Okay, time to debunk a couple of things that have come up in this thread. 1) "webmail is vulnerable to hacks" - Well, not really. All of the email preview-pane or attachment auto attacks I've heard about only affect Outlook and do not affect gmail. Sure, if you execute a bad attachment you're going to get infected no matter what but Outlook is way more vulnerable here.
2) "can't backup Gmail" - Well that's just not true. If you want, you can just access it through Outlook or Thunderbird via POP and download everything. Or you can use a backup client like MailStore: www.mailstore.com 3) "webmail is slower" Not sure where this comes from. I've got 40,000+ messages in my gmail acccount, all searchable on the fly much, much faster than using the backup set I have in Thunderbrd on my desktop. Plus, you never have to worry about running out of mailbox space. That's a huge plus if you've ever worked in a corporate setting where they put tiny caps like 200mb on mailbox sizes. Then you are forced to move your stuff to offline mailboxes which makes you vulnerable to crashes. 4) "I must be online to access my email" - Used to be true, but not since Google released offline Gmail a few months ago. Just install Google Gears, enable offline Gmail, and presto. So you can download then go offline and do whatever. 5) "Google has all your data and can do evil things" - sure they have your data but that isn't any different than your ISP which has it all anyways. And there are a lot more ways (and incentives) your ISP can screw you over than Google. For me, this is unavoidable and I'm a fairly paranoid kind of guy (run Truecrypt on my machines, use VPNs to connect when traveling, etc). 6) "problems syncing with mobile devices" - My iPhone syncs beaufiully with my Google contacts, calendar and email. No issues there. Honestly, I think this is a case of people bringing ether pre-conceived notions or "old fuddy" syndrome. You know, like "Back in my day, a car was something you could take apart and fix yourself" or "I don't trust this new-fangled thingie". And that's fine - everyone is free to make their own choices and rationalize it however they want. But please, make sure you separate the facts from the opinions so others can make their own decisions. --------------------------- Brian Weeden Technical Advisor Secure World Foundation <http://www.secureworldfoundation.org> +1 (514) 466-2756 Canada +1 (202) 683-8534 US
