Gmail

Gmail (abbreviation of Google Mail) is an email service provided by the American company Google since April 1, 2004. After more than five years in the "beta" (for testing), on July 7, 2009 Gmail was considered a finished product. Basic Gmail accounts are free but Google is paid by showing ads to the user while the paid business version is ad-free.

In November 2012, Gmail surpassed Microsoft's Outlook.com, which was the most widely used email service to date, in terms of the number of registered users globally. As of June 2012, its number of users was estimated to be around 425 million. In May 2014, the Gmail app surpassed 1 billion downloads on Android devices.

Documents on the global surveillance program —in which Gmail and other services participated—, leaked in 2013 and 2014 suggest that Google is one of the largest collaborators of intelligence agencies for the massive collection of data (see section: violation of privacy).

Technical characteristics

• Currently, a storage capacity of 15 GB is offered. The storage capacity increased due to the launch of Google Drive, although later, the available space was unified for use with Drive, Google+ and Gmail.
• This service highlighted, among other things, the use of a simple and advanced text message search system, such as changing the language, putting vacation notice, similar to that of Google’s web search engine, to which its slogan "Look, don't order." In addition, it provides a message labeling mechanism, which expands the possibilities of traditional folders.
• Initially the Gmail interface was only available in English. It currently supports 72 languages, which include most of the features of the United States English version. It uses AJAX technology although it also has a useful HTML+CSS-based interface for older or unsupported browsers. In April 2018 the new interface design, based on the Material Design API, was deployed.
• Another interesting aspect is the message filter, which has many options, beyond labeling the messages automatically.
• The maximum size of each message (text and attachments) is 25 MB.
• The entry into the account is encrypted with SSL, except in the case of ancient browsers, in which the connection is unencrypted.
• The mail page can also be encrypted by SSL.
• Gmail is available for mobile devices, although Gmail mobile does not have all the features of the traditional service. In addition to access by the browser of a mobile phone, there is a Java app for a lot of compatible phones.
• Supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, K-Meleon, Opera, Edge and Google Chrome browsers, with partial support for the AOL and Konqueror browser.
• You can't read OpenDocument files, although they can be seen in Google Docs.

Filters

Gmail filters allow you to improve the flow of incoming messages. Using filters, you can automatically tag, archive, delete, star, and forward email, as well as manage spam.

It is possible that all messages, by default, go to the recycle bin.

Anti-spam

Gmail's anti-spam filtering feature has a community system controller: when a Gmail user marks an email as spam, this action provides information to help the system identify similar messages for all Gmail users in future. Users can adjust the system to allow mail marked as spam to be handled in a particular way.

Messages labeled as spam will be automatically deleted after 30 days.

Gmail for mobile

Mobile version

Gmail for mobile is a version of Google's Gmail email service. It is a free service, developed to provide access to Gmail from mobile devices, as well as cell phones or smartphones. Gmail for mobile offers many of the features that Gmail has brought to small mobile screens. Users have the ability to compose, read, archive, reply, forward, mark unread, add a star, add custom labels or spam email messages.

On September 22, 2009, Google released Push, to support its Gmail email service through Google Sync for iPhone and iPod Touch.

To use the user service, you need a Gmail account and a mobile device that meets the following requirements:

• Internet access and a web browser for mobile,
• be compatible with XHTML,
• enabled mobile network cookies, to enable cookies to be established and
• allow SSL traffic (Secure Sockets Layer).

Gmail for mobile was released on December 16, 2005, and is available in more than 40 languages.

Gmail on iPad

This app came to light on April 3, 2010, when Google announced a new two-panel design designed specifically for the iPad. It was delivered automatically to Gmail users, who were identified as users via the Safari browser device: such users can choose between returning to the traditional Gmail layout or using the initial IMAP (Internet message access protocol). These features They are hidden from other browsers.

Chat, voice and video conferencing

In August 2010, Google implemented and launched a phone service integrated into the Google Gmail Chat interface. The service initially did not have an official name, but they referred to this service as “Google phone calls in Gmail Chat” and also “Gmail phone calls”, but now they call it Google Video and Voice Chat. This service allows Gmail users to make free calls from their Gmail account to the US, Canada, and other countries until at least the end of 2011. Users of a Gmail account can also call other countries over the hourly basis. The service logged more than 1 million calls in 24 hours on August 26, 2010.

The Gmail interface incorporates Hangouts, which allows you to create chats with multiple users. In addition, videoconferences of up to 15 people can be created.

Attachments

In Gmail, you can send and receive messages up to 25 megabytes (MB).

History

Gmail was a project started by Google developers by Paul Buchheit several years before it was announced to the public. Initially, Gmail was made available for the exclusive use of Google employees internally. Google announced Gmail to the public on April 1, 2004 when it was launched (beta version), but initially an account could only be obtained through an invitation from a registered user. In principle, the initial fee for each user was two invitations, which increased over time. This system generated great expectation among a large part of potential users.

On February 7, 2007, registrations in Gmail were partially released, so anyone could register. On February 13 of that same year, the records were released completely and worldwide. Since then, it is possible to register without invitations.

The service's initial bet was to offer more space than existing email services and provide a simple, friendly interface integrated with the Google search engine. At its launch, Gmail offered a storage capacity of 1GB per user, an amount significantly higher than that offered by other providers at the time. Google doubled capacity on its anniversary and continued to gradually increase it up to current capacity. IMAP support was added on October 24, 2007.

Prior to the domain's acquisition by Google, the domain name gmail.com was used by an email service offered by Garfield.com, the online home of the Garfield comic strip, and after moving to a different domain, this service was discontinued.

Icon of Gmail until 2020.

On June 22, 2005, the Gmail URI was changed from http://gmail.Google.com/gmail/ to http://mail.Google.com /mail/.^{[citation required]}

Privacy controversy

Since its launch, the service has been criticized by various organizations dedicated to the protection of privacy at an international level. These complaints were picked up by some legislators, particularly in the state of California (USA) and have forced the company to change, on at least two occasions, its policies in this regard.

Initially, the complaints focused on the advertising system used by the company, which read the content of the messages received and sent by the user to then display ads related to the subject. Google's response was that the advertising system used was controlled by bots, with no human Google employee reading the messages. However, in 2017 the company abandoned this practice, so that the ads are now based on the user's tracking by Google on other websites but not within Gmail. Another criticism was the ambiguity in the handling of deleted messages by users (the service unnecessarily complicates mail removal and discourages the practice).

Google has publicly acknowledged that it allows US intelligence services to access the data and messages of any user, including non-US users. the light of documents leaked by Edward Snowden that pointed out that the US (NSA) and British (GCHQ) intelligence agencies are dedicated to trying to "break" the US. encryption built into commercial software and creating cracks in the data traffic of companies like Google, Yahoo! or Apple; Among the targets would be Gmail.

The Mobile Number Requirement for Gmail

When trying to create a Gmail account for some countries, Google requires a mobile phone number that supports text messages. In other countries, it is not necessary: this varies depending on the limitations of the Google service.

For this, Google explains the following: "If you want to sign up for a Gmail address, you need to have a mobile phone that has text messaging capabilities. If you don't have a phone, you can ask a friend if you can use their number to get a code".

One of the reasons Google offers this way to sign up for Gmail is to protect users from spam.

Locking and unlocking the account

Google can block an account for various reasons, including "unusual activity" or by filling in the data with a date of birth that is too recent.

Unlocking is possible by faxing or web-facing a copy of a valid identity document or making a payment of 30 US cents with a credit card. Sending a copy of a document requires the interaction of humans and the unlocking can take up to a couple of weeks to be effective, so the only method to unlock an account in a few minutes is to pay the 30 cents by credit card.

Contacts

When a message is sent, the address in the To, CC or Bcc fields is automatically stored in a list for the user to consult it and add information such as associate an image or group them. Contacts are imported in several different ways, from Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Orkut or any other contact list capable of being exported as a CSV file. Gmail also allows users to export their contacts to CSV.

Utilities for Gmail

• Gmail Notifier - available as a program for Windows 2000 or later. Also available as Mozilla Firefox extension, so it works on any platform where Firefox is executed.
• GmailStatus (Mac OS X)
• Google Chat
• Google Page Creator
• GMail Drive shell extension (unofficial)
• GmailFS (non-official)
• Gmailbot (Telegram)