is a difference in what happens when you designate an email as spam, however. In Gmail, as soon as you designate the email as spam, the mail gets transferred to the spam folder. In Yahoo Mail, you have to manually move the email to the trash.
Gmail also has a feature that allows you to preview your email’s contents on your browser, either through HTML or even Google Docs. I believe this lessens the likelihood of your inadvertently running script/macro based malware on your desktop, such as with Microsoft Office.
Customizability, User Interface and Ads
There is no doubt that Yahoo Mail is more customizable than Gmail. You can choose colors for the mail interface, and you can even switch to the new Yahoo Mail, which gives you desktop-like functionality. Gmail, on the other hand, is simple and spare.
The ads on Yahoo Mail are mostly images, while in Gmail, they are in the form of “Web Clips”, links displayed on the inbox area and AdSense-like text links that are displayed according to the context of the message you are currently reading.
The web clip method of displaying ads makes for a less cluttered email experience. Though the ads on Yahoo Mail are not obtrusive, still, Gmail offers the cleaner User Interface, in terms of ads.
The new Yahoo Mail is just too cluttered for my eyes. I tried it before, when Yahoo first offered their new email UI by invitation. I liked the reading pane, which lets you just click the title of the email and its contents are then displayed in another pane below (much like when reading using Outlook Express).
However, the overall New Yahoo Mail experience for me leaves much to be desired. The look is just too cluttered, in my opinion. I reverted to the original Yahoo Mail in a jiffy. The new Yahoo Mail features were fun and intuitive to use, though: the reading pane (as mentioned), tabbed messages, drag and drop organization and rearrangement of items, and there are keyboard shortcuts to make your life easier, among other features.
I found out that I could actually have both my colorful original Yahoo Mail interface plus the reading pane function all at the same time by using a Firefox plugin, anyway, so I thought there was no reason to use the New Y! mail anytime soon. Now I can open my emails without leaving my inbox.
To conclude, I’m personally still much of a Gmail fan. for some it may look sparse and basic, but as you’ve probably been reading here on Google Tutor with our Gmail tips and tricks, you’ll probably agree with me that Gmail is one powerful webmail system.
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I want to love Gmail - I really do! But I just hate the “conversations” concept.
I recently tried to search through a large set of system emails for a specific phrase in the body of the message. That should be easy, no? Especially when the search is “powered by Google”!
Unfortunately these emails shared the same ’subject’ line. And so Google stuck hundreds of them together as a “conversation”. The end result was that the search results were COMPLETELY useless to me: I could not see how to disentangle the emails that were of interest to me from those that were completely irrelevant. Furthermore the way that emails within that conversation were ‘expanded’ or ‘contracted’ seemed completely random and out of my control too.
Any email application that cannot do the most basic search of the archive e.g. “show me only emails with the phrase ‘Pali Gap’ in the body of the message” fails at the first hurdle as far as I’m concerned. That it should be Google that fails on basic search is astonishing.
Or perhaps I just don’t know how to run the filters and labels? I must be stupid then! (quite possible).
I use both regularly. Neither is perfect for my uses, but I still predominantly use Yahoo! Classic.
I like Gmail’s conversation linkage, but I don’t like the fonts, lack of stationary, and some other aspects of Gmail.
I like Yahoo! mail’s speed, graphics, stationary, fonts, colors, etc.
Filing: I prefer Gmail’s labels.
and so on.
Former Y! mail user now Gmail user. Functionality/features of Gmail trump Y! mail. It’s new and different way, but better once you get used to it.
I use both regularly. Now Yahoo it is far better at least in my opinion. This conversation concept is good but it is not to replace the need of folders. In time you will have a bunch of mails not possible to organize. Only grouping them on conversations is not enough. Also it is privacy that suffer because try to imagine that you want to show to somebody a message but in the same time you don’t want that the other messages to be seen. How to do it!
The other basic features are quite similar on all e-mail clients or services. The difference is made by e-mail management features.
There are two things that I dont’t like in yahoo now:
- pop account missing;
- impossible to send protected zip attachements;
Who knows maybe someone from Google will read this comments and being so creative and open maybe we will see some more advanced message management features!!!
can I turn off the conversation aspect of gmail grouping?
Which has a better spam filter (I HATE SPAM!!)
thanks for sharing such view.
im currently thinking of switching to gmail from yahoo since i can download my emails using outlook whilst such feature is for a fee with yahoo.
your info has been a big help.
in gmail. how am i going to send a forwarded email to multiple contacts? like i want to forward an email message to 20 friends.
in gmail you need to type the address first then an auto complete will show you the email addreses save in contacts.
unlike in yahoo just click on the “TO” button and a pop-up will appear showing your contact list and all you need to do is to select which email or for multiple contacts, just press the shift or control key then point the mouse pointer to desired email address(es).
Help me with my issue on how to send message in multiple recipients. Thank u.
yahoo screwed up with their mail domain key concept which make delay to receive mail from local server
Gmail is the best.
with high giga capacity of storage.
BEST SPAM REDIRECTION (as soon i mark the spam emails as spam i never see them again in my inbox ). Best Search and many other features that they have added is making google fantastic.
According to my point of view google will be the webmail leader in the world by coming 2015 . . .
All the best Google !!!
Rafi
I am wanting to forward my e-mail to everyone on my contact list,how do I do that? On other e-mail sights all you do is click on the TO and a list of your contacts show up,but in gmail this is not true. How in the world is forwarding to multiple contacts in gmail is accomplished??
THANK YOU
I want to insert a JPG that I created in the body of my email instead of an attachment. Which lets me do that more easily, gmail of yahoo email?
I belive yahoo! classic was a a better one than the all new thing. cus its to clustered and the space given to read the mail is reduced remarkably. so u have to drag all over the place to read a message. So i have moved myself to gmail. And it gives the POP facility as you can use it with your outlook, which you can’t do with yahoo mail, free!
Gmail is so clean…I am committed to unclutter.
Big Q: Why can’t I sort gmail by sender like I can in Yahoo or Outlook?
Seems sooooo basic…and save a ton of time.
Is there a plugin that could allow me to sort my gmail by sender?
Thanks.
once a gmailer, always a gmailer..
i love the UI because if its simplicity..
GMail:
Pros: Fun, eyes catching, labels, conversation views, POP, IMAP, Google Talk (I don’t think many are using this program, but worth an effort from GMail), …
Cons: Contacts management (delete the recently mailed ‘contact(s)’ will affect the “Contacts” list as well, cannot change color, lacks of colored labels, fonts, unable to print the messages from the ‘Inbox’, …
Yahoo!:
Pros: Unlimited space (I think), Yahoo Instant Messenger, Folders, changeable theme color, able to print the whole messages from the ‘Inbox’, …
Cons: Too bland, All-New version still with the side ad (really annoying, had to click the arrow to make it disappear every time), no POP or IMAP (need to pay $19.99 / year or month (forgot) to have the POP, possibly IMAP feature available) …
Fellow Gmail users and Yahoo users, if you have anything to add onto what I have, please feel free. I know there should be more pros and cons for these two but that’s all I could think of … for now. I am as frustrated as anyone here.
My conclusion, GMail is on the rise, that does not make them the best, not just yet, there are many things that these two competitors are needed to improve on, thus far, I haven’t seen any email providers that met or exceed our expectations.
In the case of yahoo mail it is very slow for load because it contains advertisemensts .But in the case of Gmail they dont have any advertisement like yahoo and msn