Google will discontinue the Basic HTML version of its Gmail service in January 2024.
It’s unclear when Google made the decision to end Basic HTML support – news of which can be found in this support page titled “Use the latest version of Gmail in your browser.” Archive.org’s last capture of the page comes from late 2022, and Google’s own cache has not coughed up info that would identify the date of the change.
The Register asked Google when the decision to end Basic HTML was made, and why.
A spokesperson sent us the following statement:
“The Gmail Basic HTML views are previous versions of Gmail that were replaced by their modern successors 10+ years ago and do not include full Gmail feature functionality.”
Google suggests that not including “full Gmail feature functionality” is the point of the Basic HTML offering. When your correspondent loaded it, Google delivered a warning that it is “designed for slower connections and legacy browsers.”
Intriguingly, when we used Chrome’s Inspect>Network tool to test the HTML page’s load time, it came in at 1200 milliseconds. Full fat Gmail loaded in 700 milliseconds – but then kept loading elements for almost a minute before settling down.
The decision has been criticized by Pratik Patel, who describes himself on Mastodon as “a blind technologist … who finds himself championing #accessibility for fun and necessity.”
“I know many #blind people who use GMail’s HTML view. Not only will they be confused but will be unhappy,” he wrote.
Patel also noted that Google has made Basic HTML view harder to find in recent months – a change he understands now that the feature has been cancelled.
Google is infamous for discontinuing services that – for whatever reasons – don’t meet its goals. Over the years it has killed off favorites like its RSS reader, flops like Wave, projects like Google Code that lost to rival offerings, and invasive ad tech that its peers rejected.
But the Big G has also kept some offerings alive after user uprisings. In 2022, for example, it persisted with the free G Suite legacy edition after fielding many complaints from users who felt they were promised the service would be available in perpetuity.
Google insists it is “committed to making accessibility a core consideration” and lists many accessibility features in Gmail – among them screen reader support and hands-free email.
Shame, now it won’t be possible to access Gmail from the Nintendo DS Browser.
Bro you used that too
Can you catch me up to speed?
Back in the day a lot of us didn’t have smart phones or computers. But we did have consoles with Internet.
Nintendo Wii had a browser too. Tits in their 480p glory.
This made me realize I’m still too dependable on Google’s Gmail, using it in so many places…
I should make work of the complete transfer to thrustworthier locations I have been postponing for so long… All the work this will give me though… 😨
Protonmail might be the easiest to transfer everything to. You can transfer contacts and emails I believe.
I really don’t understand why people love Proton so much. It’s really expensive, requires a non standard client and in the end you’re still using it to communicate via one of the least secure protocols ever with vast majority of people not using Proton.
ProtonMail has a free version which is enough for many. Every email you send or receive in Gmail is being collected as data by Google and i don’t want to give my personal data to Google
I’m not defending Google. They are an evil fucking company, but are you not sending any emails to Google either? My point is Proton is charging you for something that makes no difference since your email comes from non Proton servers and goes to non Proton servers most of the time.
And Proton’s free offering is really not useful to most people. Maybe as a short term trial, but certainly not a replacement for main inbox.
Again, we’re not just talking about email. Things like email aliases and other features are what people mainly stick with Proton for. Nobody knows my real email. They all get an instantly generated alias that I can revoke at any time. Plus if I get spam, I will know who leaked my email. Most people do not actually send many personal emails. It’s a secure platform with many benefits.
Correct, aliases are one of the best built-in features. Unlimited aliases costs covers a decent part of the subscription
You just convinced me to get protonmail. Now I gotta learn of its functions and stuff. It will make my month if you’re able to forward emails from gmail, and reply using the same @gmail handle.
You mean aliases that every other email provider has? Even yahoo has had them for years.
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If you are referring to ProtonMail encryption, i think it’s primarily about encryption at rest, so that nobody except you (not even Proton) can read your emails. Unlike other email providers (like Gmail) where the emails could be easily accessed by the email providers whenever they want/need to (like data for ads or legal orders from government etc). While not at rest (i.e., sending/receiving emails), emails between Proton and Gmail are on TLS unless it changed in recent years. If the email is password protected in which case Gmail cannot read the email until you open it with the password
Gmail is the exception because almost 100% of Google’s profit is from ads. Not that other providers of free email service aren’t parsing your emails for AI training or other reasons, but I can’t think of a single paid provider that accesses your email at rest.
I just used Bitwarden to transfer all my online accounts to Proton Mail. Granted it was from Tutanota, but I did it before from Gmail to Tutanota.
The new transfer took me my mornings for like two weeks. Glad to have it done.
This made me realize I’m still too dependable on Google’s Gmail, using it in so many places
I stopped using Gmail for anything outside Google a few years ago. They can track and monitor and analyze that as much as they like because all they see is their own e-mails.
I used to turn off ad-tracking relentlessly, until they decided to then instead start showing me gay apps. And you can call me wrong on it - even though I have no problem for anybody being what they are - I, as a straight male, still feel uncomfortable if apps start opening gay videos for grindr and alike in public transportation and at work. This is the day I started agreeing to them making it… In the end it doesn’t matter if you agree to use it or not, you can be sure the tracking part still happens either way so they’ll have the necessary info to be ready if you ever change your mind (or misclick). Even your Android records snippets of surrounding conversations to turn it into text and store it in your ad profile,…
Just pay someone (or do it yourself) to host your emails.
I have my own domains and can do whatever I please.
Sad news. They take away your freedom one step at a time.
Good news I’m migrating away from gmail
What are the options you’re looking at?
Join a public access unix server, most of them are free to join and offer email. sdf.org is the oldest and most well known pubnix however many newer ones have popped up forming the tildeverse I personally have had excellent experience with https://tilde.team
Proton!
If you get your own Webspace it comes with email.
But what email interface is better than Gmail? I’m literally using my own email address pop3’d into Gmail for the UI
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I’m self-hosted. It would be nerve wracking if email wasn’t an anachronism.
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Self hosting email is an anachronism. You basically can’t do it anymore, none of the big providers will agree to federate
I’ve moved to Posteo for the time being
I don’t really understand the outrage. The status quo is that companies didnt support it for years. So 99.9% won’t notice any change.
But a mail CLIENT is a Web App not a static documents site. If Wikipedia would require JS I would kind of understand it from a technical point.
But big corporation tries to reduce cost by shutting down scarcely used old service happens monthly.
Honestly I didn’t even know it was still supported and would have assume they dropped it years ago. You can still use non-web clients so it’s not a huge deal. You can also use a less modern style email host if you prefer.
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Is Lynx POP or IMAP compatable? If so, thats done already.
Lynx is a Webbrowser for terminals.
Derp. I was thinking about Mutt and just got my wires crossed.
but each and every email client supports Gmail regardless
Hope that never try to shutdown IMAP.
Eventually they’ll want to force you to use chrome browser.
nah, as long gmail is compatible with e-mail protocol in general, they have no reason to
Email is a collection of different protocols: SMTP, IMAP, POP are all different protocols that serve different purposes. Oversimplifying a bit, but - SMTP is used to exchange messages between mail servers. IMAP and POP are used to synchronize mail between a mail server and a mail client.
In other words, they absolutely can shut down IMAP and POP but still send/receive for gmail.com addresses. The main reason reason they wouldn’t do this is that their larger clients on Google Workspace need that functionality, but it’s the type of thing you might imagine them taking away from the unpaid version of Gmail to nudge companies over to Workspace.
I heard gmail via imap is bordeline unusable when you have lots if labels.
I don’t really see the accessibility angle with this. Just use an email client built with accessibility in mind. It’s not like Gmail is only available via the web. E-Mail clients have been a thing for longer than browsers.
It’s not like Gmail is only available via the web.
But that’s also their goal. It was about a year ago they killed the ability to use “lesssecureapps”? Now I have to create a new authorization key every ~2 weeks if I want getmail to keep working.
I don’t. I use K-9 btw and it works flawlessly.
But I don’t want to change my mail client, I just need something to replace fetchmail/getmail… I have too many procmail, msmtp, and mutt rules :(
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Sorry but there are so much more things you have a way bigger impact on climate than website requires a little bit JavaScript.
Awesome to see Google embrace plaintext email! /j
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My connection is trash. I need HTML Gmail to load it at all in a reasonable amount of time.
same here. have always used the basic ui.
it’s basically just a imap client with a few googlized aspects like labels that mimic folders and some non-ui dependent features (imports and filters, etc).
nixing basic html gmail is just another piece of the maximize monetization puzzle. these users weren’t getting the “full” google experience with all the ad-driven “features” and script-driven tracking of the “full” web client.
I understand you, I’ve been in your position
But to Google you are the smallest %, so small that it’s not even worth maintaining the code
I don’t necessarily think they are right, but it is that way
why not use a lightweight mail client like k9mail?
I’ve already moved to Thunderbird on PC.
I usually don’t check email on mobile, but I can try it.
Run pine over ssh. It’s insane, but it IS low bandwidth.
it does the job and afaik was acquired by Mozilla and will in fact be rebranded to Thunderbird at some point
People in impoverished countries with shitty internet and devices would like to have a word.
