Is Yahoo! dropping the beta from Yahoo! Mail Beta?

by Brad Linder Oct 9th 2007

Yahoo! seems to be celebrating the 10th anniversary of Yahoo! Mail by slowly removing the beta tag from the updated version of its webmail service.

Last week a Download Squad reader wrote in to let us know that when he logged into Yahoo! there was no "beta" label under the logo. This morning we went and logged in ourselves and lo and behold, the beta is no more. Yahoo! is also highlighting some of the previously announced new features in its mail client, including the ability to send SMS messages from Yahoo! Mail and to chat with Windows Live contacts.

When you login there's also a good chance your default color scheme will be blue. But you have the option of choosing from 6 different color schemes, so customize away.

If you're less than smitten with the new Yahoo! Mail, you can still switch back to the "classic" view. While the newer version has nifty features like drag-and-drop folder management, it tends to load a lot slower than the classic version of Yahoo! Mail.

[Thanks Mohit!]

Tags: webmail, yahoo!-mail

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Koolio said 2:45PM on 10-09-2007

Yahoo Mail is tooooo sloooowww..... compare to GMail. I now quit Yahoo and stick with GMail.

michael said 4:24PM on 10-09-2007

I agree, Y! Mail is kind of slow now.

I prefer Live Hotmail to Y!'s service.

I find Live Hotmail to do much more niftier things.

Rich said 4:48PM on 10-09-2007

I tried the Yahoo! Mail Beta, used it for an hour and switched back. I wrote the team a novel about the new set up.

It loads so slow its not even funny. Most of the features were really useless bells and whistles. I switch to GMail as my primary email and haven't looked back. I use my Yahoo mail as my spam email catcher now.

iamhoff said 5:49PM on 10-09-2007

When Beta first came out I tried it and switched back because it was so slow. A few months later I tried it again and was much happier with it. 3 of my 4 yahoo accounts have been switched. And I did notice that the Beta tag is gone and the blue color is there. The only drag on yahoo mail that I find is the integrated Messenger client. Anytime I boot yahoo mail into IE 6 or 7, it always seems to hang (less so in 7) during the Messenger Loading part. Firefox handles it just fine. I had noticed that my 4th yahoo account was still in the classic format, and I'll probably keep it there because I use it for little more than a spam throwaway account.

tarch said 8:09PM on 10-09-2007

I use both Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Business Mail. I find it to be a fantastic product. Being able to produce drafts and utilize folders is quite the selling point. I can also create a professional signature. I've tried Gmail and it seems very lacking to me.

RP said 11:05PM on 10-09-2007

I have 350 emails in my inbox, and when I scroll, it's painful. Most of the subjects show as "loading...". Not sure why they can't do 1 AJAX hit to cache all 350 subjects/senders.

But the UI looks marvelously polished. That must have been a ton of work! Almost as good as Outlook, but again, kind of slow and clunky.

Today I clicked to fast, and got HTTP status 500: Internal Server Error 99. Server.MailboxOpenFailed.Busy / Error opening mailbox: mailbox busy 2.

I guess this is all normal for Web 2.0 stuff.

Greg said 8:32AM on 10-10-2007

Are you people using dial-up, or accessing Yahoo mail from your cell phones? Yahoo mail is by far the best personal mail solution out there. The interface is well thought out and works and performs very well. try DSL or Cable Modem people!

Martin said 7:08PM on 10-10-2007

Yahoo mail beta doesnt work, and since it appeared on the scene some months ago, normal yahoo mail no longer works:
1. All my messages are continually* being deleted leaving my inbox almost empty!!!
2. Search doesnt work
3. Its very slow
4. emails dont arrive
after about 10 emails, they said, yes there does seem to be a problem, and ive been told there engineers are looking into it...
i have 2 email accounts and the deleted email problem was confined to one but all the other problems were not.
whats going on, it cant just be me having these issues?

Joe Beaulaurier said 2:01PM on 10-11-2007

It's sad to see the above comments since they reflect either a predisposition against anything with a Yahoo! moniker, a lack of knowledge of how to make web services work or exposure to the service at the worst possible time (when being rolled out initially or after a significant update is being rolled out).

The server farm that houses my Y! Mail account was updated earlier this week. The response time sucked during that process but I understood the resource load happening and let it slide. Now I'm finding the response times to be spectacular. What used to take a moment doesn't take any time at all.

Yahoo! Mail intertwines the calendar, and address book with Y! Mail so that you can automatically create or update based on data elements (date/time, phone number, address) detected in your emails. Very kewl.

You can keep gMail. I have tried it several times given its vocal (read defensive) user base. I'm staying with Y! Mail.

dhruvgupt said 7:58AM on 10-12-2007

yahoo is cool

cstahlman said 9:28AM on 10-17-2007

Since last week I cannot log into the 'beta' yahoo, and I really like the beta version. When I open my mail get
a popup login error,
message:shortalias has no properties-line number 575,

then message:setupInit is not defined-line number 622,
then message;attachFolderNodesToFolder is not defined-line number 641,
then two popups that say unable to load mail javascript files. At that point I have to switch back to the original to use/see my mail. I need help finding out what to do to get beta version to work. Cannot even find anyplace to download it again! thanks

mohamed_irsath2000 said 1:44AM on 11-02-2007

i want use this mail btea i dont no how to use this one i ask one my friend he toled try to yahoo downlod then you add your deatiles this amil beta is all people are using in the world tis is farst messanger als that's why i try to now

Jim M. said 8:06AM on 11-02-2007

I've been using my Yahoo email acct. since 1997.

I heard horror stories about Yahoo Beta mail, so I delayed trying it. The old email does the job, and I've appreciated the reliability over the years and accessibility from anywhere. My landlord switched to yahoo from AOL after my urging for years. Her replies did't make it to me for the first couple of weeks and she's had a lot of other problems. Fortunately she has ATT/Yahoo DSL so she was able to call for repairs.

I tried the new tool lately and it really is slow. And, for no features I want.

The "Classic" email is showing problems. Over the past few months, calendar reminders are sometimes getting missed ... such as the "Pay quarterlies" (taxes) one, which never was emailed. I also have another daily recurring reminder that doesn't send any more.

In the past couple weeks, the "Check Mail" page has been getting stuck after the rectangular ad. I'm using Classic Yahoo email and the latest XP and IE7 with nothing special. Today, for the first time, it's been getting stuck repeatedly (3-6 times in a row before a reload shows the new mail listing).

They shoved the new my.yahoo.com page on me. The link to the email page opens a new window instead of doing it in the present window (!!!). I also find the stock list harder to read, since the lines are spaced far apart, putting much more of the list off of the page.

Have they lost it?

Julie said 12:38AM on 11-17-2007

n_opastirakul said 8:26AM on 11-19-2007

I want to send or load many pictures to my friends. Someone told me that Yahoo Beta can do that

rkm_vijay said 8:26AM on 11-19-2007

thank for kindful help

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