mail.opera.com feedback

mail.opera.com feedback

Hello,

I really enjoy the web interface. In my opinion, it's brilliant. Though there are a few things I find... a minor annoyance. The main thing that's really inconvenient is the storage limit. Although I'm currently only using 88MB out of 1GB, it is still in the back of my head that I will 'one day' reach the storage limit and that I'd have to mass-delete e-mails that I don't want to delete. Please give us unlimited storage space. For most users, they won't even get close to 1GB after using it for years. If I was dating the e-mail serivice, it would be a complete turn-off. Even if it's just a symbolic 'unlimited storage', 1GB just isn't enough. I want this web interface to serve me for years to come. As a new user (which I'm not, but let's say I am) I don't want to start using a service that's going to force me to mass-delete e-mails at some point in the future.

Another thing I've been thinking about is that the mail.opera.com service simply isn't going to be all that successful because of the massive competition on the e-mail market. You need to be better than the rest. You can't do this, the competition is too much and let's be honest, very few people actually want to use an "@myOpera.com" e-mail address. Isn't it a better idea to be less restrictive? I.e. you don't need an @myopera e-mail address (or even separate account, really) to use the web interface. If people want a good e-mail service, they'll use gmail or hotmail. The strongest thing about this service is by far the web interface (because it's brilliant!), not the e-mail address you get with it. So maybe this is where the focus should be, instead of the 'opera e-mail service". I know for a fact that I'll be able to get some friends to use it if they didn't need additional accounts and whatnot. "Here is this great web mail interface, but you need a separate account". The answer my friends would give me would most likely be "No thanks." But if the conversation went something like this: "Here is a great web mail interface, you don't need any additional stuff - just link your old e-mail accounts", I'm sure I could get a couple of friends to use it. If you can get a lot of people to use the mail interface and find some smart way to monetize those users (even just getting your name out there is good for business), you've built yourself a great service. Not so much if you spend a lot of developer resources on it and it doesn't really catch on.

I'm no business expert and I have no idea if what I'm saying even makes sense, but in my head this sounds about right.

Thank you for reading.

I'm currently using the service as my primary 'mail box', if you can call it that. For both my hotmail and 'mail.com' account. I already had a myOpera account before the fastmail.fm acquisition so I pretty much didn't have to do anything to start using the mail service. Setting up multiple e-mail accounts is absolutely fantastic! Make sure this same 'system' (where it fetches all the correct server settings (POP, IMAP, etc)) gets implemented in the Opera (in-brower) mail client too (M2 was the old name?). It's brilliant.

In any case, the point I wanted to make is the following. I use the service because I didn't have to do anything to start using it. The interface is in fact amazingly good and I can see new-emails from speeddial. I'd be a moron not to use it. But I don't know if this goes the same for other people who aren't as 'into' the opera-things like me and a few thousand others.

"Do I really want to make another account for something so I can do the things I can already do?"
If I wasn't this into everything opera does, the answer for me would quite frankly be "uh, no." People hate making accounts.

In any case, thank you for enlightening me on the storage thing!

Thank you for your reply. You're awesome Seems like you lot definitely know what's best.

I can't add an account for b@bohwaz.net because it asks for pop login and password and refuses to continue without one. But it's just an alias, so there is no POP3 account available, so I can't link this address and use it in myopera mail

Is there a help page that details the available features? For instance, I've heard that IMAP is available, but I can find no mention of it.

My opinion in a nutshell:
+ Encrypted sessions, not just the login page. This is the big "selling point" for me, since there are very few services to offer this (the only notable one being Gmail)
+ Nice, clean interface
+ No need to sign up if you already have an account on these forums

- 1000 MB storage (that will thankfully be expanded at some point). Gmail is always growing and currently provides around 7.7 GB, Yahoo! claims unlimited space, and Hotmail does the same more or less, but in a more convoluted way. Most people never use anywhere near 8 GB, so "as much space as you need, if you need it" seems like the sensible way to go about it.
- www.operamail.com redirects to Fastmail, which is, well, just plain awful. This hurts user perception of your service.

Originally posted by Gingerbread-Man:

Is there a help page that details the available features? For instance, I've heard that IMAP is available, but I can find no mention of it.

From the welcome mail you received when setting up the account:

Want to setup M2 or other IMAP client with your My Opera Mail account? Here's the details you'll need:
IMAP server: imap.myopera.com port 993 (SSL only)
SMTP server: smtp.myopera.com port 587 (STARTTLS only) or 465 (SSL only)
You'll need to use your username@myopera.com email address as the login and your My Opera password for both of these.

Originally posted by Gingerbread-Man:

- www.operamail.com redirects to Fastmail, which is, well, just plain awful. This hurts user perception of your service.

There was no practical way to merge the old operamail.com accounts with the new service due to colliding name spaces and the operamail.com service already had a premium support level (better match for FastMail). We also had to import operamail.com before My Opera Mail was even launched in order to "save" our old users. You can also access the new interface through https://beta.fastmail.fm with your operamail.com account and it will be rolled out to all FastMail users when finished.

And how can I add an external email address which doesn't have a POP/IMAP account?

@bohwas: Sorry, we don't appear to have an option for that.

@borg: But you had because I was able to do it before, why drop it?

Mmmm.. I think the only way was via the fallback e-mail address of your Opera Account. We don't import that anymore since it wasn't properly synchronized.

I have been receiving notices from FastMail that I need to give them credit card info because my subscription is almost up for renewal. I have never been billed or paid FastMail anything for use of their service. When operamail switched over to FastMail it was all automatic. Do we need to pay annually for FastMail now?

Thanks

@hutchfam: When we took over operamail.com there was no mail.opera.com so we decided to merge it with fastmail.fm. Users who had been paying for Premium level at operamail.com were transferred to Full accounts at Fastmail, while non-paying users were transferred to Guest. We decided to postpone all further payments another full year, and that year is up now. In "Options" there is a link to the "Upgrade/Downgrade" screen where you can change subscription level down to Ad Free or Guest (free).

I don't see a link to a privacy policy anywhere on mail.opera.com. I take it the privacy policy at www.opera.com/privacy/operamail/ applies and that it's up-to-date, correct? After the latest Google debacle, I think we can all do without any more surprises.

Edit: Another nice Gmail feature is being able to see a list of the IP addresses that have logged in. This allows you to determine if your account has been compromised. Would you consider adding this feature?

Originally posted by borg:

From the welcome mail you received when setting up the account:

I didn't get a welcome e-mail. Thank you for posting it here.

http://www.opera.com/privacy/#webmail is up to date. Thanks for reporting the old version, I'll make sure it is removed / re-linked ASAP.

Edit: Site has been updated thanks to your report.

Originally posted by Gingerbread-Man:

Edit: Another nice Gmail feature is being able to see a list of the IP addresses that have logged in. This allows you to determine if your account has been compromised. Would you consider adding this feature?

+1

Originally posted by borg:

Site has been updated thanks to your report.

Thank you for the fix, and for responding to feedback.

Opera may provide certain user information in aggregate form to third parties for demographics.

That's a bit vague. What would be nice is a clear statement if the user IP address is tied to the data or not. Different sites have different definitions of “aggregate” and “non-personally identifiable information”.

User’s Internet protocol address is transmitted with each message sent from User’s account.

Bummer. Gmail doesn't do this.

Originally posted by Gingerbread-Man:

Bummer. Gmail doesn't do this.

The policy is broader than our actual practice: For example, we don't transmit the IP address with messages sent from the Web interface, only when using a native client with our SMTP server. We have little choice since we otherwise invite misuse and our legitimate outgoing mail will end up blocked.