Does anyone still use Yahoo!?

[widebody911]

For the love of dog and all that is holy - why?

I originally got a yahoo account because I needed an alternate email address for something, and I hadn't used it in years. I needed to use the account to get into automotive yahoo group, so I had to get back in, but couldn't remember my password. I tried to create a new account, but they now require a mobile phone number; I couldn't use a fake number, because they ping it in real time to verify it, then they send a code via SMS that you have to use to activate the account. Luckily I was able to revive my old account. Don't have a mobile number? Apparently you're SOL.

Once I got in, I instantly regretted it - the home page can best be described as "tabloid diarrhea" - and that's what was left after AdBlock was done cleaning it up. Even better, it kept trying to give me the Spanish version of the site - no idea why.

My old inbox was stuffed to the gills with tens of thousands of spam emails.

Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, but I can't possibly see how the abortion that is yahoo.com could possibly be useful to anyone.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

^This in all caps, bold, and 64 point font size and a bunch of grimace faces x 1000
I was just about to post a thread about how much I hate yahoo.
I still use it. Ughhhhhh...
What is a better alternative? What do you use? Yahoo is gawddddawfullllll. No wonder it is in the dumps.

[masraum]

Yep, Yahoo was once my go-to search page, but years and years ago, that stopped an I also have an email address, but don't use it for anything. It's also nothing but a storage unit for SPAM.

[chuckr]

I still have a Yahoo email account, good for spam like Steve said.
FireFox is in bed with Yahoo for the search engine... ain't figured that one out
yet.

[stomachmonkey]

I too hate it when a service asks for a mobile number but I understand some of why they do it.

Free email services that let you fire up a new account in minutes are spammers wet dreams.

I only have a yahoo account for Fantasy Football, otherwise no use for it.

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by chuckr

FireFox is in bed with Yahoo for the search engine... ain't figured that one out yet.

That one is easy: Yahoo paid FireFox $x to make it their default search engine, so people will accidentally use yahoo instead of google for their searches. 98% of people won't change the defaults, so it looks like people want to use yahoo, but in reality they don't know or care that they have a choice. Marissa gets a phat bonus, everybody is happy.

[sand_man]

I still have an active yahoo email account that I use. No matter how many times I have directed my father to use my gmail address, he continues to use yahoo. Additionally, my yahoo account is the one I use when I have to provide an email address that I know will receive spam.

Otherwise, no use for it.

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

I too hate it when a service asks for a mobile number but I understand some of why they do it.

Free email services that let you fire up a new account in minutes are spammers wet dreams..

I don't think they GAFF about spammers creating fake accounts; fake accounts look like real accounts when courting advertisers. However, having your verified mobile number makes it easier to link disparate records from other databases to build a more complete - and more marketable - profile of you. Facebook is pushing hard to get people to provide their mobile phone numbers, too.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by widebody911

I don't think they GAFF about spammers creating fake accounts; fake accounts look like real accounts when courting advertisers. However, having your verified mobile number makes it easier to link disparate records from other databases to build a more complete - and more marketable - profile of you. Facebook is pushing hard to get people to provide their mobile phone numbers, too.

Of course they care about spammers.

Complaints get entire IP blocks blacklisted.

Hotmail got so bad that most spam filters out there blocked any hotmail address that was not explicitly whitelisted by the recipient.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by sand_man

I still have an active yahoo email account that I use. No matter how many times I have directed my father to use my gmail address, he continues to use yahoo. Additionally, my yahoo account is the one I use when I have to provide an email address that I know will receive spam.

Otherwise, no use for it.

Most likely his email client is auto-populating the To field.

You can set up gmail to fetch mail from your yahoo account.

You can then chose to reply from the yahoo address or the gmail address.

If you start to respond from the gmail address it will eventually make his email client auto-populate that address instead of yahoo.

[Brando]

My wife uses them for e-mail. Who knows what data they are harvesting from her cell-phone. Their paid-search and display network (partnered with Bing/MS) is really all that is keeping them afloat.

[GH85Carrera]

We get occasional business clients contact us and some have Yahoo accounts or AOL or gmail account. It is hard to take someone seriously when they approach us with a big project and they have some free email service.

[HardDrive]

It's my spam account. I've had it open since 1999!

I use gmail for everything else.

[vash]

i'm not tech saavy.

i had a yahoo account. it was tied to everything. my iphone and stuff. i swapped to Gmail. what absolute hell. i still cant figure out how to change my email on icloud. i do it, but it wont affect anything.

now i'm in the vortex of hell where if i forget my password, the change tries to happen thru yahoo. call customer service..i almost buckled the first guy.

[Deschodt]

yahoo seems to enjoy doing that thing where they ask you for a a security question that you never setup, and then lock the account when you fail to answer - also gets hacked a lot... and no support since it's free... Killed both of my parent's emails that way... I still have an email address with them for spam. They could go away, it wouldn' make a whole lot of difference.

[Don Ro]

I used a Yahoo email account for Match.com when I was on it way back when.
Now I just use it when I get asked for an email acct. and I don't want to give out me gmail address.
But Yahoo email is slow and f'd up...
I also have a couple of hotmail accts. that I only rarely visit.
I like gmail for their folders.

[dad911]

That's why I stick with AOL dialup.

Register a domain, then for $12/year it's yours forever, no need to change email if you move, change provider, retire, etc. For now, auto-forward to gmail for their spam filtering, best free filtering I've found so far.

For the life of me I don't understand why some of my friends/neighbors use comcast email. Change tv/internet provider and your going to spend hundreds of hours fixing it.

[A930Rocket]

I don't know why, but my AT&T email account is tied to yahoo. You have to have it up and running to get AT&T email, but I never look at.

[cashflyer]

Yes.
Like some others, I use my yahoo email account for things that I know generate spam.
I also have a mail.com account under a completely fake name.

I gave up my hotmail account years ago.
I have a gmail account that I never use.

I have a domain that I own (do you really own them??) and an email tied to it. It's the one that I used for Pelican and other forums that I frequent.

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

I don't know why, but my AT&T email account is tied to yahoo. You have to have it up and running to get AT&T email, but I never look at.

AT&T and Yahoo have some sort of partnership; it's like having both chlamydia and herpes.