Anyone hate Outlook (new Hotmail) like I do?

[TrailMyx]

What's up with Microsoft these days?  I've used Hotmail for years and have felt it to be a pretty good free mail service.  Their transition to the Outlook paradigm without a backward compatibility/skin (*cough* Windows 8 *cough*) has me closing my hotmail account for good.  I'm already moved over to hushmail and will probably never use Hotmail again. 

Moral:

The new Hotmail really sucks!

(won't even get into the details, but they are numerous!)

[Crome969]

Never been a fan of Hotmail, used MSN as Teenager to chat with chicks, else not really used. But i have a few friends who also saying that the latest changes are not good as to use their services anymore.

[UOMaddog]

I've used Gmail since the days before it was even open to the public (a friend and I got beta-accounts back in high school). I can't say I've seen any other service that can compare to the features of Gmail / Google account! Most people don't even realize all the awesome stuff in the "Labs" section of Gmail that is supposedly alpha/beta-ready, yet still works better than full services like AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, etc.

[Khameleon]

I agree, Gmail has been my goto mail service since it was in beta testing..

[Endless Night]

I thought google labs was shut down a number of years ago

[TrailMyx]

I wasn't a big fan of gmail going though my mail text to determine how they might want to spam me with advertisements.  I chose hushmail because it's just about as secure as they come.

[Endless Night]

I wasn't a big fan of gmail going though my mail text to determine how they might want to spam me with advertisements.  I chose hushmail because it's just about as secure as they come.

Ditto on that.. I just have a gmail account to access google play and i dont use it otherwise well except for some calendars so google can know exactly here i am and what im doing at all times.

[UOMaddog]

I thought google labs was shut down a number of years ago

Not in the least! I use tons of the features of Labs (it's under Settings -> Labs) in GMail.

I wasn't a big fan of gmail going though my mail text to determine how they might want to spam me with advertisements.

I actually enjoy the overall integration of services offered by Google. I am one of those willing to give up marketing information on myself to use a service for absolutely no charge. When you consider the cost of similar products to provide all the services that Google does, I just can't justify the costs or the lower quality of those services. Google Now is honestly one of my favorite applications on my Samsung Galaxy SII. It's one place where I can find:
-Current weather where I'm at (plenty of other apps that would do it, but very clean)
-Current scores for all the teams I like
-Notifications about items I've purchased that have been shipped/delivered (scans my GMail for tracking numbers)
-Traffic to/from our clients, with alerts if it's going to take me longer than usual to get to a meeting due to traffic
-Nearby restaurants (great when I'm traveling for business)
-much much more!

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of apps that would serve each of those functions well (except the traffic alert part since it involves calendar integration), but Google does it all in ONE APP! With a clean and easy interface. In fact, it hides most of those cards except when it knows I'll need them, but they're only one click away if I do. Not to mention I can do all kinds of searching from within the app as well. To me, it's finally an app that does what apps SHOULD do, help people and make their lives easier, NOT more complicated with technology! And all of that for free! It wouldn't be able to do half of those functions without me providing the data they collect as a "fee" for their services, so I am willing to make what I consider a fair trade: info for services.

If it's something I really want to keep private, well that's when I use other independent services!

[Robban89]

I agree, Not even a nice look
I changed my mail to Gmail when they told they was going to change.

[TrailMyx]

I managed to fix one of the annoyances.  I got rid of the right-side ad bar.  Here's how:

For Firefox:
1) Install Greasemonkey  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/ (restart Firefox)
2) Install CSS modification script from here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8228

There are other directions on the userscripts.org site for other browsers: http://userscripts.org/about/installing

I love Google search!

[backabacka]

It's still a shame you have to do all this extra stuff to make something usable that should work as-is. Microsoft is showing their ignorance as of late, especially with Windows 8, and how they have to do such a quick turnaround with "Windows Blue" because only a small minority of people actually like it.

[TrailMyx]

Yeh, it's kinda funny to own the product that's being blamed for the death of the PC.  Not a badge of honor.