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.
Shame, now it won’t be possible to access Gmail from the Nintendo DS Browser.
Bro you used that too
Can you catch me up to speed?
Back in the day a lot of us didn’t have smart phones or computers. But we did have consoles with Internet.
Nintendo Wii had a browser too. Tits in their 480p glory.
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).
So maybe switching providers altogether is a better option for those who have a choice
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).
Gmail is slow as fuck on Firefox. And the design also sucks. Just copy outlook like decent email services do.
I had Outlook already, then created a proton email, and it came in handy when I decided to stop using Gmail. Now I don’t even need to do anything, I have already change email service.
The main reason I cannot get rid of GMail entirely is OAuth. There’s no good alternatives.
Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. You can just stop using Gmail and still maintain a Google account to use with oauth providers.
There’s also the privacy concern as well.
I’ve seen many ignorant comments thinking Gmail is only for email. Google is our company’s identity provider. We’re locked in tight.
Certain States allow you to attach your Gmail to your literal identity. Allowing quick authorization to sensitive information. It’s interesting in concept, but dystopian in application. At least in the United States. Alphabet and the federal government shaking hands is somewhat unsettling.
It’d be great if the federal government invested in proprietary capital instead of just dumping money into Private Corp. I guess that’s capitalism for you, but that’s just getting off topic now.
While I agree with nearly all of this, have you ever used any proprietary government software? It’s the fucking worst.
More importantly, it’s another service that users have to sign up for and maintain a password for. Gmail auth is easy because I already have it.
I usually give login with github/discord/mastodon a priority but if they are not available I just fallback to google
+1 for Proton Mail. The other day I have switched to Proton (from another mail provider in Germany) and love it so far. I can even use a language to customise my filter [1], how cool that is!
Not in a million year that I will come back to Gmail.
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That’s fine. Thunderbird is excellent, and the Mail app on my phone is lightweight.
Browser UI is irrelevant to me, and I plan to make more Google services irrelevant to myself. That’s what happens when you continue to kill off services like this.
Sad news. They take away your freedom one step at a time.
Good news I’m migrating away from gmail
What are the options you’re looking at?
Join a public access unix server, most of them are free to join and offer email. sdf.org is the oldest and most well known pubnix however many newer ones have popped up forming the tildeverse I personally have had excellent experience with https://tilde.team
Proton!
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I’ve moved to Posteo for the time being
I’m self-hosted. It would be nerve wracking if email wasn’t an anachronism.
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Self hosting email is an anachronism. You basically can’t do it anymore, none of the big providers will agree to federate
Honestly I didn’t even know it was still supported and would have assume they dropped it years ago. You can still use non-web clients so it’s not a huge deal. You can also use a less modern style email host if you prefer.
The last time I used the html version was in the Quest 2 browser. Apperently it can’t handle anything else.
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Is Lynx POP or IMAP compatable? If so, thats done already.
Awesome to see Google embrace plaintext email! /j
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My connection is trash. I need HTML Gmail to load it at all in a reasonable amount of time.
same here. have always used the basic ui.
it’s basically just a imap client with a few googlized aspects like labels that mimic folders and some non-ui dependent features (imports and filters, etc).
nixing basic html gmail is just another piece of the maximize monetization puzzle. these users weren’t getting the “full” google experience with all the ad-driven “features” and script-driven tracking of the “full” web client.
Yeah, Google said basically exactly that in their 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”
Full Gmail feature, meaning full Gmail analytics and tracking.
I understand you, I’ve been in your position
But to Google you are the smallest %, so small that it’s not even worth maintaining the code
I don’t necessarily think they are right, but it is that way
It’s not about the browser. If you have a really slow connection, normal Gmail doesn’t even load, but HTML Gmail may run very well. They shouldn’t have discontinued it.
why be fair to google? they’re literally a trillion dollar company
So they shouldn’t try to monetise as much as they can? I don’t get your point
