Yahoo! Mail Blog, UK and Ireland

A while back I mentioned that we had an issue that affected some of you retrieving your mail using a POP mail client like Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc. Even though we fixed that issue some time ago, it prompted us to take a look to see if there was any room to improve the POP/SMTP performance as a whole. As I’m sure you are aware by now, our team is committed to improving the performance of Yahoo Mail.

I can tell you, that after doing a thorough check of our POP server’s performance here in Europe, we came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t hurt to do a bit of an upgrade. And, if you’re a regular reader to the blog, you’ll remember we did a similar upgrade to our Webmail servers, which has dramatically improved performance across Yahoo Mail in the UK.

So, taking a page out of our own book, over the last month or so, we’ve been adding more hardware to improve the performance to our UK users that use an external mail client to access their mail. I can tell you now, that we’ve just completed installing brand-new hardware to process the mail that you send and receive. That means improved speed, fewer errors and an improved experience.

Take a look at the graph below starting at week 33 when the new hardware was installed. 100 is where we want to be (we’re not perfect yet as you can see at the end of week 35, but we’re getting there ;-)).

Happy emailing!
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Team

Just a quickie (in more ways than one)…

We never stop reading your feedback and we couldn’t help notice that some of you were concerned about the speed Yahoo! Mail at times. We passed it onto our engineers, here’s what they did about it…

Installed *brand new hardware* with *double the performance memory* and *double the processing power*

…all of which mean a faster Yahoo! Mail for you. And please note, when we refer to “memory” we’re not talking about the storage space for messages (that’s unlimited, remember). We’re talking about the memory on the hardware at Yahoo! HQ. The more there is, the faster Yahoo! Mail can perform for you.

Here’s what the improvements look like in graphical form - Green is good!!!

The work’s just been completed so now you can tackle your email with even greater speed and efficiency than before.

And don’t worry, we’re not resting on our laurels - speed and performance are something we’re committed to optimising on an ongoing basis.

Happy emailing
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Team

P.S. - I hope that you enjoyed this post. There’s lot’s of other great information on this blog, so make sure you come back often to read about all the latest updates, tips and useful information about Yahoo! Mail.

It’s my belief that Yahoo! Mail Beta is the best webmail product on the market today. I might be biased, because I work at Yahoo!, on the Mail team, with a great bunch of folks from all over Europe and the world. But I don’t want you just to take my word for it. Recently I’ve seen a spate of reviews on the Yahoo! Mail Beta, and guess what… the reviewers think so to.

Yahoo Mail Wins Gold

In a recent product review published by Webuser Magazine, Yahoo! Mail Beta gets 5 out of 5 stars for features, performance, ease of use, and overall…

“On top of all the excellent features Yahoo Mail has to offer, it also comes with unlimited storage space for your emails.”

Read more at Webuser

Yahoo Mail Wins over Google’s Gmail

Laptop Magazine, in its article “Google vs Yahoo. 3. E-mail & Calendar”, recently put Yahoo! Mail and Google’s Gmail head-to-head. And, you guessed it, in the comparison of Mail products, according to the reviewer Yahoo Mail! comes out on top.

“Yahoo’s taking the lead in the e-mail category, thanks to its organized interface–that includes tabs–as well as chat and RSS feeds. And did we mention unlimited storage?”

Read the full comparison at Laptop Magazine

Yahoo! Mail Beta – Winner, Best Webmail

In a recent article in PC World, they named some of the Web’s most useful sites. And yep, you guessed it, Yahoo! Mail Beta was named the best webmail service.

“Yahoo’s beta resembles traditional desktop e-mail programs, allowing you to sort mail by date or sender, resize fields, keep detailed contact information, scroll through messages with keyboard shortcuts, and create rules to sort messages.”

The article is at PC World or you can view the snapshot of providers. (Feb, 2007)

Not bad, huh?

Happy emailing.
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Beta Team