Yahoo! You Are Guilty!

In my recent post "Mobile Versions of Websites Must Go!" I mentioned that it peeved me when a company's website automatically referred my smartphone browser to the mobile version of their site. Of this, Yahoo! is guilty! This includes their Mail and some of their side sites such as Associated Content.

I believe it's safe to say that I am an avid Yahoo! user. I've used their free email services for many years now. Took advantage of their website hosting back when it was also free, and have used a few of their other free services now and then as well. Therefore, I am quite familiar and comfortable with their Yahoo! homepage, mail and other parts.

Now the Yahoo! Mobile Homepage can be changed to the normal desktop version with a click of a link at the bottom. This setting however, does not maintain itself if you logout of your Yahoo! account or clear cookies on your phone. I can deal with this, though annoying, the mobile version is not that bad.

Yahoo! Mail, on the other hand, I really wish they'd do away with! The mobile version is extremely tedious for a variety of reasons.

• - It only displays 10 emails at a time

• - It does NOT give you the option to change how many messages you view at a time.

• - To Delete an email without opening it you have to select the checkbox next to it and then scroll all the way to the bottom to choose "Delete" from a dropdown box

• - To Select All emails, you either have to hit the checkbox next to each message or scroll to the bottom and pick "Select All" from the dropdown box, then wait for it to reload.

• - If you want to Delete all the emails without viewing them (we all know there are tons of junk email messages that don't get moved to Spam right away) you have to do the above Select All step, then choose Delete from the dropdown box. Same applies to moving emails to a folder.

• - It does not provide all the quick access to the other Yahoo! applications that are available in the desktop version such as the Yahoo! Calendar, Flickr, Notepad etc.

• - It does not allow you to Zoom in to the page. Very frustrating when trying to tap "Sign Out" keeps getting you "Privacy" which takes you to the Privacy Policy page.

• - There is no option to switch to "Desktop Version"

The Yahoo! Mail App for Android is a little bit better in that you can view more emails at a time, and you have easier access to your Mail Folders. The other Yahoo! applications (with the exception of Yahoo! Messenger) are not available however in the mail app.

As for other Yahoo! sites (i.e. Associated Content) again, I get automatically redirected to a mobile version! Why? There should be no need for this. In the mobile version I am unable to comment on articles I am reading which is extremely quirky in my opinion. The whole point of having "mobile" versions is to give people the access to things on the go. If I can read an article but then have to wait til I'm back at a desktop computer to actually comment on what I've read '" that kind of defeats the whole purpose of "mobile" doesn't it?

Yahoo! I love you, but please get rid of your mobile versions! I don't use the word "hate" that often as it is a very strong word, but I seriously hate your mobile sites! Give me access to my desktop Yahoo! Mail please!!

Previosly Published at Triond.com