For years, Google has enforced a restriction on changing the @gmail addresses it hands out when signing up for a new account. Apart from email, that's the address you use to log into any Google service, like YouTube, so many of us have been stuck with old identities we'd like to move on from. Fortunately, this convenience appears to be within reach, as the Google Pixel Hub Telegram group has spotted an official Google support document outlining the feature.

The support page is only in Hindi, suggesting that the rollout is limited to India for now. Even then, Google clearly states that users will gradually begin to see this option, indicating that global adoption is still some way off. Still, we're looking at official info here, not a leaked excerpt, so Gmail truthers can rejoice.

For context, competing providers, such as Microsoft Outlook, allow you to change your email address and offer "aliases," which are commonplace today. You can add alternate email addresses under a Google Workspace account, but that's a different thing entirely, as it's a managed service.

To clarify further, Google lets you change your Google Account name, but you can't edit the @gmail.com address. In the document, Google states that you'll retain and have access to your old email address after you switch to a new one — essentially, you'll have two @gmail addresses for one account, which in and of itself could be a game changer for many. Previously, you'd have to create a new Google Account to access a secondary email address, which you could then use to set up a faux alias.

With this, you'll receive emails in both inboxes, and none of your existing data, such as Drive or Photos, will be affected. That said, you cannot register another email address for the same Google Account for the next 12 months after switching to a new one. Keep in mind that Google hasn't officially announced this feature yet, so all of this is potentially subject to change with the global rollout.

Still, to check whether you can get a new @gmail address right now, go to my.account.google.com/google-account-email on a phone or computer. There, tap/click on "Personal Information," and under "Email," you should see the option to "Change email address for your Google Account." It will look like the screenshot above if you're not part of the rollout yet.

Adobe PDF files and Word Doc files are two commonly used file types for all sorts of documents and are very common to find in both professional and casual environments. Sometimes, however, you may find that it would be useful to have one over the other. Whether it’s a matter of compatibility or just formatting a document to send to someone else, you can easily convert a PDF to a Word Doc and vice versa.

You don’t need much to pull off this conversion beyond the software used to create these documents. If you want to test the files you convert, it helps to have a copy of both Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word installed. However, you can technically convert the file without having both applications, as long as you can open the original document in Acrobat or Word.

How to Convert a PDF to a Word Doc

If you want to convert a PDF to a Word Doc file, you’ll need a copy of Adobe Acrobat installed. This will work with either the Standard or Pro version. In this guide, we’re using the Standard DC edition that comes with Creative Cloud but the steps are the same for Pro, as well.

1. Open the PDF you want to convert to a Word Doc in Adobe Acrobat. 

2. Click ‘File’ in the upper left corner and navigate to ‘Export To’ then ‘Microsoft Word’ and choose ‘Word Document’. 

3. Click 'Save'. By default, the file type will be set to Docx but you can change it to other file formats using the ‘Save as type’ drop down menu. Leave it set to Docx to create a Word file. 

You can now open the document in Word and make any changes you need to do or send the document to someone else. 

There are a couple of ways you can convert a PDF to Word:

How to Convert a PDF to a Word Doc for Free

Adobe offers a free version you can use to convert PDFs to Word Docs. It’s browser-based, so you won’t need to install anything to use it. 

1. Go to https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/acrobat/pdf-to-word.

2. Drag and drop the PDF file onto the browser window with the converter web page open.

3. Click ‘Convert to Docx’ in the bottom right-hand corner.

4. Click the three dots in the upper right corner and choose ‘Download this file’ to save it to your computer.

How to Convert A Word Doc to a PDF

Converting a Word Doc to a PDF file will require a copy of Microsoft Word. We’re using the latest edition of Microsoft Word for this tutorial but these steps should work for older versions as well.

1. Open the Word Doc you want to convert to a PDF in Microsoft Word. 

2. Go to ‘File’ and choose ‘Save as Adobe PDF’ from the drop down menu. 

3. Click 'Save' once you’ve chosen a file name and location.

4. Open the document in Acrobat to make sure the formatting looks good and make any necessary changes.

How to Convert A Word Doc to a PDF for Free

Adobe provides a free web-based tool you can use to convert Word Docs to PDFs. Because it runs in the browser, you won’t need to install anything to use it.

1. Go to https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/acrobat/word-to-pdf. 

2. Drag and drop the Word Doc you want to convert onto the browser window with the website open. The file will automatically be converted. 

3. Click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner and choose ‘Download this file’ to save it to your computer. 

It’s always a good idea to test your documents after you convert them to make sure everything looks good or so you can fix any formatting issues. If you don’t have Acrobat or Word, you can use Adobe’s Acrobat Reader for free or download a trial of Office 365 to open Word files.

You don’t need a costly Microsoft 365 subscription to create and edit Word documents. Thanks to Google Docs, you’ve got a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Word available for you to use in your web browser. Thanks to Google Docs, you can easily convert your Word documents to Google Docs and edit them online instead.

It isn’t as feature filled, but Google Docs has most of the formatting tools you’ll need to convert your documents without issue. We’ll explain how you can easily convert your documents and switch from Word to Google Docs below.

How to Convert from Microsoft Word to Google Docs

You can upload your Word documents to your Google Drive storage. From there, you can edit the documents (typically in a DOC or DOCX format) without losing the Office format. You can also convert the file into a Google Docs-only document.

1. Open the Google Drive website and sign in using your Google account.

2. Click New in the top left.

3. Select File Upload from the dropdown menu.

4. Upload your Word file. You’ll need to locate the Word file on your PC to upload it.

5. Double-click the file to open it in Google Docs in a new tab or window.

6. Click .DOC or .DOCX to view any compatibility issues with the document that you’ll need to correct. This button is visible next to your document’s file name on the menu bar.

7. Make changes to your document as desired. You can edit your Word document directly without changing the file format. The changes will be saved automatically to the original Word file in your Google Drive storage.

8. Click File -> Save as Google Docs if you want to convert the Word file to a new Google Docs-only document file. Google Docs will open the file in a new tab or window.

9. Click Download->Microsoft Word (.docx) to download your file as a local Word doc you can open in Office or send to someone else. This will work whether you are editing the document as a Word doc or as a Google Doc.

Compatibility between Google Docs and Word is extremely high, but you may run into the occasional formatting issue where a tool or font you’ve used in Word is missing in Google Docs. Make sure to double-check your converted document and fix these issues afterward.

Don’t forget that any changes you make to a file you convert from Word to Google Docs (losing the DOC or DOCX format) won’t be saved to the original Word file. However, if you simply edit the original Word file without converting it, the changes will be saved to the original file instead.

When you work with large amounts of data in Excel or Google Sheets, even the simple task of removing all blank cells in your worksheet could become a daunting chore if you have to do it manually. A quick and painless way to clean up your spreadsheet in Excel is to use the Go To Special feature. This tool will help you identify all the empty cells in your document and delete them all at once. While this makes it an easy option to use, beware that it may cause a misalignment in your document. To be safe, you should always save a backup copy of your document before you start deleting cells. It is also better to delete entire rows or multiple columns to avoid screwing up the order of your data. 

If you’re using Google Sheets, you can use Filter to delete blank rows or blank cells in a column; this method also works in Excel. 

How To Delete Blank Cells in Excel using Go To Special 

1. Select cell range. Highlight all the cells you want to filter. 

2. Select Go To Special from the Find & Select menu. You’ll find the Find & Select Menu on the Home tab in the Editing group. You can also hit F5 then click the Special button. 

3. Select the Blanks option in the popup menu. All the blank cells in your document will be highlighted. 

4. Delete selection. Right-click on any one of the highlighted cells and click Delete. Choose from the delete options in the popup menu, then click OK. 

How To Delete Blank Rows in Excel using Filter 

1. Select data set range. Highlight all the cells you want to filter. 

2. Navigate to the Sort & Filter menu. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Sort & Filter and select Filter (funnel icon).  

3. Filter all Blank cells. Click the arrow icon from any column. In the dropdown menu, uncheck Select All and check the (Blanks) option. This will sort together all the blank rows in the range you chose. 

4. Delete selection. Right-click on any one of the highlighted cells and click Delete. Your table will look empty. Once again, click the arrow icon from the column you chose and select Clear Filter. All your data will reappear without the blank cells. 

Note: The same process applies to delete blanks cells in a column. 

Unfortunately, the Go To Special command is not available in Google Sheets. 

How To Delete Blank Rows In Google Sheets 

1. Select data set range. Highlight all the cells you want to filter.

2. Turn on Filter. Click the Create a filter option from the Data tab. Filter icons will appear on each header row column.  

3. Filter all Blank cells. Click the filter icon from any column. In the dropdown menu, click Clear, then check the (Blanks) option. This will sort all the blank cells in the range you chose. 

4. Highlight blank rows.

5. Right-click on any one of the highlighted cells and click Delete rows. The spreadsheet will look empty. 

6. Select Turn off filter from the Data tab. This will display the rest of your data. 

Shading cells in Excel or Google Sheets is a great way to format and organize your data and make your tables easier to read and present. You can easily apply alternate shading or color banding to rows or columns by using Excel’s style tools or Sheets’ formatting menu. There are multiple built-in templates readily available on both applications for you to choose from. But of course, if none of these options suit your preference or purpose, you can customize your worksheet by creating your own table style or by using conditional formatting. 

How To Shade Alternate Rows in Excel using Format as Table  

1. Select the cell range to format.

    a. To format your entire worksheet, click the Select All section. This is the triangle icon located at the top left corner of the sheet before the first column. 

     b. To format an existing table, select all the cells in that table.

     c. To format a subset of your worksheet, select the specific rows and columns you want to configure.

2. Choose the table style. On the Home tab, under the Styles group, click Format as Table and select a table style you prefer within the numerous templates provided in Excel. There are three template types: Light, Medium, and Dark. You can also create your own table style from this menu.  

3. Click OK when done.

If you want to keep the alternate shading but don’t need all the table functionalities such as sorting and filters, you can convert the excel table to a normal range. You can do this in two ways:

     a. Click the Design tab under Table Tools. Click Convert to Range and click Yes when the confirmation notification pops up.

     b. Select the table cells you want to convert, then right-click. Select Table from the menu and click Convert to Range.

How To Shade Alternate Rows in Excel using Conditional Formatting 

1. Select the cell range to format. (Same rules as above apply.)

2. Navigate to the New Rules menu. On the Home tab, under the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting and select New Rule from the menu.

3. Select Rule Type. From the list of rule types, select Use a formula to determine which cells to format. Then type =MOD(ROW(),2)=0 command in the Rule Description field. (To shade alternate columns, type =MOD(COLUMN(),2)=0.) 

4. Choose a cell color. To do this, click Format, navigate to. the Fill tab and select a Background Color, a Pattern Color and even a Pattern Style. Click OK when done.

5. Check the preview box to make sure your selections were applied. Click OK. And you’re done.

You can always go to the Manage Rules tool under Conditional Formatting if you want to delete or make changes to an existing rule.

How to Shade Alternate Rows in Google Sheets 

1. Click Alternating Colours on the Format tab.  A menu will pop up on the right side of your screen.

2. Set the range of cells to format.

3. Choose a style. You can use one of the default styles or customize to your own preference. 

You can click Remove alternating colours easily if you change your mind. 

Adobe Flash will officially keel over in 2020. Its presence on the web might be forgotten even sooner than that, however, because Google announced yesterday that its search engine will stop indexing Flash content by the end of the year.

The question used to be "if a tree falls in the forest but nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Now, it's "if something exists on the Internet but Google doesn't index it, does it really exist?" Search has become the default way of finding stuff online--Flash's disappearance from Google's results basically makes it invisible.

Here's the good news: Google isn't removing websites that have Flash content from its search results. That would be a disaster, because people who operate sites that still rely on Flash probably wouldn't be technically savvy enough to understand why they've disappeared from Google. The pages containing Flash content will remain.

Instead, "in Web pages that contain Flash content, Google Search will ignore the Flash content," Google explained. Google will also "stop indexing standalone SWF files." But the search tool assured us that "most users and websites won't see any impact from this change" to Google Search.

This isn't Google's only method of helping Flash along its journey into the afterlife. The plugin's disabled by default in Chrome, and the company plans to completely remove support for Flash from its browser by the end of 2020. (These changes also affect the Chromium-based version of Edge that Microsoft's been developing.)

Many have acknowledged that Adobe ending Flash support marks the end of an era. Google said in its blog post that the plugin "was the answer to the boring static web, with rich animations, media and actions" and was "a prolific technology that inspired many new content creators on the web." But now it's time for Flash to fade away.

Microsoft today announced Fluid Framework, its platform for collaborating and sharing that will integrate with Microsoft 365 and, according to Microsoft, “break down the barriers of the traditional document as we know it.” The offering will arrive as a software developer kit later this year, and Microsoft plans to have its own Microsoft 365 integrations by the end of the year.

Rather than a document, the company describes it as more of a canvas with co-authoring abilities. It doesn’t have to be just a Word document, spreadsheet or a presentation. Instead, it can be a mish-mash of them all.

And perhaps in a knock at current leader Google and its Docs, Fluid Framework will allow for co-authoring with multiple users “at speeds not yet achieved in the industry.”

In a demo, someone inked on a map and it showed up instantly on another user's device, in a different browser. Microsoft also showed typing being translated live into nine different languages simultaneously. Additionally, a doc in Word was updated simultaneously when embedded in Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft claimed that content from either apps or the Internet can be made into individual components that can be deconstructed and reconstructed to better share information.

Humans won’t be the only ones collaborating in the space. Assistants, like Cortana, can grab information from sources, translate data from other languages, offer up pictures and even co-author documents.

We expect to learn more about Fluid Framework during our time here at Microsoft's Build conference in Seattle.

Managing email is like cleaning up after the world's most rambunctious toddler. Technically it's possible, sure, but odds are that something new will demand your attention as soon as you've caught up. Google is hoping to make this nigh-impossible task (managing email, not cleaning up after a toddler) seem a little bit more doable with a new context menu in Gmail.

People tend to take the mighty right-click for granted. But many developers offer quick access to common tasks, like renaming a file or opening a link in a new tab, behind that humble button. It can be hard to strike the right balance, though. Having too many options can make it hard for someone to find what they're looking for. Having too few, on the other hand, is a wasted opportunity.

Gmail currently belongs to the latter camp. Right-clicking an email offers very few options: "Move to tab," "Archive," "Mark as read," "Mark as unread" and "Delete." There are some notable omissions there, the foremost of which being the inability to quickly reply to a message via the context menu. The lack of a "Snooze" option is strange, too, since that action's included among the buttons shown whenever someone hovers over an email.

Google is planning to change that with a new context menu that includes many more actions. You can see the full list in the image above, but we'll share it here for posterity:

• Reply
• Reply all
• Forward
• Archive
• Delete
• Mark as unread
• Snooze
• Move to
• Label as
• Mute
• Find emails from (Sender)
• Open in new window

People who don't use Gmail's conversation view can also find all emails with the same subject line by using the context menu.

That should cover pretty much everything most people want to do with an email without actually having to open it. The menu isn't exactly the same as the one shown in the message view--it's missing things like "Add to Tasks" and "Filter messages like these"--so we doubt Google simply copied the actions from that menu for this new one. It seems like the company thought about (and likely A/B tested) exactly what a right-click should do.

Besides, as long as they don't mar an otherwise good experience, having more options isn't usually a bad thing. Want to control everything via keyboard shortcuts? Gmail can do that. Prefer to point and click your way through the never-ending barrage of emails? This update will make that easier, too. 

Google said this feature will start rolling out to G Suite users with Rapid Release domains on February 11 and Scheduled Release domains on February 22. The rollout will vary: the company said this feature will appear over the course of 15 days for Rapid Release domains and three days for their Scheduled Release counterparts. People who use the personal version of Gmail should be able to use the context menu sooner than later.

Google’s previously announced “confidential mode” is now live in Gmail across all devices, but the feature may not be as privacy-focused as Google would like us to believe.

Gmail Confidential Mode

Earlier this year, Google announced confidential mode, a security feature for the new Gmail interface. The feature should sound familiar to Snapchat users. It works in a similar way in which all emails with the feature enabled will self-destruct after a set amount of time. Users can also choose to enable a “SMS passcode,” which is generated by Google.

The confidential mode has now gone live, and Gmail users that have enabled the new interface are able to use it on both desktop and mobile. Senders are not only able to control when the email messages self-destruct, but they can also remove the recipients’ access to messages from their own Sent folder whenever they want. The senders are able to do this because the confidential emails can only be read using Gmail, so Google controls the experience at all times.

Google Can Still Read Confidential Messages

Google is offering confidential mode primarily so users who have their accounts hacked don’t expose old emails with private information. Most people don’t delete their emails, so this could be a way to automatically keep their inboxes, as well as the inboxes of their friends, clean and secure.

However, unlike services that use end-to-end encryption, Google can still read all of those emails. Additionally, Google doesn’t allow users to set their own symmetric encryption passwords for emails, as that password is automatically generated by Google and sent to recipients via SMS. This achieves two things for Google. First, it encourages users to give Google their phone numbers and link them to their email addresses, and second, Google remains in control of decrypting those emails at all times.

After Edward Snowden’s revelations, Google seemed eager to adopt end-to-end encryption for Gmail. The company eventually abandoned that project. Since then, some end-to-end encrypted email services, such as ProtonMail, have continued to gain popularity, so confidential mode seems to be Google’s answer to that.

However, this seems like a superficial answer that doesn’t solve any of the problems that ProtonMail and other end-to-end encrypted services do. Furthermore, it may actually increase users’ risk to phishing attacks, as now attackers could start pretending that they need user credentials before the confidential emails are shown to recipients.

Additionally, we keep learning more and more that SMS security is vulnerable, so Google’s SMS-reliant solution doesn’t seem too future-proof.

"DRM for the Web"

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has also criticized Gmail’s confidential mode as being some sort of “DRM for the web.” According to the EFF, Google has the ability to store your emails indefinitely, regardless of whether or not your emails have “self-destructed.” 

Much like DRM, which stands for digital rights management, Google has a feature called “Information Rights Management” (IRM) that allows the company to disable certain Gmail features, such as forwarding, on confidential emails. To prevent the forwarding of confidential emails on other email services, Google encrypts the confidential email messages so that only Gmail users can read them (whether or not the sender has set-up a SMS passcode). Like DRM, the security benefits of this feature also depend on Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes bypassing the IRM lock a potential felony, carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for the first offense.

What this means in the real world is that competitors will not be able to reverse-engineer Google’s IRM and read the confidential emails. The EFF also believes that Google calling messages that have supposedly self-destructed “expired” is misleading because the sender, as well as Google, can continue to see those emails indefinitely.

Gmail's confidential mode could still prove useful in some situations, if users care enough to enable it, but ultimately it's nowhere near as secure as an end-to-end encrypted email message that only the sender and the receiver can read. 

Google is today allowing users in the United States sign up for Google One, its new consumer storage service with a new name and pricing. Users with paid Google Drive plans may have already been upgraded.

If you’re not in the U.S., you’ll have to wait a bit. Google says that it will open up One to more countries in the coming weeks.

Google One plans start at $1.99 per month for 100GB, $2.99 for 200GB or $9.99 per month for 2TB. Users with 1TB plans are automatically upgraded to the 2TB plan, and the 200GB option is brand new. Of course, you still get 15GB of free space with Google services, but none of the extra benefits. One does not replace Drive, but rather allows for space across all the entirety of Google’s ecosystem.

Additionally, Google One allows for a family plan, so you can have as many as five people sharing storage on a single bill. This is similar to Microsoft’s Office 365, which provides 1TB of storage for up to five users (plus five Office installs).

But Google One’s plans are a bit cheaper than Microsoft’s OneDrive, which offers 5GB of storage free, 50GB for $1.99 per month, 1TB for $70 per month, which includes Office 365, and 5TB with Office 365 (5 installs) for $99.99 per year.

Google One also adds 24/7 customer service to answer user queries. I had a chance to go hands-on with it. A little after 6:30 p.m., I contacted support to ask about how to access Gmail offline. I had to be transferred to another representative, but despite the simple question, the Google rep never made me feel dumb (and even backtracked when I pretended to be confused).

Additionally, Google is adding rewards to Google One members using its services. The company states that it has begun by issuing Google Play credits and deals on hotels found through Google Search (another odd echo of Microsoft’s Bing Rewards). Google suggests that in the future, deals on Google Express and the Google Store could become available.

Again, if you’re not in the U.S., you’ll have to wait a bit. Google says that it will open up One to more countries in the coming weeks.

Users who want to join Google One can go to the website for more details.

VLOOKUP is more than a spreadsheet function; it's how you become a workplace hero. When you have two spreadsheets with different, but related sets of data like a list of customer addresses and a separate list of customer purchases, you can combine the data into one sheet. It's not hard to learn how to create a VLOOKUP formula, but most of your coworkers probably don't have this knowledge (and you don't have to tell them).

Over the years, I've used VLOOKUP to remain indispensible at all of my jobs in web publishing, because we often have a list of article URLs we want to track and then a giant CSV of all traffic data by page from Google Analytics. Here's how to use VLOOKUP in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. While the screenshots here are from Excel, the process works exactly the same way in Sheets.

1. Put both sheets into the same file, but in separate tabs. If you have the data you want to combine in separate files, create a new tab in one of them and copy over the data from the other.

For example, I started with a list of articles we wrote at Computex then downloaded a spreadsheet with traffic data from Google, which I moved over to a tab on the first sheet (numbers here are fake).

2. Navigate to the tab where you want to import the numbers and click into the first cell where you want them to appear. In my case, it was the tab with the list of Computex articles.

3. Type =VLOOKUP( then enter the cell number for the field you want to match followed by a comma. Since the article URL is the common field in my case, I'm selecting cell A2. 

4. Select all the cells that contain data you want to import on the other tab. I recommend selecting the entire columns. Excel or Sheets will fill in the tab name and cell range (ex: 'All Traffic'!A:E). 

5. Highlight the cell range in the formula and hit F4. The application will put dollar signs on the cell range to signify that these are absolute addresses, which means that you won't need to redo this part of the formula if you paste it into another cell.

6. After inserting a comma, enter the column number of the data you want to copy over to the primary sheet. In our case, the Page Views column we want to copy is second from the left (column B), so it is number 2. Note that the column number you need is the one from the data sheet, not the primary sheet.  

7. Enter comma followed by the word FALSE and then a close parenthesis. Entering FALSE ensures that VLOOKUP accepts only an exact match. That's your complete formula.

8. Copy and paste the formula down the entire column.

If you want to import other columns, copy the formula over to a cell in another column, but be sure to change the destination cell (in our case, from 2 to 3 or 4) and keep the matching cell at what it was (A2 in our case).

After years of the same utilitarian, gray, and “meh” all around platform, the new Gmail update is giving the email service a new face. While functional, old Gmail lacks the efficiency and integration that's key to a good user experience. I went hands-on with the new features and discovered there was something worth pinging home about.

To get started, I transformed my inbox by clicking the cogwheel and selecting “try the new Gmail.” For review purposes, I went with  the default layout.

At first glance, the new look is pretty pleasing to the eye. It’s colorful and most necessary tools are right in front of me. What immediately stands out is the new right-hand toolbar that includes my Calendar and Notes, with room for add-ons. 

Right Hand Toolbar

Clicking on the calendar tab, my schedule pops up as opposed to opening a new tab. It's a cool feature if you're a heavy Google Notes and Calendars user because it could be helpful in scheduling appointments or discussing important matters over email. It’s definitely better than toggling to the app in a separate tab.

Confidential mode

I was very interested in this feature but it’s not completely rolled out yet. In the Google announcement, the Confidential Mode option is positioned next to the insert picture and attachment tools.

Google says this addition is “useful for when you have to send sensitive information via email like a tax return or your social security number.” It's an invaluable feature in an age of rampant hacks and identity theft, so I look forward to the feature’s full availability

Promotion and Social Tabs

These categories are in the old Gmail, but were largely hidden in the sidebar. Now that they’re centerpieces, and I therefore know of their existence, these features seem OK if you have a lot of volume. The promotions tab seems much more useful than the social tab, but as someone that doesn't need to do mass mailings, I could take the features or leave them.

Snooze button

The Snooze button works pretty much the same it does on your alarm clock. If you want to take care of an email later, snooze it to have it reappear at a desired, programmed time where it shows with an orange snooze label. This could be useful if your inbox is chaotic, but I wouldn’t use it over simply checking the read status.

Attachment viewing

Though it seems like a small feature, I really like how few clicks I needed to open attachments. Clicking my “Kyoto Trip” attachment launched it in a new tab quickly and painlessly. It saved me about a second, but a second is a minute in internet time.

All in all, the new and improved Gmail is a nice step up from the old version. Though every new feature is not a “must have,” the user experience is much more streamlined and easy. Because of the integrated tools and improved attachment viewing, I won’t be switching back to the old version.

Call it trickle-down privacy: Google announced that it will no longer scan your emails to personalize the ads you see in Gmail. The company said this change results from its decision to make the professional version of Gmail, which is included in G Suite, "more closely align" with the consumer version. G Suite customers already have this level of privacy; now the billion-plus people who don't pay a cent for Gmail will also be able to enjoy it.

That isn't to say personalized ads will entirely disappear from Gmail. You're still going to see targeted ads--it's just that Google plans to use existing data (search history, YouTube activity, etc.) instead of scanning all your emails. Odds are good that you probably won't even notice the change. The company's built on ads, so if it thought improved privacy would hurt its ability to sell ads, it would likely maintain the status quo.

But the continued presence of targeted ads doesn't diminish the importance of this change. Google previously offered you two options: pay for its services or let it scan your emails. Privacy was basically just another premium feature offered to those who could afford G Suite, which starts at $5 per month for each user, and not the average consumer. Now privacy comes standard instead of being something for which you pay extra.

"This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products. Ads shown are based on users’ settings," Google said in its announcement. "Users can change those settings at any time, including disabling ads personalization. G Suite will continue to be ad free."

This change might result from increasing anxiety over privacy. Many services, from Signal to ProtonMail, have found success in recent years because they can't snoop on your communications. Not that they could if they wanted to--they and other services have turned to end-to-end encryption to prevent intelligence agencies, hackers, and others from intercepting your communications and using them for their own purposes.

Deciding to make Gmail a little more private could help Google convince people to stick with its service instead of turning to others. And even if the company's ability to personalize ads does take a slight hit, it's better to risk showing irrelevant ads t than to lose the ability to show any ads at all. In its announcement, Google accidentally supported the idea that it wants to keep its users happy with this "elevator pitch" for Gmail:

The value of Gmail is tremendous, both for G Suite users and for users of our free consumer Gmail service. Gmail is the world’s preeminent email provider with more than 1.2 billion users. No other email service protects its users from spam, hacking, and phishing as successfully as Gmail. By indicating possible email responses, Gmail features like Smart Reply make emailing easier, faster and more efficient. Gmail add-ons will enable features like payments and invoicing directly within Gmail, further revolutionizing what can be accomplished in email.

Google said it plans to stop email scanning in Gmail "later this year." More details about when the change will be made or how it will roll out weren't provided.

Google announced that it implemented S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) encryption, with a twist, for its enterprise customers. That twist is that its implementation of S/MIME, which is typically an end-to-end encryption protocol, is centralized or “hosted” by Google. In other words, Google can see what’s in all of those S/MIME-protected emails.

S/MIME Protocol

The S/MIME protocol was first invented in 1995. A few years later, it also became an IETF standard (after a few more modifications to the original protocol). S/MIME aimed to be an end-to-end encrypted protocol that would replace the non-encrypted SMTP email protocol. It was also meant to be a little easier to use than PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), another end-to-end encryption protocol that was invented a few years before S/MIME.

With PGP, users have to share their public keys with each other prior to using end-to-end encryption, but with S/MIME, this key distribution is handled by a Certificate Authority that gives each user a certificate. Importing the certificate in the email client and signing email messages with it is what proves that the senders are who they say they are.

Google’s Hosted S/MIME

Google said that instead of supporting the standard client-side S/MIME protocol that allows users to encrypt emails end-to-end (meaning only the sender and receiver can read the emails), it will host all of the users’ certificates and private keys on its own servers.

This will allow the company to essentially read (with its computers) all communications that are protected by S/MIME. From this point of view, it’s no different than the way Gmail emails are encrypted today with TLS.

Google said that this will make it more convenient to enterprise customers to use S/MIME encryption, although without the benefit of end-to-end encryption. The company said that doing things this way allows it continue to stop phishing attempts and block spam email.

The fact that email companies wouldn’t be able to stop spam has long been a criticism of end-to-end encryption. However, WhatsApp seems to have managed quite well by employing techniques that don’t even require them to see people’s messages to block spam.

The techniques seem to involve a combination of verifying the identity of the sender and by tracking their behavior. For instance, if one user sends messages to 100,000 people, chances are that user is spamming. WhatsApp’s anti-spam solution is likely a little more advanced than in that example, but the point is stopping spam when end-to-end encryption is used is not as impossible as previously thought.

It’s Not All Bad

Although Google is essentially downgrading the security of the S/MIME protocol, the move still seems to be an upgrade over the existing, mainly hacked-together email encryption and authentication solutions.

The email protocol was never designed to be encrypted, so even today’s best improvements made to it can’t guarantee the security of the message in transit. This is especially true if the recipients use email services that don’t support the same encryption and authentication protocols that Gmail supports.

With S/MIME, the messages are encrypted with symmetric encryption as well, so it doesn’t matter what sort of hops it passes until the destination, as the messages will be unreadable to anyone intercepting them. They are also automatically signed by the senders, which will guarantee that the senders are who they say they are.

Of course, digital certificates are still vulnerable to certificate authorities going rogue or to being stolen from Google’s servers. The latter is something that may be quite difficult to achieve these days, but likely not impossible.

Is Google Giving Up On End-To-End Encryption?

Back in 2014, and soon after Edward Snowden made public the extent of the NSA’s mass surveillance, Google started working on an end-to-end encryption tool called, appropriately, “End-to-End.” The company seemed furious that the NSA broke into its network and monitoring every packet going through its unencrypted internal network.

From that point forward, it started aggressively adopting encryption everywhere it could add it, whether it was for internal or external communications, or for securing data at rest. One of those measures also involved starting End-to-End. This was a browser extension that would work with multiple email providers (Yahoo joined as well, but it later dropped it around the time it allegedly gave NSA access to its networks), and it would provide PGP end-to-end encryption to users that wanted it.

The project doesn’t seem to have been touched for almost a year (at least in its public code repository). After we contacted Google to ask about this a few months ago, the company declined to give a clear answer on whether it’s still working on this specific project.

Google did launch Allo with end-to-end encryption provided by the Signal protocol, but it’s not enabled by default like it is for the Signal app itself, or WhatsApp. There is also no easy way to make end-to-end encryption the default, if you’re not interested in using Allo’s AI assistant. “Incognito” chats have to be started manually with each contact. Unlike Signal and WhatsApp, Allo also doesn’t provide safety numbers that guarantee there’s no man-in-the-middle attack.

Avoiding Public Email Exposure

If companies want to avoid the type of hacks that hit Sony, the Democratic National Committee, and other organizations that exposed everyone’s emails, then end-to-end encryption is still the way to go. This may include the client-sided (non-hosted) S/MIME protocol or PGP, or even using a service such as ProtonMail.

For other companies that don’t worry as much about Google being hacked (again) and just want an easy to use, well known, and well supported encrypted email service, Gmail’s new hosted S/MIME protocol may still be an acceptable compromise and an upgrade over their existing email encryption hygiene.

Google recently announced that Gmail will revert to basic HTML for Windows XP and Vista users by December 2017. The company also said anyone using Chrome 53 or below--the last version released for XP and Vista was Chrome 49--will be advised to update their software after February 8.

Besides ludicrous "hacking" scenes from shows like NCIS, few things scare the technologically impaired like the idea of losing access to their email, so it's no wonder that news of Gmail's upcoming changes has been making the rounds on social media. Never mind that anyone affected by this decision probably uses an operating system that officially died in 2014 or doesn't know Chrome automatically updates. Just think of the emails!

Surely this must be some dastardly plot, right? Not so, according to Google, which explained in a blog post:

If you continue to use older versions of Chrome Browser now that support has ended, Gmail will be more vulnerable to security risks and users will not have access to new features and bugfixes. Gmail will continue to function on Chrome Browser v53 and below through the end of the year. Users who remain on Chrome v53 and below could be redirected to the basic HTML version of Gmail as early as Dec 2017.

That gives people an extra year (give or take) to finally update to a new operating system or browser. This is something everyone should already be doing--especially since Google made this announcement in its G Suite blog, which is meant for businesses. Companies might have put off upgrading from Windows XP to avoid extra costs, either for software licensing or newer computers, but doing so also means they're vulnerable to many attacks.

The same is true for individuals. Upgrading can be a pain, sure, and sometimes new versions of software don't appeal to everyone who used the older versions. But making sure everything is up to date is perhaps the best way to defend against someone who wants to take over a device. Old software has known vulnerabilities, rarely gets updated to fix new problems, and ultimately offers just a little more protection than an open kimono.

All that said, Google recognized that many people will be affected by this change:

Please note: Google does not typically announce when we discontinue support for older versions of Chrome browser because of our current supported browser policy, which states that only the most recent version of Chrome is supported. This announcement was made given the expected impact on Windows XP and Windows Vista users and known security risks.

Maybe this will be the kick businesses and individuals alike need to finally update their stuff.

Google announced that it will add .js (JavaScript) extensions to its list of restricted file extensions (such as .exe, .msc, and .bat) for Gmail starting February 13, 2017.

As Flash is being phased out, attacks based on JavaScript vulnerabilities may be the new go-to for malicious hackers. Late last year, a researcher had already found a JavaScript vulnerability in Yahoo Mail that could have allowed any attacker to eavesdrop on Yahoo customers’ emails.

Throughout the last year, it has also been observed that various ransomware families have begun to spread through email spam that sent malicious JavaScript attachments.

Email has always been an effective way to spread malware because people often click on the attachments they receive without taking any additional protections. Those extra protections would include opening the attachments in a better sandboxed environment (Sandboxie, as or a virtual machine, are two examples). It’s understandable why most do not, because it’s often too inconvenient to take such measures to read your email. Therefore, it’s up to email service providers to try and limit this type of malware risk as much as possible.

Where applicable, the browser’s sandboxing should also help. However, chances are the malware makers already take browser sandboxes into account and include ways to bypass them.

Blocking .js file attachments is bound to frustrate software developers who may use email to share JavaScript files with each other. Google has a solution for this, which is to use Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, or other cloud storage solutions to share those files.

The new restriction is a part of Google's continuous efforts to improve Gmail security. However, we're still waiting for the end-to-end encryption feature that Google promised back in 2014 but has yet to deliver.

Google announced a new collaboration with other major companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo and Comcast, to implement a new protocol that would ensure all email remains encrypted in transit. Google also introduced a new page in its Safe Browsing system that will encourage those under attack by governments to increase their security by using SMS-based two-factor authentication or a physical Security Key.

Earlier this year, Google introduced some notifications in Gmail that would alert users before they would send their email to another address that doesn’t use encryption. According to Google, this has had the effect of increasing the amount of email sent over encrypted connections by 25 percent.

However, Google also found out from the recent research it has done with the Universities of Michigan and Illinois that attackers could still tamper with email encryption. That’s why it collaborated with Microsoft, Yahoo, and Comcast to create the SMTP Strict Transport Security standard to ensure that email travels only through encrypted channels. Any issues with the encryption would also be reported so that the companies can better understand where the attacks are happening.

Since 2012, Google has begun warning Gmail users of state-sponsored attacks. According to the company, only 0.1 percent of its users have been the targets of such attacks, although considering Gmail has hundreds of millions of users, that’s still hundreds of thousands of attacked users. The targets typically include activists, journalists and policy-makers.

For those that are targeted by state-sponsored attackers, Google launched a new warning page that also acts as an instructions page for how to increase their own security. The users can enable SMS-based two-factor authentication or a FIDO U2F-enabled Security Key.

Although these new security features should help email encryption become stronger, the state-of-the-art remains end-to-end encryption, such as the one employed by PGP-based tools. Ultimately, most of these companies working on the new email encryption protocol rely on revenue from advertising, which implies data mining their users’ email contents.

That’s why it's in direct conflict with end-to-end encryption, because only the users communicating with each other could see the email contents. Google was supposed to also work on the End-To-End encryption browser plugin, but so far progress has been rather slow on that front. Even if it’s eventually finished, it likely won’t be used or promoted as a default solution for most Gmail users.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

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Google announced that starting this week, Gmail Web users will receive warnings when an email conversation they’re having with someone else is either not encrypted or not authenticated.

Google has been a strong promoter of email encryption for the past few years, especially after the Snowden revelations, when it became more clear to Google as well as other email providers that they need to accelerate their adoption of STARTTLS, which is presently the main TLS-based encryption standard for email.

Not all providers are on board, though, especially many smaller ones. This is why a good portion of email is either not encrypted at all, or if it is, it’s not authenticated, and a man-in-the-middle (mainly national governments) could easily intercept those communications. In a prior study, Google found that as many as 20 percent of emails sent from several countries were susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks.

The company is now working to lower that rate further by encouraging small providers to increase their services’ security by adopting STARTTTLS encryption and authentication such as DKIM (DomainKey Identified Email) or SPF (Sender Policy Framework).

Google’s solution is to show a broken lock icon in the right corner of the Compose window, which will mean that your contact’s email service doesn’t support encryption.

If you a receive a message from someone, but it’s not authenticated, their profile image will look like a question mark.

Google said that not all email messages that will be affected will necessarily be dangerous, but it’s better to be extra careful when you see that broken lock icon.

Although Google is making some serious efforts to improve TLS encryption for all emails, we haven’t heard much about its End-to-End tool lately, which was supposed to bring strong encryption to the masses. End-to-End uses PGP to encrypt messages with the users’ keys, so no one -- not Google itself nor anyone who might have access to Google’s servers -- can read them anymore, either.

However, since Google launched Inbox as an alternative client to its email service, it has started to look increasingly less likely that the company would adopt strong encryption. A service such as Inbox would not work with strong encryption, at least until homomorphic encryption becomes more mature and much faster.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

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Late last month, researchers from the Universities of Michigan and Illinois, along with Google, discovered that in many parts of the world the opportunistic STARTTLS encryption for email can be easily broken. Following that result, the company decided it will start warning Gmail users when the emails they deliver to other email providers are sent unencrypted.

The new venture is part of the company's quest to improve email encryption. Google started on the path about a year ago when it launched the Safer Email campaign to encourage other email providers to use STARTTLS encryption. Google can encrypt its own emails, but not everyone uses Gmail. If other providers don't support STARTTLS encryption, then those emails, even from Gmail users, will be sent unencrypted to their destinations.

Since then, multiple providers have begun supporting STARTTLS, but according to Google, the biggest boost in email encryption was offered by Microsoft's and Yahoo's adoption of the protocol. However, many smaller providers still don't offer it to their users, so now Google is taking the step to warn its Gmail users when they send an email to a provider that doesn't properly support STARTTLS.

Google discovered that in some places of the world, such as Tunisia, attackers were tampering with the requests to initiate encryption for email. It also uncovered some malicious DNS servers publishing bogus routing information to email servers looking for Gmail. This type of attack can be used to censor or modify messages before they reach their destination. The company said it will be working with other partners from the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) to strengthen the opportunistic email encryption with technologies already used in Chrome to protect websites against interception.

Gmail users should start seeing the unencrypted email warnings in a few months. Google has also been working on an "End-to-End" encryption browser extension ever since the Snowden revelations in 2013, but it hasn't mentioned any progress on it in about a year.

______________________________________________________________________

Lucian Armasu joined Tom’s Hardware in early 2014. He writes news stories on mobile, chipsets, security, privacy, and anything else that might be of interest to him from the technology world. Outside of Tom’s Hardware, he dreams of becoming an entrepreneur.

You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Earlier this year, Google announced that it was working on a Chrome extension that would bring PGP-like end-to-end security for Gmail, ensuring the emails used with such a tool can't even be read by Google itself, nor anyone else other than the users exchanging information. The tool is still in the works, but the company has released an update about its progress and stated that the extension could be released as "alpha" sometime next year.

The descriptively named "End-to-End" extension was initially supposed to be only for Gmail, although since then Yahoo and a startup called MailPile (which has been working on adding easier-to-use PGP to its email clients) have also joined the effort. When the tool is finally released, we may be seeing other email providers adopting it as well.

End-to-end encryption for email hasn't seen mass adoption so far mainly because PGP is the only real way to do it, and PGP's key management is something the vast majority of users find very difficult to use. Glenn Greenwald famously almost missed nabbing the whole Snowden report because he couldn't figure out how to use PGP to talk to Snowden.

Google is trying to solve this in a way that has been usually frowned upon so far by PGP users: the company wants to keep its own Key Directory but also automatically assign public keys to users. This would mean that users would not have to deal with keys at all, and from their point of view they would just be using email the normal way. The whole end-to-end encryption process would happen in the background, although there should be some UI elements notifying the users that they are talking through an "extra-security" layer, or to another End-to-End user.

For the vast majority of email users, this is exactly how it should happen, because most people want something that "just works;" otherwise they won't use it. However, from an end-to-end security point of view, this could potentially be disastrous. In theory, either Google could be changing the keys itself, perhaps as a response to a secret government order, or some malicious hackers could break into Google's servers and change the keys. Then, a hacker could assign those keys to someone else, pretending to be the target's known friend.

Fortunately, Google has thought of a few ways to deal with this. One of them is the use of "Monitors," which would be independent third parties that would verify if the keys in the Key Directory are valid or whether the Key Directory has been compromised. The other is that the directory "can never be modified." Keys can only be added to the directory, but not changed.

The team behind End-to-End has also come up with a number of potential threats against the system and how to prevent them. All of that, along with more details about how the extension will work, can be found on the project's new Github page.

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Today, Google announced "Inbox," which seems to be an email client for Android, iOS and the web, that focuses on "what really matters," as Sundar Pichai put it.

Inbox is brought to you by the same people who created Gmail. When Gmail appeared a decade ago, it changed everything in two ways: first, by having a virtually impenetrable anti-spam system; and second, by offering 1 GB of storage at a time when its main competitors, Yahoo and Hotmail, were offering only 2-4 MB of storage for email.

Inbox's main goal seems to be to kill email clutter and improve productivity:

“We get more email now than ever, important information is buried inside messages, and our most important tasks can slip through the cracks—especially when we’re working on our phones. For many of us, dealing with email has become a daily chore that distracts from what we really need to do—rather than helping us get those things done,” said Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice-President at Google, in a blog post.

Inbox has three systems to achieve that goal: bundles, highlights and reminders.

Bundles

Bundles expands on the categories that Gmail introduced last year. All emails of a certain type will get bundled together automatically, but you'll also get to set your own filters and create your own bundles. You could receive all your bank statements or online purchase receipts in one bundle, for example. This way, such important information is less likely to get lost between dozens of other emails you may receive in a day or week.

Highlights

Highlights does what the name says – it will highlight key information such as flight itineraries, event information, photos and documents sent by friends and family. You may even see useful information that wasn't part of the initial email, such as package deliveries and real-time status of your flights.

Reminders, Assists and Snooze

You can add reminders for anything you want, and then your inbox becomes the one place you need to check to remember something.

Assists is tied to reminders to make your life easier. As an example, if you set a reminder to call a store, you may also get the phone number to that store, automatically. Assists work with other emails as well, such as when you book a flight, you automatically get a link to check in.

When you can't do some of the tasks for which you set reminders, you can simply snooze them until a later date or until you get to a certain location.

It seems pretty clear that Inbox is what Google believes is the next-generation of Gmail – a much more organized and also more advanced email client that aims to make your life easier and more productive. So then why didn't Google just replace Gmail?

When new versions of a product or service appear that are significantly different, some like it, others will need time to adapt to it, and still others hate it and say they'll never quit the old version. Gmail is a highly popular product as-is, and Google knows not to force the new functionality on all of its users at once. It's best for them to discover it naturally.

If you are one of the people who wants to try it right now, you'll need to get an invite from inbox@google.com. You should be able to get one within a few hours of press time.

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Google Reader has been scheduled for shut down for a long time. On Monday, Google finally pulled the plug. Created and launched in 2005, the service is no longer available, leaving thousands of users grieving and searching for a replacement feed reader. If you haven't sorted yourself out by now, you're very disorganized. After all, Google said Reader would be done and dusted by July 1, and gave us four months' notice to export our data. However, if you haven't had time to find another service, Google is doing you a favor and extending the deadline for exporting your data.

Previously, Google Reader users only had until Monday, July 1, to export their data. Now Google has extended that by an additional 14 days, giving users until July 15.

"All Google Reader subscription data (eg. lists of people that you follow, items you have starred, notes you have created, etc.) will be systematically deleted from Google servers. You can download a copy of your Google Reader data via Google Takeout until 12PM PST July 15, 2013," Google said today.

After that date, Google says all subscription data will be permanently and irrevocably deleted. If you're looking for alternatives, check out Tom's Guide's list of Google Reader replacements.

Google announced back in mid-March that it would be shutting down its Google Reader web feeds service. The decision was part of a spring cleaning effort that will see Reader join the likes of Google Desktop, Google Maps API for Flash, and Sidewiki (among others). At the time, Google gave users a good four months to find alternative RSS readers and the shut down was scheduled for July 1. In case you haven't looked at your calendar yet today, the time is nigh.

After midnight tonight, Google Reader will be gone. Users can still export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout until then. After that, you're on your own. If you are searching for an alternative, you have a ton of options. Between Digg, AOL, Feedly, and others, the selection of Google Reader replacements is vast, and still growing.

Check out Tom's Guide's round-up of Google Reader alternatives. It doesn't even begin to cover every alternative, but it does feature our favorites.

Considering it's one of the most popular email providers, there's a good chance you're already using Gmail. But are you getting the most out of Google's email service? Tom's Guide has put together a list of tips and plugins that really bring out the best in Gmail. Be sure to check out '15 Gmail Tips and Tricks' to make sure you're not missing anything!

Google's Gmail is one of the most popular webmail services worldwide, recently edging out Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail in ComScore data of unique visitors. Really, it's no wonder that so many are using it, given the service's utility, openness to add-ons, and all around reliability. A simple, user-friendly front end hides numerous configurable options, and many add-ons can be bolted on to the default experience to provide loads of extra utilities. Read on for some neat Gmail tips, as well as some of our favorite extensions, and feel free to share some of your own favorites in the comments section below!15 Gmail Tips and Plugins

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With Google set to put its RSS service Google Reader out to pasture this summer, fans of the service are scrambling to find a something to fill the gap. The Tom's Guide team has rounded up 10 of its favorite Google Reader substitutes. Be sure to check out '10 Google Reader Alternatives' for the full list!

The writing has been on the wall for a while but now it's official: Google Reader will be retired on July 1, 2013. Clean, well-designed, and easy to use, the extremely popular Google Reader is a tough act to follow. As users worldwide begin the search for a reliable, easy to use RSS aggregator and feed reader service, we present you with some of our favorite alternatives so far, as well as instructions on how to import your feeds.10 Google Reader Alternatives

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Google has announced a brand new service designed to rival the likes of Evernote. Google Keep is a note-taking app that saves directly to Google Drive, Google's cloud storage service. Speaking via a blog posting today, Google said the app is designed so that users can quickly jot down ideas complete with checklists and photos. These notes will then be synched across all devices via Google Drive. Google Keep also supports dictation and will transcribe your memos for you as you talk.

This isn't the first we've heard of Google Keep. The service was leaked a few days ago via Google Drive. The Next Web reported on Monday that 'Keep' showed up as accessible in Google Drive for a short period and Android Police located source code for Keep within Google Drive this past weekend. Google confirmed the service today and released a demo video showing just what Keep is capable of. Check it out for yourself below.

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Back in November, Microsoft launched an aggressive marketing campaign attacking Google's credibility with regard to providing product search results. Titled, "Don't Get Scroogled," the ad explained that product search results are presented by Google not just by relevance, but are also impacted such as payments by merchants. Now the company is bringing back the 'Scoogled' campaign. This time, however, the company is targeting Gmail.

MarketingLand reports that Microsoft's latest Scroogled stunt involves a survey that was given to over 1,000 adults between February 1 and February 4. The survey in question asked respondents how they felt about their email provider scanning the contents of their email in order to provide them with targeted ads. For those not aware, Google does this. 

"Google goes through every Gmail that’s sent or received, looking for keywords so they can target Gmail users with paid ads," Microsoft writes on Scroogled.com. "And there’s no way to opt out of this invasion of your privacy," the company says, adding, "Outlook.com is different—we don’t go through your email to sell ads."

Microsoft goes on to say that a user's email is nobody's else business but that Google doesn't feel that way.

"Even if you’re not a Gmail user, Google still goes through your personal email sent to Gmail and uses the content to sell ads," Redmond says, again, encouraging users to try Outlook.

This campaign is online at scroogled.com but Microsoft is also planning print ads in newspapers.

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The Gmail feature extensions  was launched in August 2010 and is based on VoIP technology Google acquired when it purchased Gizmo5 in 2009.

Now in its third free year, there have been several rumors - backed by patent filings - that Google may support the voice calling feature via ads, but it seems that this will not be the case for now. International calling rates range from $0.02 per minute, for example to Australia and Denmark (landline), to $2.00 per minute to Antarctica and $6.90 per minute when calling Inmarsat satellite phones.

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Google's Gmail has overtaken Hotmail as the world's most-used email service, according to website traffic tracker ComScore.

Data released by ComScore confirmed that Gmail experienced 287.9 million unique worldwide visitors last month, while Microsoft's Hotmail received 286.2 million unique visitors during the period. Following Hotmail in third place was Yahoo, boasting 281.7 million unique visitors, according to ComScore.

Comparatively, Yahoo enjoyed 76.7 million unique visitors in the United States, while Gmail was second with 69.1 million and Hotmail with 35.5 million.

ComScore's figures quashes any doubt that Google is the world's top email service provider. In the summer of 2011, Google claimed to be the largest email service based on internal numbers, but the search engine giant didn't back up its claim with third-party data.

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Microsoft is moving on from Hotmail. The Redmond, Washington-based company today unveiled a new email service it's calling Outlook.com. Named after Outlook desktop mail application, the company says Outlook.com is 'modern email designed for the next billion mailboxes.'

The first thing Microsoft tried to cut back on is clutter. To that end, "the header has 60% fewer pixels and there are 30% more messages visible in your inbox that the webmail most people are used to." In addition to this, the are no display ads to take up extra space and Outlook.com uses Exchange ActiveSync, powering your mail, calendar and people on your smartphone, tablet and Outlook 2013 Preview.

To target the group of people using social networks to stay connected, Microsoft's Outlook.com connects to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and soon, Skype. This will mean a much more personal inbox, and we're not just talking about importing contacts. According to Redmond, you'll see photos of your friends, recent status updates and tweets that have been shared with you, and the ability to IM and video chat with people on your contact list. Though this almost sounds like the opposite of Microsoft's effort to reduce clutter, the software giant says users can control what they share, the networks they connect to and their personal information.

"We let you decide whether to connect your account to social networks, and which ones you want to use - and you're in control of who you friend or follow," the company said. "And, if you're a power user who wants to really fine tune your inbox, we let you create your own categories, folders, and rules to tailor Outlook.com to your preferences."

In terms of actual email, you can view and edit attachments without leaving your inbox (thanks to Office Web Apps) and SkyDrive is there for sharing big attachments and photos. Outlook will also sort your email for you, separating out contacts, newsletters, social updates, and shipping updates. You can, as mentioned above, also set up rules for moving and deleting messages. 

Lastly, Microsoft is promising spam and account protection, as well as a heightened level of control when it comes to what the company shares about you. Redmond says it won't scan your email content or attachments and sell information to advertisers or any other company. It also won't show you ads in personal conversations. 

Outlook.com is available to try out now. If you already have a Hotmail account, you can upgrade to Outlook.com through that account, or you can sign up with a new account directly through Outlook.com.

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Microsoft this week showed off a little preview of the new version of Hotmail. Following in Google's footsteps, Microsoft is adding threading, an embedded instant messenger as well as a cleaner interface.

While the new Hotmail seems to be heavily influenced by its biggest competitor, not all the features are copy-cat improvements swiped from Gmail. GigaOm reports that new features include the ability to add videos from Hulu, Justin.tv and YouTube, and a new Bing sidebar that allows you to add maps, pictures and information like movie times to an email. You can pull up all emails from one person just by clicking on their name and there's a handy-dandy 'sweep' tool that allows you to delete all messages from one sender and block all future messages. The revised Hotmail will also provide a better experience when accessed from mobile platforms as well as the ability for basic editing of Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents.

Microsoft is also adding photo-sharing capabilities, but these are not what you'd expect. The limit for photos in a single message is a massive 10GB. This is because doesn't actually transfer the photos, it just hosts them on the cloud. If you have Silverlight installed, you can view the photos online in an animated slideshow. If not, you can either view them online (though not as part of a fancy slideshow) or download them directly.

Read more about the new Hotmail on GigaOm.

*Image via GigaOm

With the news that Google is redirecting traffic to Google.cn to Google.com.hk, many people are wondering just which Google services are available from Google China. While Google admits that China can block access anytime, the company has set up an apps dashboard that shows what services are available to users in Mainland China at any given time.

At the moment, it looks like half of the services listed are operating without interruption. Blocked services make up 25 percent and the last 25 percent of services are partially blocked. Completely blocked services include YouTube and Blogger, while Google Docs and Picasa are both partially blocked. Check out the full list below.

Hit up Google's Mainland China service availability page to see a more current version of the list.

[UPDATE] Currently many users in Mainland China are experiencing problems with Web search, images and Google news. Right now, the only services lists as having no issues are Google Ads and Gmail.