Digital Brew: February 2014

Ever since Yahoo Mail's update (where Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, say it's all faster, easier to navigate and better looking), it's brought nothing but frustrations and agitations to a lot of end-users.

In fact, a lot of Yahoo Mail loyalists have switched because not only is it extremely slow, but the ads seem to hog more resource than the mails. Furthermore, after Yahoo Mail Classic was discontinued, the company put out a glitchy, unreliable and often times inaccessible Yahoo mail which seems to only focus on their advertisers rather than their user.

Have you experienced problems with your Yahoo Mail?

1. Has your Yahoo Mail been extremely slow?

2. Does Yahoo Mail seem to lag in a perfectly fast computer?

3. Do you have problems opening your email in Yahoo Mail?

4. Are you having problems with download and uploading email attachment from Yahoo's Mail?

5. Have some of your friends mentioned not receiving emails you've sent?

6. Heaven forbid, did you get hacked?!?

Well, welcome to the club. You're the only one experiencing these problems with Yahoo. It's actually a world-wide plague.

Oh, Yahoo Mail, why so slow?!?

Scrolling down is labored. Opening mails take forever. There's a giant ad asking you to sign up when you already are.

So what do we do? Just a fair warning, this isn't anything technical... it won't resolve the Yahoo Mail issue either... They're simply steps to alleviate the problem.

How to Deal with a Slow Yahoo Mail? Switch!

But before that try these first.

My top choices in browsing capabilities

1. Use a different browser.

If you're still sticking with Internet Explorer, you should consider switching. Some people prefer Chrome, others Firefox. The difference between Chrome and Firefox is that Chrome loads faster while Firefox loads pages more reliably.

2. Try using an email client like Mozilla Thunderbird or Outlook.

Need to avoid those annoying ads, try Thunderbird. All you need to do is set it up and you're free from having to deal with Yahoo Mail's annoying ads.

Mozilla Thunderbird archives, stores and syncs Yahoo Mail.

Note: If your email has a suffix other than yahoo.com e.g. abc@yahoo.com.sg, then you might need to set it up properly. Start with this thread on how to set-up Thunderbird with Yahoo Mail.

3. Delete ancient emails because they take up space.

So you might be the type to store emails from the late 1990's to the early 2000's. Back them up and delete the ones that are no longer important.

How to Back-Up Yahoo Mail locally.

Once you've gotten Thunderbird installed and set-up, download the ImportExportTools through Thunderbird's Add-ons Manager and right-click on a folder/ mail and do the steps as pictured below.

4. Use a different attachment uploader/ online storage.

*cough" Dropbox. Why bother doing attachments when you can use Dropbox. All you have to do is make an account, install Dropbox into your computer, select a folder to store hard copies of your uploaded files and Viola. You're set!

Using Dropbox is as easy as putting your files into the Dropbox folder.

Note: The green check on the Dropbox folder indicates that whatever is in that folder has already been successfully stored online. All you have to do is get the link.

5. Finally, switch emails providers and have your Yahoo emails forwarded to it.

For instance, Mail.com offers a Mail Collector that users can take advantage of for FREE.