Firefox 3 & Y!Mail make changing your default client easy!
- Posted July 8th, 2008 at 4:25 pm by Ryan
- Categories: All-New Mail, Classic Mail, General, Mac, New Stuff, Tips & Tutorials
For everyone out there who has been longing for an easier way to set Yahoo! Mail as your default email client I have some delightful news. With the much ballyhooed recent debut of Firefox 3, as well as some recent updates to All-New Mail, it’s never been easier.
Some of our savvier Windows users have been able to follow a rather simple (but somewhat tedious) process for some time now, and our Mac users have been totally left out (the sad price we pay for being tragically hip), but now everyone can join in on the fun with just a couple steps.
One of the big additions to FF3 is the Applications section of the Options/Preferences menu. There you can designate how just about any type of link will behave when you click on it. Just look for “mailto” under Content Type and select “Use Yahoo! Mail”.
The list of content types is pretty long, so they’ve also provided a handy Search field to narrow your results.
Now if you happen to be a bit phobic when it comes to digging around your Options/Preferences, All-New Mail has an awesome alternative.
Recently added to the Options drop-down is an entry for “Set Y! Mail as my default webmail”. Doing so will switch your “mailto” action from whatever it was to “Always Ask”.
The next time you click on a “mailto” link you will get a handy pop-up asking you to pick your email client, and giving you the choice to make that selection permanent. Settings changed and you never had to navigate your Options/Prefs.
If you haven’t tried Firefox 3 you can download it from the Mozilla website. Most of you should already see that new choice in your Options menu, but if not you should have it in the next week or so.
Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail
- Buzz up
- Subscribe via RSS
- 39 Comments
July 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Have you guys been working on optimizing Yahoo! Mail for IE8? The last time I tried going on the new Yahoo! Mail on IE8, a few months ago, it didn’t work so well. I tried opening a few messages, and the site crashed on me. Of course, IE8 is still in beta, but hopefully you guys are optimizing Y! Mail for IE8.
I’ve used FF3, and while it’s nice, it’s not my cup of tea. For some reason, I just still prefer the look of IE over Firefox. Or some other features that I don’t think FF does so well. Now that IE8 is all about web standards, there’s no reason why Yahoo! Mail should be hard to use on IE.
Great work on the new Yahoo! Mail guys. I love it!
July 8th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I almost forgot to mention : Any news if Yahoo! Calendar will receive any new updates to fit the whole new Yahoo! look? Calendar is seriously getting outdated, and I’m just using Live Calendar for now.
I’m crossing my fingers for any news about an improved Yahoo! Calendar.
July 8th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Hi Quikboy,
-
We are working on a lot of things, but I don’t have any details to share about Yahoo! Calendar.
-
In fact one of the things we have been working on is IE8. We are giving warnings before people proceed, but overall the experience is pretty solid. We’re definitely keeping an eye on it
-
Ryan
-
July 8th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Ryan, that ’set as default’ doesnt show in my All-New mail program.
Also, I think I have found a bug in Mail regarding FF3. Can I send details to you directly?
July 8th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Check that, it does show in my mail program.
But I have two, not one, possible bugs/errors for you.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Thank you for all the new updates. I would also like to see the Yahoo Calendar get an updated look to match the ajaxified mail. The current Yahoo Calendar user interface requires a lot of clicking to add an entry and it just looks sooo 1995. It could sure benefit from a much overdue facelift.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Yeah, these additions are pretty cool. Personally, I tend to keep Y!Mail open in an Fx tab. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but it’d be pretty cool if mailto links could smartly focus an existing Y!Mail tab and open up a compose tab there, rather than opening up a second Y!Mail tab.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:19 am
[…] post by AFP and software by Elliott Back Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where […]
July 9th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Great news indeed. Thanks for your updates
July 9th, 2008 at 8:55 am
If Mac users are so “hip,” why have you taken the “Forward as Attachment” option away from us and kept it for Windows users?
July 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am
skepticalthinker,
-
I was starting to worry that I wasn’t going to get a single remark on the “hip” comment
-
We’ve actually already done the work to get that function included for Mac users. It should be rolling out to Classic users gradually in the coming weeks. I’ll post more info as it becomes available.
-
Ryan
-
July 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
why won’t you make this to work with safari? all you write is that it works with safari 523.10! apple says there is NO SUCH ANIMAL so how bout safari 3.1.2? they have that one and it’s pretty goo too! I wrote to your tech dept and got a standard blow off letter,that was back in march still waiting
mrchrisd
July 9th, 2008 at 9:57 am
netster007x,
-
I’ll pass that along to the product guys and see if we can make that a reality.
-
Thanks for the feedback!
-
Ryan
July 9th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Ryan,
Great to hear that about Forward as attachment!!
Stay hip!
August 4th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
skep: did you get closure on how to do this? just hold down the “command” (apple) key while you click “Forward”
July 9th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Mr. Knight,
Glad to hear about the new update and its great.
Now all you have to do is put more background options for us ladies who like more than blah and boring type of background. How about mountain’s tropical beach scenes. And how about more color palette, like pastels, or earthtones. Please for us ladies. Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
July 9th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I am still annoyed that when I move a message to a folder I have to scroll down instead of being able to type the first letter to get right to it.
For this reason (I have close to the unreasonably small limit of 200 folders), I am still with classic mail - the new mail is much worse.
July 9th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Hi Ryan,
I have been having a lot of issues with Y!Mail crashing FF3. I tried everything including a full clean install with no addons. I know that there have been others facing the same issue but so far no response from either FF or Yahoo. I contacted Y! support but got the not our fault response. Any advice? In the meantime I have gone back to FF2+. Thanks
July 9th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
@Barbara,
-
Are you talking about the whole window for Mail, or within individual messages (like stationary)?
-
@mjc,
-
I’ll pass along the feedback, but would also like to know more about your folder behaviors. I’ve always been very much into keeping things organized (never more than a few items on the cpu desktop, all my DVDs and CDs alphabetized, etc.) and I can’t imagine hitting that folder limit :). Would like to be able to communicate that to my team.
-
@Ken,
-
I’ll do some digging, but it would help if you could provide links showing the others who have described similar problems.
-
Ryan
ymailblog1[at]yahoo.com
July 9th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
please register my web
July 10th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Hey,
I don’t get any graphics at all using IE6 (company machine, can’t upgrade browser), just a bunch of text.
Did you folks do something that broke it for IE6?
How do I get back to the ‘old’ mail browser?
Thanks
July 10th, 2008 at 3:32 am
[…] Αντίστοιχα από το Yahoo! Mail Blog: […]
July 10th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Hi Ryan,
Check out this link http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=fr&comments_parentId=29541&forumId=1
If you google Yahoo Mail crashing FF3 you will find a lot of forums with similar experience. Thanks again for your help.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Hi Ryan,
Where’s a lot of debate about which browser is the fastest, safest, most customizable etc.
Here’s a website where people can have there say on the subject. They can also download Firefox 3 and another great contender in the ongoing browser war.
http://firefoxopera.com
Tomas
July 10th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Ken,
-
I checked that link and did some searches of my own, and they all reference FF3 beta versions. Do you have any other examples of people running FF3 in its current release, and having these problems?
-
Ryan
July 10th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Ryan,
I have the sad feeling that this is the closest we will ever get to IMAP like Gmail has.
July 10th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
cool site , thanks
July 10th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
are you going to update folders within Yahoo? I’d like to see a tiered folder structure. For example, a folder called Bills and then under that there is a folder called Utilities, another called Medical, etc. More like Windows folder structure. the + & - for expanding/rolling up folders.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Ryan, the are a number of posts in Jun/July describing the same issue so it can’t be a problem in beta only. Did you check out the following:
http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=el&comments_parentId=90234&forumId=1
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.feedback.firefox/browse_thread/thread/7cc5b0e0d1e781ba
This must be probably isolated issues with a few systems so is not widespread enough for Mozilla or Yahoo to look into it. I have gone back to FF2 as it seems to go into the “too hard” basket. Hate to have to switch to IE!
July 12th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Ryan,
I am presently General Released version of FF3 on MS Vista. When I open Yahoo mail, I can see all of my folders and the Inbox tab indicating new messages. Once I click on the Inbox tab, FF 3 will crash. I have tried to remove the file from the Yahoo shared directory mentioned in the FF KB with no success. I used to have no problems with FF2 and Yahoo Mail.
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated from the FF community.
Thanks,
July 13th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I can make it FF default mail client yet I can’t even use it with Opera.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I tried your tip and now I can’t seem to log into Yahoo! Mail. I have tried everything from starting at the parent Yahoo! site to using my bookmarked link (both in my links folder and from my blog) but everytime I try to login to Yahoo! Mail from my Mac using Firefox, it sends me back to the login screen again. It’s an endless loop. Funny thing is, it was working fine until I found your suggestion of making Yahoo! Mail my default for Firefox. Any suggestions?
~C
July 17th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Yay! Sew happy to see that the “mailto” link can be adapted to my Yahoo! account. It’s annoying to click a mailto link & have Outlook pull up (which I never use)
Thank You
I “third” the request for a better folder tier. I have 27 folders and scrolling to move folders is starting to get tedius. As a student,9 are different courses I’ve taken in the past year. Then there’s others for department correspondence and different levels within the Rose Float Program , I use the search feature but also rely on folders for quick reference or deeper searching when the search bar doesn’t return what I’m looking for,
July 20th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Hi Ryan,
You are doing an excellent job with the new YMail, I really like this new feature, to integrate ymail as my default program to send mail.
I really love the new yahoo, I have been trying to use the Mail 3.0 program on my mac but there is a problem to sync the mail I have at yahoo web mail and the mail I downloaded to my machine.
So I have a question, are thinking to integrate IMAP to yahoo mail?, I think that it would be a nice feature for most of the users.
well thanks,
-caesarT
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:43 am
I am having problems viewing my mail using FF3. There are no graphics and everything is out of place. Some buttons don’t work either. However, everything else works: Yahoo Homepage, Games, MyYahoo…just the mail is messed up. How do I fix it? (I already cleared the cache)
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
I am having problems viewing my mail using FF3. There are no graphics and everything is out of place. Some buttons don’t work either. However, everything else works: Yahoo Homepage, Games, MyYahoo…just the mail is messed up. How do I fix it? (I already cleared the cache)
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
Thank you for the effort
I’ve got a problem
I can enter the Messenger on yahoo, but I can not enter my same-id on my e mail
aboezeec@yahoo.com
July 26th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Ryan,
As far as the “Chat” feature, its OK but it would be much more usable if I could set my stealth status for each contact, like in messenger. I can’t use messenger because it completely DOGS my machine.
Thanks
August 24th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Yahoo mail doesn’t work on Firefox 3! Fix that please…