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Gmail to Discontinue Basic HTML View January 2024

posted by hubie on Wednesday November 15 2023, @09:40AM   
from the but-it-works-so-well dept.

SomeGuy writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:I got tired of being the product a while ago Re:I got tired of being the product a while ago (Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday November 15 2023, @05:38PM (1 child)

  by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday November 15 2023, @05:38PM (#1333063)

  ＜AOL＞ Me too. ＜/AOL＞

  My email provider claims to scan only for malware and junk, and only if I enable that scanning. Which is nice. IMAP works, and the webmail works. I pay for service, I get the service I pay for, no more, no less. It's good.

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  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Interesting=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		2

• Re:I got tired of being the product a while ago (Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday November 15 2023, @07:36PM

  by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday November 15 2023, @07:36PM (#1333074)

  Oops. I've just realised that someone might misconstrue my "＜AOL＞ Me too. ＜/AOL＞" meme.

  Nothing to do with the hashtag #MeToo

  I'm showing my age here.

  Long ago, when the Internet was young, and so was I, AOL was a separate dial-up online service (Originally, America Online [wikipedia.org]). The Internet took off, and AOL pivoted and made available access to Usenet to all the dial-up users*. They had their own culture, and if someone wrote about their experiences, or posted a bug report, many people posting from the AOL part of the world would simply reply 'Me Too'. The behaviour was endemic and cluttered up threads that had contained more substantive content, so it became a meme: writing "Me too." became a badge of naïve cluelessness and not respecting existing group behaviours. Hence ＜AOL＞ Me too. ＜/AOL＞.

  Absolutely nothing to do with the more recent #MeToo movement.

  In September 1993, AOL added Usenet access to its features. This is commonly referred to as the "Eternal September [wikipedia.org]"*, as Usenet's cycle of new users was previously dominated by smaller numbers of college and university freshmen gaining access in September and taking a few weeks to acclimate. This also coincided with a new "carpet bombing" marketing campaign by CMO Jan Brandt to distribute as many free trial AOL trial disks as possible through nonconventional distribution partners. At one point, 50% of the CDs produced worldwide had an AOL logo.

  *Eternal September:

  Eternal September or the September that never ended is Usenet slang for a period beginning around 1993 when Internet service providers began offering Usenet access to many new users. The flood of new users overwhelmed the existing culture for online forums and the ability to enforce existing norms. AOL followed with their Usenet gateway service in March 1994, leading to a constant stream of new users. Hence, from the early Usenet point of view, the influx of new users in September 1993 never ended.

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