YMail is sittin’ (pretty) on Chrome … so far
- Posted September 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm by Ryan
- Categories: All-New Mail, Classic Mail, General, Mac, New Stuff
No, I’m not talking about a fresh set of rims for your lowriding hooptie. News around the water cooler (as well as on our very own front page), is that our friends from just up the road have rolled out a new browser option called Chrome. Not sure I know what went into the name choice, but at this point I’m going to assume that they are just huge Masta Ace fans and particularly loved his works from the mid 90′s. I always felt that Ace peaked with “Born to Roll”, but that may not translate as well into a web product.
Anyway, what this means to YMail users is there is another browser being thrown into the compatibility pool. The good news is that the Chrome development team has leveraged the open source project known as Webkit, which is also the underlying framework that Apple used for the Safari browser. Since we have built the All-New Mail to work well with Safari (and it’s underlying Webkit framework) this first release of Chrome so far seems to provide a fairly consistent experience for Windows users (currently not available for Mac or Linux).
That being said, we still have a lot of testing to do before we can guarantee that the user experience will be consistent and reliable. In the meantime users can always use one of the three, fully supported, browser options for both versions of YMail: Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari.
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- 53 Comments
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
It is not just sitting pretty – it renders way faster on Chrome compared with FF. Even Gmail take a bit on Chrome. Almost feels like I am using the Zimbra desktop for Yahoo mail.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I agree – YMail is really snappy in Chrome – fantastic!
September 9th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Chrome works great with ymail, but I can’t seem to post an answer in yahoo answers. Not a big deal as I can still use IE. Just thought you’d want to know.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Oh, yeah? How about some support for the Opera Browser?!?! (which has been around so much longer and has already so many more users that you don’t care for)
September 4th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Yep.
I’m with you. I use Opera exclusively, and have for over a year. It’s more versatile, and safer than the rest.
It’s unfortunate that Yahoo Mail doesn’t fully support Opera. You don’t allow “autocomplete” there, etc.
Chrome may be nice, (I wouldn’t know yet), but how about giving Opera some support?
Gary
September 5th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Opera has been around long enough that it should have a significantly larger user base if it was truly competitive. I used to be a huge Opera fan, and then Firefox version 1.0 came out.
Of just barely over 490k visitors to my site in the past month, just 0.19% were using Opera. As of this week, we already have double the Chrome users than Opera. So Chrome has done better in less than one week than Opera has done in 14 years since its release in 1994. Does that answer your question? :-)
September 12th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Nope.
Not particularly.
Probably the reason Chrome has more users, is because you promote it.
A lot of people don’t use Opera because they haven’t heard of it.
Version 9.5 is awesome.
I’m sure you promote and make a big fanfare for Chrome, because there are business advantages for Yahoo there, in connection with Google.
PC World magazine still recommends Opera as one of the most safe, if not THE safest browser out there, not to mention it’s versatility.
I am very disappointed that Yahoo doesn’t support it, and will go back to using hotmail, as I did in the past.
Gary
September 14th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Gary,
I understand your frustration, and will continue to relay the frustrations of Opera fans, however you seem to have missed the central point of of my post.
Much fanfare was being made in the news about Google’s new browser, and I wanted to let everyone know that while we haven’t actually made any changes to accommodate Chrome…it so far seems to work well because of it’s similarities to Safari.
We are not promoting Chrome as a recommended browser for either version of Yahoo! Mail.
-Ryan
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
ok, once more- tell me where to send screenshots, i see some rendering issues..
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Ryan, how can we have an alert show up when we get yahoo mail? The alert in messenger is hard-coded to only bring up–gasp—IE. Thats why I use a great extension for alerts in FF3.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
@=bg=
A couple things about your request for a means to be alerted about new mail in Y! Mail…
1) YIM is not “hard-coded” to call IE. It is using the default program settings in your operating system. Are you sure FF is set as your “default browser?”
2) additionally, YIM can place an indicator of new mail in your system tray which can prompt you to check your mail and you will most definitely select your browser of choice, yes?
3) The Y! Toolbar, in addition to providing the most functional online bookmarks/favorites storage available (bookmarks.yahoo.com), also is able to notify you of new mail.
Hope this helps…
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 am
=bg=,
jbeaul is right. The Messenger notifier triggers your default browser. As long as you set your default to a browser that is compatible with YMail you should have no problems.
-Ryan
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
What about Opera?
Have you completely neglected it?
Thanks.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:49 am
How about making Ymail work with the Windows Mobile version of Internet Explorer? Now that would be good!
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:41 am
I am having problems with Yahoo! Mail and it seems to happen everytime something new is added to the system. It would help if we were given warning about new additions and that it may cause problems. My current problem is a”client side error”,which I’ve recently starting getting. Can you explain what that is and what I can do about it?
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 am
Sorry, the all-new Yahoo! Mail does not support REALITY*.
Because at least some 20 million users use Opera Desktop browser, and Opera is on more and more devices (recently, some new ARCHOS handhelds).
And, reality is, most Opera users do get by, never seeing All-New Yahoo! Mail’s discriminatory no-go message, because Opera maintains workarounds and hacks and spoofs to make All-New Yahoo! Mail play nicely on Opera, which it does (apart from a little slowness, which is clearly not Opera’s fault.)
I’m sure Opera’s team is willingful to help make Yahoo! Mail officially work in Opera.
Please consider Opera as an existing browser with existing users, who have existing demand for All-New Yahoo! Mail while still using their favorite, very secure and yet extensively customizable browser.
Thank you for reading this. Good luck in Chrome-plating also! :)
* “Sorry, the all-new Yahoo! Mail does not support your browser.” is the message that is only presented to the Opera user if they deliberately turned off a special workaround facility in the normally-hidden advanced settings.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
Hi everyone,
I hear you on the Opera support, but I want to make sure everyone is clear on something about Chrome. What I tried to mention in the post (but perhaps not clearly enough) is that they built Chrome with a similar backend to a browser that we already support.
We did not commit any engineering resources to prepare for its launch, but are pleased that our early tests indicate that YMail should be compatible right away. This is because our efforts to support Safari (and its Webkit architecture) translated directly over to Chrome. We are still testing to see if everything works as designed, and still recommend that users stick with one of the three supported browsers (Firefox, IE, Safari).
We will continue to evaluate where we can allocate our resources to get as many users served as possible. We are aware of the demand that many of you are expressing for Opera, and I’ll continue to relay that feedback. Can’t make any promises though.
-Ryan
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:50 am
Do “loaded” TOO MANY Browsers cause trouble for NON-Tech folks ?
I have FIreFox and Internet Explorer; when I change “sites” a pop-up says Internet Explorer can’t open it – after the site is open. So, I must “close” that pop-up before I can “work”.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:42 am
i can not connect to my web page and get scrip error all the time, what do i need to do ?????? tired……
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Let me try those suggestions on Messenger/alerts, thanks! PS- someone mentioned Toolbar- can that even run on this? (Chrome?)
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:39 pm
=bg=,
We don’t have a toolbar for Chrome, and I can’t say if/when we will. Like I said, it’s helpful that they used a backend that is compatible with a lot of the work we did for Safari, but it’s still a very new browser and we can’t vouch at all about it’s stability or security.
Given that it has an almost automatic compatibility we understand that we need to keep a close eye on it.
-Ryan
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:53 pm
YAHOO IS COOL
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Here’s the scoop with Messenger. I was using AT&T Yahoo Messenger as I use the AT&T Yahoo co-branded DSL. Even though I set my default browser to Chrome..when I clicked on a YMail alert..it brought up FF. Everytime. So I uninstalled the IM. Went to get the Yahoo IM 9.0 Beta..and now when I click on an alert..Chrome comes up. I also see that the ad banners in Yahoo Mail—oops, no ad block yet in Chrome–shows as DNS Error.
Screenshot here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/brinkeguthrie/Untitled-8.jpg
September 4th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Before it sounded like you were trying to get FF to open, but now I guess you are pushing for Chrome. Like I said, Chrome appears to work fine because of it’s underlying similarities to Safari, but we can’t say for sure.
-Ryan
September 4th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Ymail works wonderfully well with the new Google browser Chrome I even have added a mini application that open ymail on my desktop
September 4th, 2008 at 11:08 am
so do think the knicks be good what think
September 4th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Using Chrome to access Y!M and loving it! Fast, Fast, Fast!
September 4th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Ryan, I have a LOT of items to show you RE Chrome/Mail. I have tried to post them here but the blog’s not posting them. Whats a good email add for you?
September 4th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I think the spam tools on the blog are blocking some of your comments because of velocity. You can email stuff to me directly, however I don’t know how many resources we will be giving to Chrome (given that it is a new browser with low adoption).
-Ryan
September 4th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
and the email add is……..?
September 4th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Sorry =bg=, I’ve posted it so many times I assumed everyone knew it ;)
ymailblog1[at]yahoo.com
September 4th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I use IE 8 Beta 2. Ymail complains on initial load saying this browser may be unsupported, click load anyway, and go man go.
j a c k
PS, no interest in Chrome. It and FF suck at loading Flash code, CPU hog and being at the mercy of several Flash flooded web sites, I need my CPU cycles for other coolness.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
How about support for the flash 10 beta for the web client of Messenger?
It’s annoying that I have to use IE instead of firefox (which has Flash 10 installed).
September 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Ryan YAHOO is coming up and it wonerful, I just want to say Thanks!~
September 4th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
(Sorry,Ryan grammer issue)
YAHOO is coming up and it is wonerful, I just want to say Thanks!~
September 4th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Since downloading chrome – I’ve been having trouble accessing contacts when using Mozilla 3.0
Also, mail “freezes” when sending in Mozilla as well.
I don’t know if Chrome use and the problems I’m having are related, but it happened all day today.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:36 am
What I want to know about “Spammers” is this; How are they sending me junk and using my accounts name as the sender?
It doesn’t seem that they should be able to e-mail me from my accounts addresses? It’s always from me to me and I’m not sending myself nothing!
I don’t even open anything that’s not something I’m not involved in or have use for. I delete them!
I’ve opened up new accounts to try to eliminate this problem but, they’re using that new user name to send their trash to me as well. Same trash all the time.
September 5th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Steve,
There are many email applications and services that allow users to edit what appears as the “from” or “reply-to” address. Yahoo! requires that users authenticate an address before they can claim it as a “from” address, but unfortunately not all email options do the same.
-Ryan
September 5th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I’m having a problem with YMail RSS feeds tool. The ‘Previously viewed posts’ status will appear again as “unread posts” when switching between different browsers. For example, a viewed YMail blog post few days ago under IE browser now reappear as an unread post when I’m using Firefox or Safari browser.Sometimes it become annoying…
Any ways you may figure out and to solve this small problem?Thanks.
September 6th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
do not put this chrmoe on ur pc, it will own u. Lock, stock & soul, take a glance at http://www.bocktherobber.com and what he says.!!!
September 6th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
How nice that it is working on Chrome. Of course it still does not work on Opera. WTF is with having to use the old version on Opera?
September 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Chrome is kind of like a kid’s browser – minimal controls so you can’t get into trouble. I just started using it, and I have already quit using it with Yahoo email as it has crashed way too many times. I don’t like the lack of easy bookmark management, a home button and an open button (if I want to open a file on my hard drive, I have to type the entire path and filename in). I do like the easy search capability.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Thank you for your reply, Ryan, acknowledging some readers’ demand of Opera support.
I understand that it is easier to assure full compatibility with another browser (Chrome in this case), if that is built on an already supported browser’s (Safari’s) backend.
Also, a tightening competition, and more equally capable alternative browsers may benefit users in the end. Like racing for creating ever faster browsers.
Still, I feel disappointed because of lack of official Opera support by All-New Yahoo! Mail. I feel as if someone decided that Firefox, IE, Safari (and Chrome) are important and Opera is not. If it was important, then as long as there are no technical hard-limits (which I doubt), YMail team would already have done the official All-New mail support for Opera, like they did for Safari.
Even if Opera’s global market share is 0.75% as some of the stats say (and ignoring, for now, that most stat methodologies and sources are closed and stats are not representative and not reliable), if you assume this ratio for 260 million YMail users, that would still mean more than 1.9 million people who regularly use Opera and are also on Yahoo! Mail. Maybe there are many more. To use All-New, either they use it in Opera despite it being a bit slow and having minor glitches, or are forced to use another browser for it. Anyhow, YMail is causing annoyance for them – up to a few million people – those who use Opera as their primary browser and still want All-New. (Most people like stability and familiar things, and do not like to constantly switch browsers. Would you?) I, for one, would consider using All-New, absent the mentioned issues. But I definitely will not give up Opera for it. So I stick with Classic (which is, fortunately, a worthy alternative).
YMail team nevertheless does a great job, as even in the unsupported Opera, the All-New Yahoo! Mail of today is much faster than the early versions.
May they keep up the good work! And I hope they will extend that to support Opera. Because the existence of an Open Web is at least as important as the existence of open source software.
September 8th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
It is strange to see that still many web content and service providers decide to only selectively support a few browsers based on usage statistics, dropping off anything that do not have at least a few percent market share. In other words, they do not support equality.
It is interesting to compare this to the fact that Yahoo! got a 100% rating from Human Rights Campaign for treating LGBT people as equals (as announced proudly on Yodel). There is also a separate Yahoo portal for LGBT readers. Given that LGBT people are only a few percent of society, and Yahoo still treats them equal (and even provides additional content for them), Yahoo should also support less-used but equally advanced browsers because the users of these browsers should also be treated as equal “netizens”.
September 11th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Whenever is Yahoo Mail going to support Opera Browser?
“Chrome” is a newcomer.
Could we please support the browser that has been around a good while, and which MANY of us use and prefer?
Gary
September 14th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I have tried 15 times to access My Yahoo e-mail on Chrome without success. Any hints?
September 16th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I can`t connect to my web page and get scrip error all the time. what do i need to do ???tired…………………………………..
September 21st, 2008 at 7:38 am
Am I going to have to cange everything/anything@tahoo?
September 21st, 2008 at 7:48 am
I CANNOT LOG ON YO YAHOO/MYSPACE
dON’T TELL ME i HAVE TO GO THROUGH rreg. PROCAESS AGAIN.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I just wanted to comment on the Masta Ace plug..
Sittin’ on Chrome was a classic!
That was the joint!
G1
September 29th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
hello for all the bombs bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla
September 30th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I am not sure what this is
October 11th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Only my opera browser currently allows me to access my email accounts (yahoo mail, gmail and hotmail). IE 8, Firefox 3, google chrome and safari browsers would not load yahoo mail and the others. I don’t know what is wrong. IE 7 was ok but I started having problems when I upgraded to IE 8. Firfefox was working fine too but suddenly it started displaying pageload error each time I try to load these email pages. So Opera is only lifeline I have at the moment! Helpful suggestions are welcome.