Yandex Mail (English Version) Opinions!!

silverthe1 · 9 Jun 2012, 10:40 PM

Hello friends,

Through this forum, I found out about Yandex.com. As I always do, I signed up for a free email account to test drive it. So far, things are looking good. The web interface is a bit different, but works for me. Mail Client settings etc. are also working fine.

I was wondering if anyone on the forum is having an E-mail account with Yandex. If that's the case, please share your views and opinions about the service.

Cheers

JustSam · 9 Jun 2012, 11:02 PM

I like it. It's different but good. :-)

Tsunami · 10 Jun 2012, 06:58 AM

In this topic , Dutchie007 said he used Yandex lately and was satisfied. He said it was ironically that his Russian friends moved away from Yandex to go to Gmail while he made the reverse move while searching an alternative to Gmail.

Personally I do have my connections in Russia (not exactly "friends" but let's say connections and people I now and then have an online chat with) and almost all of them use Mail.ru ; the few people I know in Belarus do as well despite Belarus having its own service (mail.by) ; other Russian services often get obscured by the overwhelming popularity of Mail.ru. That however by no means indicates they'd be less good.

Before test driving a service I'd at least want to know
a) how long has the service been around (usually indicates if they're there to stay for the long haul or not)
b) if it's just email or a total package with profiles and chats included (which makes me refrain from trying mail.ru)
c) what's the capacity of the account and the inactivity limit

The other stuff I care about (date of previous sessions given, supporting non-Latin alphabets, support reachable, ...) I can test myself if the answers to the above look promising enough.

Some people will probably mistrust the service for the sake of being Russian ; I however have "something" with Russia. It's such a fascinating country

However, what stopped me from using a Russian mail service until now is the fear that any other service than Mail.ru would eventually cease operations due to the virtual monopoly of Mail.ru (which in its turn has too many community features and other non-email stuff built in)

Maybe ask Dutchie007 what his opinion is ; in the other topic he was quite positive.

**ReuvenNY** · 10 Jun 2012, 08:28 AM

I signed up for this service and so far I am impressed. It's fast, clean and in many ways it resembles Gmail. Perhaps because they compete with Google in Russia as a search engine?
I didn't have too much time to play with it. I wonder if anyone has more info on it's limits, feature etc.

Tsunami · 10 Jun 2012, 09:14 AM

Wikipedia is always to be taken with a grain of salt but this looks quite impressive: check Yandex on this page.

According to Wikipedia the capacity of the inbox is unlimited, and the account NEVER expires. And this is all for free.

When reading something like this, I always wonder where's the catch. I mean, if something is free, then usually there are restrictions. Who else than multinationals can offer unlimited storage for free and without ever deleting unused accounts? Now Yandex seems to be the leading search engine in Russia and thus with a lot of resources ; but still, why would they be so generous to give away unlimited storage for free without inactivity limit?

Anyways, I'm still getting interest after reading this ... If the above is true it's getting quite interesting. I'd like to know though if dates of previous sessions are stored (that's quite a priority for me) and if non-Latin alphabets are supported (and by that I mean not only Russian ; I need Hebrew for my studies). I don't like the community/networking/chat options in email, but I don't exactly mind as long as those can be turned off.

But anyways, it's getting quite interesting. Dutchie007 wrote in his other post in the other topic many move away from Yandex but still it seems the service gets a lot of praise. That's quite odd.

One big question may be if any form of support is possible when the company has such a large userbase (it is the leading search engine in Russia and has offices in several other countries too, including Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, ... Must be quite hard to ever get support from a company that big ?!)

jeffpan · 10 Jun 2012, 10:59 AM

I have spent some time to test the servie, it's fast and solid for me.

just1acc · 10 Jun 2012, 03:28 PM

Earlier, I made one free account and sent some test mails.

Gmail got all ok, AOL (about.me) considered those as spam. Then I thought not to get involved anymore.

Anybody having this problem?

Dutchie007 · 12 Jun 2012, 06:09 AM

Up till now I tested Yandex with several other email providers like Gmail,Yahoo,hotmail and AOL.
With Gmail and Hotmail there were NO probs.....however, with AOL (and AIM) and yahoo there were problems.

After I FIRST send an email from my yahoo.de and aim.com accounts the yandex mails were excepted...!! So it was NOT so they ended up in the spam box...they simply didn´t arrive...!

The reason I wanto move away from Gmail is not their service (which still is outstanding btw) but their attitude to snoope arround in my private emails....and that is one thing I don´t like!!

Thing is I don´t know why the yandex mails didn´t reach aol.de, yahoo.de and aim.com at FIRST....very strange indeed. The other way arround it did work...mails from yahoo.de and aol.de reached yandex....

I have to sort this out more.....but so far for me it´s certainly NOT so that Yandex seems floggy or shabby email service.

Dutchie.

janusz · 12 Jun 2012, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dutchie007

for me it´s certainly NOT so that Yandex seems floggy or shabby email service.

I don't know what "floggy" is, but I understand you didn't mean anything complimentary....

Anyway if emails from Yandex do not reach some major destinations the service is useless.

just1acc · 12 Jun 2012, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

Anyway if emails from Yandex do not reach some major destinations the service is useless.

I believe its NOT Yandex's fault. AOL ( I don't have Yahoo right now), specially blocking/blacklisting Yandex. Fishy.

Tsunami · 13 Jun 2012, 12:47 AM

As some of you tried them already... Can you tell me if they keep track of the date of previous sessions? Is the entire session encrypted? Those are important issues for me. Since Yandex is also a search engine with many other features ; is it possible to disable those to just have the email working with nothing else?

I still find it odd that they'd give unlimited storage for free without expiry limit, which their Wikipedia page claims they do. Of course if you're the biggest search engine in Russia and are succesful in several other nations, you got resources, but that still doesn't explain why they'd be so generous to give away unlimited storage for free without any strings attached.

The non-arrival of emails is not necessarily their fault. Some paranoid services block everything coming from Russia ; mail.ru is very solid but some mail providers still classify all emails from mail.ru as spam even when the majority of their users are not spammers by any means.

janusz · 13 Jun 2012, 12:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

Since Yandex is also a search engine with many other features ; is it possible to disable those to just have the email working with nothing else?

And since Yandex email allows you to attach files and compose HTML message, you may wish to enquire whether it's possible to disable these superfluous features and get the rest working

Dutchie007 · 13 Jun 2012, 03:17 AM

After "playing" with Yandex for several hours yesterday (and today) I must admit I am beginning to believe that the problem is NOT Yandex service but the problem is Yahoo and AOL (AIM)....!! As stated before by a previous poster.

Alas NOT everything that comes from Russia is spam....and many services are genuine and serious.

Also with Inbox, jubii.dk, gmx.com, mail2world and Zmail all went well...so apparently it´s only Yahoo and AOL that is doing bad?

I am curious to what others have found out about the Yandex service.

Dutchie

PS: also with zoho all went well....and no probs.

just1acc · 13 Jun 2012, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

I still find it odd that they'd give unlimited storage for free without expiry limit, which their Wikipedia page claims they do. Of course if you're the biggest search engine in Russia and are succesful in several other nations, you got resources, but that still doesn't explain why they'd be so generous to give away unlimited storage for free without any strings attached.

F#@K. Wiki page seems updated by some idiot.

You're right. After wasting all day setting and toying I found...

Quote:

2.9.1. A mailbox at Yandex.Mail is deleted if the User does not use it for over 6 months;

2.9.2. A website of the User at Yandex.Narod and any additional services (guest book, personal forum, etc.) shall be deleted if the website does not have a single visitor in 4 months;

2.9.3. The User’s bookmarks at Yandex.Bookmarks shall be deleted if not used in over 12 months.

http://legal.yandex.com/rules/

communicant · 14 Jun 2012, 01:27 AM

I am curious as to how many contributors to this thread provided a mobile number to Yandex when registering, because the registration page goes out of its way to mislead people into thinking that a mobile number is mandatory, when in fact it is not.

The field for the alternate email says "optional" but the field for a mobile number does not, which certainly implies that a number is required in order to create an account, especially since they also say that a confirmation text will be sent to that phone number, which must be confirmed so they know the phone number is genuine. They also say that a confirmation message must be returned in order to validate the "optional" alternate email, but it turns out that neither a phone number nor an alternate email is necessary to create an account.

Providing a mobile number is a deal-breaker for me. I simply will not do it, under any circumstances, so when I saw this on the Yandex registration page I very nearly aborted the registration and left, but then I decided to continue and leave the field blank, just to see what happened. I also left the alternate email field blank. (By the way, be sure to create your own security question, because the ready-made ones are potentially risky, asking for parts of passport or social security numbers, and they also ask for a more mathematically risky last five digits instead of the more common last four, although no part of the social security number should ever be provided. Why would anyone give away such sensitive information when there is also the option of creating a safe and meaningless self-generated security question?)

Anyway, I submitted the registration page with absolutely minimal information and left two fields blank. I reckoned that if the form was thrust back at me marked "incomplete," I could always abandon the registration attempt at that point, but there was no need to do that because the gamble paid off and the registration was accepted as submitted, with no mobile number. They did have one last trick up their sleeves. After acceptance, there is a page offering one more chance to provide a mobile number, which could easily be mistaken for a demand to provide a missing piece of data to gain access to the account, but off to one side is a clickable link saying "go to Yandex mail," and if one simply ignores the renewed mention of a mobile number and clicks on that link, one is taken straight to the inbox of the new account, still without having provided a phone number.

So be advised that it is indeed possible to open a Yandex account without providing a mobile number, although they go to considerable and crafty lengths to make it seem mandatory, without ever actually saying so.

Was anyone here fooled, or did you all realize that no number was actually required?

9 Jun 2012, 10:40 PM	#1
silverthe1 Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 66	Yandex Mail (English Version) Opinions!! Hello friends, Through this forum, I found out about Yandex.com. As I always do, I signed up for a free email account to test drive it. So far, things are looking good. The web interface is a bit different, but works for me. Mail Client settings etc. are also working fine. I was wondering if anyone on the forum is having an E-mail account with Yandex. If that's the case, please share your views and opinions about the service. Cheers

13 Jun 2012, 03:17 AM	#13
Dutchie007 Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 388	After "playing" with Yandex for several hours yesterday (and today) I must admit I am beginning to believe that the problem is NOT Yandex service but the problem is Yahoo and AOL (AIM)....!! As stated before by a previous poster. Alas NOT everything that comes from Russia is spam....and many services are genuine and serious. Also with Inbox, jubii.dk, gmx.com, mail2world and Zmail all went well...so apparently it´s only Yahoo and AOL that is doing bad? I am curious to what others have found out about the Yandex service. Dutchie PS: also with zoho all went well....and no probs. Last edited by Dutchie007 : 13 Jun 2012 at 03:43 AM.

14 Jun 2012, 01:27 AM	#15
communicant Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 879	despite appearances, a mobile number is not required to create a Yandex account I am curious as to how many contributors to this thread provided a mobile number to Yandex when registering, because the registration page goes out of its way to mislead people into thinking that a mobile number is mandatory, when in fact it is not. The field for the alternate email says "optional" but the field for a mobile number does not, which certainly implies that a number is required in order to create an account, especially since they also say that a confirmation text will be sent to that phone number, which must be confirmed so they know the phone number is genuine. They also say that a confirmation message must be returned in order to validate the "optional" alternate email, but it turns out that neither a phone number nor an alternate email is necessary to create an account. Providing a mobile number is a deal-breaker for me. I simply will not do it, under any circumstances, so when I saw this on the Yandex registration page I very nearly aborted the registration and left, but then I decided to continue and leave the field blank, just to see what happened. I also left the alternate email field blank. (By the way, be sure to create your own security question, because the ready-made ones are potentially risky, asking for parts of passport or social security numbers, and they also ask for a more mathematically risky last five digits instead of the more common last four, although no part of the social security number should ever be provided. Why would anyone give away such sensitive information when there is also the option of creating a safe and meaningless self-generated security question?) Anyway, I submitted the registration page with absolutely minimal information and left two fields blank. I reckoned that if the form was thrust back at me marked "incomplete," I could always abandon the registration attempt at that point, but there was no need to do that because the gamble paid off and the registration was accepted as submitted, with no mobile number. They did have one last trick up their sleeves. After acceptance, there is a page offering one more chance to provide a mobile number, which could easily be mistaken for a demand to provide a missing piece of data to gain access to the account, but off to one side is a clickable link saying "go to Yandex mail," and if one simply ignores the renewed mention of a mobile number and clicks on that link, one is taken straight to the inbox of the new account, still without having provided a phone number. So be advised that it is indeed possible to open a Yandex account without providing a mobile number, although they go to considerable and crafty lengths to make it seem mandatory, without ever actually saying so. Was anyone here fooled, or did you all realize that no number was actually required?

9 Jun 2012, 11:02 PM	#2
JustSam Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Canada Posts: 9	I like it. It's different but good. :-)

10 Jun 2012, 06:58 AM	#3
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	In this topic , Dutchie007 said he used Yandex lately and was satisfied. He said it was ironically that his Russian friends moved away from Yandex to go to Gmail while he made the reverse move while searching an alternative to Gmail. Personally I do have my connections in Russia (not exactly "friends" but let's say connections and people I now and then have an online chat with) and almost all of them use Mail.ru ; the few people I know in Belarus do as well despite Belarus having its own service (mail.by) ; other Russian services often get obscured by the overwhelming popularity of Mail.ru. That however by no means indicates they'd be less good. Before test driving a service I'd at least want to know a) how long has the service been around (usually indicates if they're there to stay for the long haul or not) b) if it's just email or a total package with profiles and chats included (which makes me refrain from trying mail.ru) c) what's the capacity of the account and the inactivity limit The other stuff I care about (date of previous sessions given, supporting non-Latin alphabets, support reachable, ...) I can test myself if the answers to the above look promising enough. Some people will probably mistrust the service for the sake of being Russian ; I however have "something" with Russia. It's such a fascinating country However, what stopped me from using a Russian mail service until now is the fear that any other service than Mail.ru would eventually cease operations due to the virtual monopoly of Mail.ru (which in its turn has too many community features and other non-email stuff built in) Maybe ask Dutchie007 what his opinion is ; in the other topic he was quite positive.

10 Jun 2012, 08:28 AM	#4
ReuvenNY Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: New York Posts: 4,259	I signed up for this service and so far I am impressed. It's fast, clean and in many ways it resembles Gmail. Perhaps because they compete with Google in Russia as a search engine? I didn't have too much time to play with it. I wonder if anyone has more info on it's limits, feature etc.

10 Jun 2012, 09:14 AM	#5
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	Wikipedia is always to be taken with a grain of salt but this looks quite impressive: check Yandex on this page. According to Wikipedia the capacity of the inbox is unlimited, and the account NEVER expires. And this is all for free. When reading something like this, I always wonder where's the catch. I mean, if something is free, then usually there are restrictions. Who else than multinationals can offer unlimited storage for free and without ever deleting unused accounts? Now Yandex seems to be the leading search engine in Russia and thus with a lot of resources ; but still, why would they be so generous to give away unlimited storage for free without inactivity limit? Anyways, I'm still getting interest after reading this ... If the above is true it's getting quite interesting. I'd like to know though if dates of previous sessions are stored (that's quite a priority for me) and if non-Latin alphabets are supported (and by that I mean not only Russian ; I need Hebrew for my studies). I don't like the community/networking/chat options in email, but I don't exactly mind as long as those can be turned off. But anyways, it's getting quite interesting. Dutchie007 wrote in his other post in the other topic many move away from Yandex but still it seems the service gets a lot of praise. That's quite odd. One big question may be if any form of support is possible when the company has such a large userbase (it is the leading search engine in Russia and has offices in several other countries too, including Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, ... Must be quite hard to ever get support from a company that big ?!)

10 Jun 2012, 10:59 AM	#6
jeffpan The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Macao Posts: 2,162 Representative of: tls-mail.com	I have spent some time to test the servie, it's fast and solid for me.

10 Jun 2012, 03:28 PM	#7
just1acc Essential Contributor Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 441	Earlier, I made one free account and sent some test mails. Gmail got all ok, AOL (about.me) considered those as spam. Then I thought not to get involved anymore. Anybody having this problem?

12 Jun 2012, 06:09 AM	#8
Dutchie007 Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 388	Up till now I tested Yandex with several other email providers like Gmail,Yahoo,hotmail and AOL. With Gmail and Hotmail there were NO probs.....however, with AOL (and AIM) and yahoo there were problems. After I FIRST send an email from my yahoo.de and aim.com accounts the yandex mails were excepted...!! So it was NOT so they ended up in the spam box...they simply didn´t arrive...! The reason I wanto move away from Gmail is not their service (which still is outstanding btw) but their attitude to snoope arround in my private emails....and that is one thing I don´t like!! Thing is I don´t know why the yandex mails didn´t reach aol.de, yahoo.de and aim.com at FIRST....very strange indeed. The other way arround it did work...mails from yahoo.de and aol.de reached yandex.... I have to sort this out more.....but so far for me it´s certainly NOT so that Yandex seems floggy or shabby email service. Dutchie.

13 Jun 2012, 12:47 AM	#11
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	As some of you tried them already... Can you tell me if they keep track of the date of previous sessions? Is the entire session encrypted? Those are important issues for me. Since Yandex is also a search engine with many other features ; is it possible to disable those to just have the email working with nothing else? I still find it odd that they'd give unlimited storage for free without expiry limit, which their Wikipedia page claims they do. Of course if you're the biggest search engine in Russia and are succesful in several other nations, you got resources, but that still doesn't explain why they'd be so generous to give away unlimited storage for free without any strings attached. The non-arrival of emails is not necessarily their fault. Some paranoid services block everything coming from Russia ; mail.ru is very solid but some mail providers still classify all emails from mail.ru as spam even when the majority of their users are not spammers by any means.