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The Verge reports that Google will remove Gmail's Basic HTML view effective January 2024.
Though the vast majority of people use the Standard view on their PCs without question, the HTML version of Gmail has its perks. The stripped-down Gmail experience loads quickly, and users can access it even on older machines or with much slower connections.
The change appears to have been announced around September 19th in a Google support article, and users of the Basic HTML view were shown warnings that it will be discontinued, after which time they will be switched to the current standard view.
The removal of Gmail's basic HTML view is the latest in a long line of products, features, services, and more to be admitted to the Google graveyard. The company has also recently buried its Pixel Pass phone upgrade program, Google Currents, and Nest Secure.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday November 15 2023, @09:48AM (3 children)
I use gmail occasionally as a throw-away address, but have never seen any viewing options. What I see is obviously an HTML view but maybe it is not "basic", and I have just had a look for other options and don't see any. Where do I find this Basic HTML View?
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday November 15 2023, @10:29AM
You can use this link to switch into it:
https://mail.google.com/?ui=html [google.com]
Source [google.com].
It used to be accessible as a link from IIRC the bottom of the inbox, but I think all references to the option are purged now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by SomeGuy on Wednesday November 15 2023, @01:00PM
It had been that while starting up "normal" Gmail (The page with the M with the status bar loading a zillion scripts) that it would display an option for basic HTML in the lower right. If it loaded quickly for you, you might not have seen it. For some of us, loading normal Gmail goes very slowly or even intermittently fails to load due to network crap. In those cases Basic HTML helped ensure one could still get to their e-mail anyway. Now the link just sends you to their useless help pages.
(Score: 5, Informative) by aebonyne on Wednesday November 15 2023, @04:58PM
Basic HTML view does not use Javascript, just HTML, so it's usable in browsers with Javascript disabled or that don't support Javascript like Lynx [wikipedia.org]. I've used the Basic HTML view via Lynx, although not in a long time.
Centralization breaks the internet.