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.
Let's be honest, Gmail, being a Google service, was condemned to have an awful UI which can't work without loading megabytes of JS into your browser.
The good news are that they still support mail clients, which everyone should be using except for those occasions you're working from a device you do not own.
The bad news are that Gmail still analyzes your emails in the server side, and uses them to serve you tracking ads and train AI models. So maybe switching providers altogether is a better option for those who have a choice.
Honestly, I think Gmail's web client is pretty great. It actually has tons of power user features I found very handy in the past (like support for scripting).
I agree. Gmail is great as a desktop client if always open in a browser tab.
Which is probably what they want and what their most loyal users want.
Gmail's UI is awful unless you are coming from the Outlook webmail client .. then it's freaking amazing.
The default Microsoft mail client I use at work is slower and has less features than the BBS email I used 30 years ago...
have you seen yahoo yet
Or AOL? Bleh.
Genuinely curious, how would it not be possible for a person to switch to another provider? Are people really so tied to gmail that they feel it's impossible to leave?
I have had my Gmail account for 20 years (since the days of needed an invite). I have 100s of accounts where I have used the id. It's just not possible to change my email id everywhere. I imagine this would be the case for many people.
We've had an identical experience. It's sad to see the enshitification of GMail.
The question is if you still actively use those 100s of accounts. Out of all the things i've ever signed up with, I maybe only use a dozen of the services at most. Most of the accounts I created during childhood and teenage years on random websites I will never ever touch or think about again, couldn't care less if I lose them. Theres like 10-15 accounts that I would need to swap emails to in order to continue on my digital life as normal.
I can vouch for myself and say that I do have hundreds of accounts that are tied to my Gmail. Changing my email would be worse than changing my cell number I've used for over 20 years lol
Not really gmails fault this tho, this would be true of any mail provider you'd use for this time spand. That has more to do with how userprofiles on the internet works.
I think most are tied to gmail because of android, browser sync, oauth logins, long time gmail usage (making it hard to migrate), school/work using Google workspace, competitors are unheard of eg. tutanota/protonmail, most people trust gmail account over others (my friend thought my @pm.me account was a spam account) and mainly because gmail just works.
In certain companies, people's corporate email could be through Gmail (or whatever they've name their email services for businesses).
For me Gmail's killer feature is the spam Blocker. Other email services never get it right, and block to much or to little...
Gmail is slow as fuck on Firefox. And the design also sucks. Just copy outlook like decent email services do.