h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Me again. I just tried to open a gmail account. The only way I can do this now is by giving google a cell phone number that they will text a verification code to

Seriously? Does google really believe that every person that might want a gmail account also has a cell phone? Or would want to share their number with google?

One of the very cool things about gmail has been that it's very easy to set up an account, and to do so anonymously. They're saying the verification process is to stop bots from opening accounts. Is that the only way they can do that?

So does anyone have any alternatives to gmail?

They haven't asked existing members to do that (or it's an ignore-able feature). I will be leaving gmail if they demand that I do that. I don't give out my mobile number to anyone.

My Hotmail account and Mr Vip's Yahoo! account have been ticking over quietly and unobtrusively for years. I get a lot of spam in my Hotmail account though. The filter appears to be pretty awful.

My other gmail accounts, whenever I sign in I get asked to give them another email address. But like you say, I can opt out.

It looks like the cell phone with new accounts thing might not be for everyone. I'm now wondering if it's because I have too many gmail accounts and they think I'm a bot. I do have quite a few

Spam at hotmail is what's put me off, and made me love gmail.

Yahoo works for me, I only get spam that I can account for (people I've purchased things from).

sprout

I have a junk mail filter on hotmail that works very well I just have to cast my eye over it occasionally to make sure nothing proper has made it in there.

I survive without googlemail very well. Surely there are any number of alternative internet email services you could choose instead.


As to what's generally wrong with google.

Get this. My brother went to the Himalaya's on holiday recently and was flown home when he and a fellow traveller became ill at the high altitudes. His compatriot he described on facebook as having 'Mera's revenge'.
Wanting to know what that meant, I googled it.

I was faced with the question 'Did you mean Mario's Revenge' and was given a load of hits about nintendo computer game s**t

So I went to 'advanced search' and specifically excluded 'Mario's revenge' from the search.

Apparently this doesn't work as...

I was faced with the question 'Did you mean Mario's Revenge' and was given a load of hits about nintendo computer game s**t

This I found rather illuminating.
You can search for anything, as long as it's something that google wants you to search for apparently.

(I gave up in the end but it turned out it was brother's own phrase - his compatriot had marched up a himalayan peak called Mera and it had half-killed him - hence Mera's revenge)

I've been rather less enamoured of Google's powers since then.

>>You can search for anything, as long as it's something that google wants you to search for apparently.

I find that too, and it's much worse than it used to be.

They just need a setting option - google for people that can't spell and need google to think for them, and google for the rest of us. How hard would that be?

Gmail is very user friendly, and I'd like to be able to use it again.

I've noticed this as a growing trend in all computer-related things. They make it a lot easier to do what they think you might be trying to do, but a lot harder to do anything they don't think you'd try to do. Apple seems especially annoying for this, but it seems to have crept into the latest version of MS Office.
Incidentally, I just tried searching google for "Mera's revenge". It gave lots of "Mario's revenge" results, with a bit at the top that said:
"Showing results for 'mario's revenge' (link). Search instead for 'mera's revenge' (link)".
Did your search not have an option like that? It usually does, IME.

Oh, and this thread was the fourth link on the search, once correctly stipulated.

Yes it did but it was useless (for the reason I outlined above - and as I recall then - that was also full or Mario's revenge hits anyway - although not now oddly )

If you do the same search now - this conversation is already the number four hit there

Oops, missed your second post there - maybe it'll get to number 3 if we post a lot.

We're number three!
We're number three!
We're number three!
We're number three!



~jwf~

Google didn't need a 'phone number when I signed up 18 months ago, but they needed an email address.

When I signed up to Hotmail recently, they didn't even want that.

There's something satisfyingly paradoxical about requiring an email address in order to sign up for an email account.
If it becomes a blanket demand then the space time continuum may implode.

Every time I log into Google for something it asks for my mobile number. I can give it, or say 'ask me later' but I can't say 'sod off you're not getting it'.

I complained the other day that I was searching for a specific name, which I even put in quotes and still most of the results came up with the wrong one - ie the one it thought I meant, not the one I actually meant.

I think I did have to give Google my number to get the ads on my blog. So it's just forgotten that? Or at the time must have promised to only use it for that.

Incidentally I assume we're still buggy since now the thread title is

what's wrong with... google

whereas up to post 13 it was perfectly fine. Professor Max- all your fault!!!

I´´ve had a hotmail account for 10 years, and have probably had less than 10 spam mails in that time. I think it´s all about how many places you give your e-mail adress to. As for Google, well they´re not really living up to their motto for one thing.

>>Google didn't need a 'phone number when I signed up 18 months ago, but they needed an email address.

I've set up gmail accounts (that's different than google) in the past 8 months without any email or ph or whatever.



>>
I´´ve had a hotmail account for 10 years, and have probably had less than 10 spam mails in that time. I think it´s all about how many places you give your e-mail adress to. As for Google, well they´re not really living up to their motto for one thing.
<<

I've set up email accounts and had spam before I've even used the account (I'm looking at your Opera).