Wednesday 18 January 2006

The better way to log into Gmail



Many other people that talked about this... but it doesn't hurt to repeat this.
Gmail has a secure log-in page (SSL encrypted log-in) but when you sign into Gmail you will go into a insecure page by default. This is okay, because Google still promises to keep your password safe, however it is always better to have a secure connection all the way so no data leaks anywhere in between.

To have a secure SSL encrypted connection all you need to do is...
log in using https://mail.google.com (you might want to remember this or drag this link to your bookmark toolbar if you're using Firefox and use this)

This will make you use encrypted access which means that your data is protected. In general any URL that has "https" means that the information is encrypted. If you are using a browser such as Firefox and so on, you might notice pop up boxes (if enabled) that tell you that you are moving from secure to non secure, and if you use the url above you aren't going to notice it after you enter your password!

Another way to ensure that you log in securly is to use extensions (you need to use Firefox or Flock of course). These extensions automatically log into your account using secure log in, so you don't have to worry about "https", just click on the notifier button and log in. There are many extensions available out there for Gmail. The ones which I like are:
  • Gmail Notifier (For Firefox)- Tells you when new e-mails arrive, and has a lot of configurable settings. The only downpoint is that you can only view the e-mails of one accout at a time.
  • Gmail Manager (For Firefox)- Also tells you when new e-mail arrive, however you can use this extension for several accounts at one time. But I do seem to find this a little buggy, because I'm not able to log in sometimes.
  • Gmail Notifier (For Flock)- Just like the Firefox extension tells you when new mails arrive.
Now you can safely enjoy what Gmail has to offer without, worrying about anything!

Technorati Tags: , , , ,





Got a question, tip or comment? Send them to beyondteck+question@gmail.com and we'll try to answer it in a blog post!

No comments:

Post a Comment