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.
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.
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.