The New Yahoo Mail and Why I Refuse to Use It

Yahoo has been talking about their new version of Yahoo Mail for quite some time and it recently became available to all mail users. In the past Yahoo simply switched everyone over to the newer software when it became available, but this time, they actually give you the option of continuing to use what they term Yahoo Mail Classic, rather than switching over the new Yahoo Mail.

While it's true that the new Yahoo Mail has lots of bells and whistles such as being able to drag messages to folders, being able to chat with friends online who are also yahoo users, and being able to read messages in a second box beneath your listed messages, there are in my mind some problems with their new format. For me being a writer and needing access to my messages quickly and efficiently, the problems of the new Yahoo Mail far outweigh the so-called advantages.

One thing that Yahoo neglects to tell you is that with the new set-up there is a long box of ads on the right hand side which is very distracting. While you can hide the advertisement box, every time you perform a new function, such as deleting an e-mail for example, the box comes back. This is really annoying.

Another problem is that Yahoo has added a Home tab and when you sign in this is what opens first. Okay, I realize that sounds a little whiny, but to me when I sign in to my e-mail, that is what I want to see, not a page with the top news stories. If I want to read the news I will go to Yahoo's home page myself and look for news. When I go to my e-mail box I want to read my e-mails not the news. An e-mail box should just be for e-mail as far as I'm concerned.

Now the merging of their Yahoo Messenger with their Yahoo Mail could actually be convenient and it does lead to less software for you to have to download. However, as an author I have hundreds of e-mails in my address book that belong to my readers, and having a tab pop up for people in my address book that have a yahoo e-mail address, and are online at the same time I am when I would never talk them on the messenger, this is a pain. While I can make it so I am invisible, extra tabs just add more stuff for me to look at.

This leads me to another issue I have with Yahoo's new e-mail set-up and that is that the web page is just too busy. One of the things you learn when you are creating web pages is that if you have a web page that has too much information crammed into a small space, you are going to be less likely to have visitors that stay when they do visit your website, or that return to visit your website. The first time I tried to use the new set-up this was the second thing that I noticed right after the fact that it didn't automatically bring up my inbox.

The final gripe I have with the new Yahoo Mail is that nowhere could I find my address book. On Yahoo Mail Classic there is a tab with your address book that you can click on, but I could find no tab, no box, nothing that would allow me access to my address book in the new Yahoo Mail. I don't know if this is just an oversight that they haven't fixed yet, or caught, or if there is just so much junk on the web page that I cannot see where it is. Regardless, this was the main reason I switched back to Yahoo Mail Classic and decided I would not use the new version. The second was the reappearing ad box!

While I suppose there are advantages to using the new version of Yahoo Mail, I certainly couldn't find them. I've decided I'll stick with Yahoo Mail Classic where there is only one ad box at the top that doesn't appear and reappear, and where I have access to my address book. While having the messenger as part of your mail could be advantageous, it's not a great idea when you have hundreds of e-mails in your box and even more tabs to deal with.

I recommend to anyone that uses Yahoo Mail to stick with the classic version, rather than the new version. It is much easier to navigate and it won't make you go cross-eyed trying to find what you are looking for.