Problems with Google's Gmail

So far, the only negative comment I've received about Gmail is that they do not have an option for a formatted signature file. Email signatures can be set under the general settings tab but the signature can only contain plain text. I suppose that might be a problem for some people but since I've always used a text signature I didn't even notice the absence of this option.

There is a work around for this. It's a bit of an advanced solution and requires the Firefox browser, but by installing the Firefox Greasemonkey ad-on and installing the Gmail HTML Signatures script you can set up formatted Gmail signatures.
The other main criticism of Gmail is its contextual (sort of) advertisements that display along side email messages. Honestly, I don't even see these ads anymore. I can't imagine how effective they are since they're so innocuous, but for me, it's a very small price to pay for all the improvements to email.

The only other concern expressed about Gmail is the fact that all your mail is stored online at Google. Some people feel uneasy about security and also about the idea of Google holding all your email. Personally, as I mentioned earlier, I feel more secure on Google's servers and network than I do on my own computer. And as far as privacy goes, all email is stored on an outside server somewhere, at least until you download it. And then, as it moves across the Internet onto your computer, it's all visible to anyone with the wherewithal to sniff it out. If you're still concerned about privacy, Gmail can be accessed using https://mail.google.com/mail in order to read and send email over a secure, encrypted connection. All things considered, in my opinion, I feel Google is a safe and secure email system.   next >