FUCK YOU MICROSOFT

[edenfalling]

Hotmail has just "upgraded" so that its layout and functions mimic Outlook. There is no way to opt out of this change.

I didn't want this. I have not wanted any of their so-called "upgrades" over the years (...okay, the increased memory was not horrible, mostly because it had no effect on the presentation or actual use of the site) and so far as I can tell there is never any public beta-testing or even so much as a general inquiry into whether anyone wants the fucking "upgrades."

I like things simple and plain and boring, I do not use your stupid useless bells and whistles, and I DO NOT LIKE CHANGE, GODDAMMIT. Especially not when the change was completely unneeded, and ugly, and messes up the ways I have gotten comfortable with using a particular site or service!

Why does the internet never seem to accept that this is a perfectly valid preference???

(No, I am not going to switch to Gmail. So far as I can tell, Google is equally annoying and top-down "oh, but just try it, you'll like it!" about such things. Also, see above re: disliking change.

...Although if you know a simple and basic web-based email service that doesn't fuck with its users this way, I might be willing to pay actual cash to not get jerked around with bullshit "upgrades" every year or so.)

Comments

[sabriel]

You might probably just want to get some sort of paid email service or more likely, your own hosting service where you can set up your email into how you like it and make it stick that way.

[edenfalling]

Aside from my complete and tragic lack of programming knowledge, that sounds like an attractive idea. *sigh*

[sabriel]

I can host your email if you like, though right now I'm only able to offer 500 MB of space and you might not like the webmail client functions.

[branchandroot]

*rueful* Yeah, they seem to think the same "repackage to get more money" principle applies as does to cereal, and, just, no.

Truly, the only way you can avoid this is to get a web hosting account (your own web-space and domain name) and pick a web-based email client to load up there and use. Hosting about 6 bucks a month at most places. It /would/ also mean you could maintain your own fic archive home base if you so wished. I'd be happy to share my Wordpress archive theme if you wanted to go that route. The email client, I can't help much with. I've gone over to apple Mail, which at least did give us an opt out "gimme back my old screen you assholes" option.

[edenfalling]

Yeah, "new and different!!!" is not always a selling point, whatever a lot of companies seem to think. :-(

Hmm. How much programming knowledge is necessary to make a web hosting account work?

[branchandroot]

None. They're reasonably simple. For a Wordpress installation, you pretty much just upload it through the visual interface, follow the steps to activate it through your browser, and go. Most email clients made to use on your own web host are the same way. You'll want to check that the email client you want has simple instructions, and just needs to be uploaded and started, but most web hosting services will offer you a selection of two or three free web-based clients already installed because they know a lot of people want them. At that point, you just follow the Admin screens to create or access your email account, and you're good.

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

There's no escape!!! Yahoo does this to me on an annual basis.

[edenfalling]

What I can't figure out is why, if they feel they absolutely MUST do something "new and different!!!" every year, they don't provide some kind of site skin option so users can keep the old display and interface if nothing else. :-(

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

A-men! I'm on gmail, and yes, they top-down (this is a verb, not a mistake), and nag and nag and nag if you don't accept their changes, and then force some through anyway. Sympathies.

[edenfalling]

Oh god, the nagging. I am still refusing to switch over to LJ's new friends page and they just keep sticking the little "Hey, you there, change now, I swear you'll like it!" banner on the top of every page. At this point I am kind of holding out just to see how long it takes before they change me over automatically despite my obvious lack of interest. :-/

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I'll rant at length every time some site (Yahoo, Gmail, LJ, Tumblr) decides to fix what isn't broken. Dammit, people, I'm using your services because I like the way they're set up.

[edenfalling]

Tumblr in particular is notorious for making changes that not only were not asked for by the user-base, but in fact actively break features people use the most. I don't know what they have against Missing E in particular -- clearly there is a large group of people who like the features that service provides, so why Tumblr keeps trying to make those features impossible is beyond me. *headdesk*

[lady_songsmith]

It is truly hideous, isn't it? What I want to know is why every site seems to be designing for OMG SEARING MY EYEBALLS OUT brightness lately. This is not what is meant by "whitespace", site designers.

[edenfalling]

Oh, I know. I am still unhappy with LJ's default comments page -- a year and change later and it is still brighter than I would like -- but there is no way on earth I am going to pay the site money just to change that. :-(

[monkey5s.livejournal.com]

Yeah, good luck with that. I am most put out with Yahoo, who are insistent that I provide them with my cell phone number, "FOR MY PROTECTION."

There isn't an option to tell them that I don't HAVE a cell phone. At least so far, gmail's similar request does allow you to continue without it.

[edenfalling]

Yahoo doesn't have an option for "I don't have a cell phone"? WOW, talk about clueless!

[monkey5s.livejournal.com]

I have two Yahoo accounts, and got trapped on the one with this MUST GIVE CELL PHONE NUMBER IN ORDER TO CONTINUE TO YOUR ACCOUNT and ended up trying to back out of it, I don't even remember what I did finally, but I ended up with the new format on that account.

New format = UGLY AND HARD TO USE.

I was savvier on the other account, and was able to just get past it by using the "forward" arrow on my browser. So I have one account that is easy to use, and one that is horrible, and ugly. Like, dark purple everything on white.

But that was better than my complaint to gmail, the last time they insisted they were changing things. I tried the sample of the new format, and my feedback was that it was awful, garishly bright, and I wanted to keep what they had. Their response? "We know change is scary, but you won't have a choice." Thanks, guys! You're swell!

[edenfalling]

But that was better than my complaint to gmail, the last time they insisted they were changing things. I tried the sample of the new format, and my feedback was that it was awful, garishly bright, and I wanted to keep what they had. Their response? "We know change is scary, but you won't have a choice."

Oh my god, talk about tone deaf. There is not enough headdesk in the world.

[akatsuki210.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that annoyed me too. Not so much because I dislike Outlook as because I didn't really see anything wrong with the way it was before.

[edenfalling]

I don't like the layout of Outlook -- it shunts everything too far toward the top of the page, I miss the little lines that used to separate the messages in my inbox (they were a useful guideline to keep my eyes from getting lost on the page), and there is too much white space that's too bright -- but yeah, mostly the old site wasn't broken so why "fix" it? I don't understand corporate web designers.

[justicevoles.livejournal.com]

Basically, as far as I can tell, the people who do web-design for any major site have to justify their jobs by remaking the entire site every six to eight months. Does it matter if the new design is as functional and aesthetically-pleasing as fresh roadkill? Of course not, the only important thing is that it is NEW, which keeps the whole service from seeming like, OMG, so totally five minutes ago.

With the possible exception of LJ, which I believe is just designed and maintained by a very small collection of bitter antisocial drunks and run by a bunch of wounded philosophy majors who feel cheapened and deeply conflicted by the fact that they have to let us post Harry Potter smut on the English side of the service to pay the bills that keep their incredibly important Russian social dissent blogs going.

On Soviet LJ, userbase loves changes!

[edenfalling]

Actually so far as I know, it's the Russian part of LJ that supports the English-language part at this point -- LJ is huge in Russia, basically THE dominant blogging platform for any purpose -- which may explain why the people in charge of the site redesign a year and a bit ago were so blatant about not giving a shit what the English-speaking half of LJ thought about their changes.

Then again, no corporate web designers really seem to give a shit what their users think of major changes, so I guess it's a universal phenomenon. :-/