With yesterday’s release of IE8 RC, I was reminded of an annoyance my partner had when I first installed Google Chrome because she was unable to use her Hotmail (short for the official name Windows Live Hotmail and not to be confused with Windows Live Mail) account properly using the new browser. I checked if the e-mail service – among the most popular webmail services in the world – was working better now that Chrome is a couple of months old, out of beta and – admittedly slowly – taking bits of market share on a daily basis.
Update: Google just got in touch with us to point out that they’ve just released an updated version of Google Chrome which integrates the work-around (see below) inside the browser so that non-techie users would be able to use both Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Hotmail without any problems “while the Hotmail team works on a proper fix”.
No such luck. Apparently, with Microsoft’s latest upgrade of the Windows Live Mail service, things got really broken, causing users to be unable to write, reply to or forward e-mail messages. Evidently, these are essential functionalities that shouldn’t take a company of that size to fix within a day or two. So why doesn’t it still work after weeks and weeks of complaints (see here also) by Google Chrome users who still make use of their old Hotmail accounts for sending and forwarding messages to their friends?
How many engineers and how much time does it really take to fix this?
And yes, there’s a workaround by making Hotmail think you’re using a compatible browser, but no, that’s not an adequate solution. And I don’t believe this is proof that Microsoft is deliberately refraining Chrome users to use Hotmail either, it’s just about making it clear they’re not officially supporting the browser yet.
I asked Microsoft for an official stance on this lingering problem, and they swiftly got back to me, pointing out that Windows Live Mail works properly with a variety of browsers and platforms (good), but not the way it should with Chrome (bad) and that they’re “actively working on making the service compatible with other PC browsers and they’ll let me know when they have more to share” (ugly).
For the record: this isn’t a conspiracy theory. I’m confident Microsoft wants to make Windows Live Hotmail work for Google Chrome users, but my gripe is that they’re dreadfully slow to respond to complaints about a service that’s quite essential to their whole online strategy.
Meanwhile, Gmail is steadily rising and on its way to overtake Windows Live Hotmail.
I gave up on Hotmail 10 years ago. Looking back on it now, I really don’t regret it.
True, when you have options have gmail with advanced features, who in the world needs hotmail which needs regular signing, confusing/no mail forwarding, and lot more not available.
The only Microsoft product I use at all is MSN Messenger, BUT I use Twitter a lot more now, and haven’t actually used MSN Messenger for a few weeks now, might not use it again.
Actually, the title should be “How many Google engineers does it take to make Chrome work with Hotmail?”
+1
None.
WebKit does a very good job of rendering W3C standards compliant pages. It really should be titled “how many Microsoft engineers are required to turn Hotmail into a W3C-compliant application”.
@Ricardo… Hotmail works in other webkit browsers just fine.
You wouldn’t think Chrome could be as broken as it is when it’s using a stable rendering engine like Webkit, but it is!
Can somebody explain why so many things like transparency on PNGs are so broken in Chrome when they work perfectly well in the PC version of Safari?
And while Chrome is so broken and has penetration of less than 2% of users then why should companies like Microsoft go to great expense to support them, especially when they make a competing prduct?
@ John- Because the niche happy bloggers want it want it waaannnttt iiittttt :*(
+1
Welcome to the world of legacy code, Google. Good luck competing with MSFT on that front.
+1 Indeed.
Whether it is the Webkit guys or the Chrome guys it is weak to blame MSFT for this failure.
The fact that changing browser ID’s makes it work is proof that it is not Chrome which is broken. Chrome would happily render the pages if Microsoft would send them. The hotmail decision makers CHOSE not to support Chrome.
No kidding!! It bugs the heck out of me that I still need to run another browser to access Hotmail, but with Chrome’s browser share, that ball is pretty much in Google’s court.
I use both, but to be honest i’ve recently started using hotmail from within Gmail.
+1
Hotmail (or WIndows Live mail) has improved a lot recently. Their spam engine is quite good too unlike Gmail where I get 1000 spams a day.
Overall experience with Windows Live pack is much better than I though it would be. I am using it more every day. Have you tried Windows Live gallery yet? It is making picasa leak in the pants
I don’t believe you. Gmail spam protection is much better than the competition.
http://www.askd...ering_spam.html
Fuck Hotmail, Chrome was giving me serious grief on Gmail yesterday… nothing short of closing it down and restarting the entire browser, not just that tab, would clear it.
Maybe it’s an excuse for subtle message like “GET BACK TO INTERNET EXPLORER!”.
Or maybe they couldn’t even bother. :\
Fortunately now they activate pop
(pop3.live.com, SSL, port 995), bye bye useless Hotmail interface.
Nice to know to not depend on the web interface. It surely will make my 15-year old email work a bit more ;p
This happened with Safari for a LONG TIME, its 98% compatible now, its just having an issue with the HTML signature
I used hotmail, now I am a happy gmail user. Works so fine.
That’s what’s up. I <3 the Big G.
Maybe it’s just wishful perception, but I am such a huge fan of chrome and the way it runs. I love being able to look at the detailed source information for a page and answer the “how did they DO that?” for a cool site design…not to mention that Chrome is uber-speedy. No superfluous nonsense bars, no cluttered screen, and a UI based on LOGIC of all things.
I hope they can keep “taking bits of market share on a daily basis.”
Hotmail works great in firefox 3. Just check it before you comment.
I’ve had huge issues with most Live sites and Safari as well — endless redirect loops after logging in being the most annoying. I’m not surprised that Chrome has issues with it as well, since it basically runs the same engine, apart from JS.
Personally, I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to intentionally break a service on non-Win/IE browsers, or at least not fix it. They’ve done it in the past.
Apart from that, the horrible and bloated UI have turned me off ages ago. I’ll take Gmail over Hotmail any day.
Gmail is the thing, forget that annoying hotmail.
Exactly how is hotmail annoying. It is gmail which sucks in performance
haha yeah true!
CoolestJobsOnline
http://tinyurl.com/7uj5ay
reply
Go Gmail overtake hotmail in userbase.
Why should they fix hotmail in chrome??
From a user’s perspective, it is annoying to have a web service not-working in favorite browser.
From a company’s perspective, there are always tons of issues waiting to be fixed. Obviously, this issue is not recognized as severe and prior enough. Of course, this might be a wrong recognition.
Chrome has a crap ton of work a head of it. this one of the few products i actually WANT the beta label on for a google product.
And take gmail out of beta already, sheesh this is getting ridiculous. Now there just using it as a cop out and I bet if they take off the beta off Google Docs and Gmail I bet you Google Apps subscriptions would go up..
but whatever i am not the Goliath google so i will sit in my corner lol
if this is what happens when Google products go out of beta, then maybe they should all stay in beta and improve.
Just one more reason hotmail is useless. From spam magnetism to difficulty handling attachments to poor support of RTL languages, hotmail has always sucked. The only difference here is that there could potentially be a logical business reason for it not to work with Chrome.
there are sooo many things that don’t work in chrome. For instance i just tried to watch lost on abc.com but their player doesn’t work on chrome. I’m getting fed up and will switch to some obscure browser like http://www.browzar.com
Why should hotmail care about chrome? the more chrome it support, the more people will switch to chrome. That’s already the first principal of hotmail to support Microsoft business only. Even in the past, it did not support firefox that well
interesting. you choose to ‘blame’ the email provide that has 40%+ of the market instead of blaming the browser that has ~1% of the market. that says a lot more about you than it says about them….
Did you read the part where I wrote that Microsoft told me that they’re actively working on making Hotmail compatible with Chrome?
Yes i’m sure MS are working on it….in partnership with the Google Chrome team.
This isn’t a MS problem, its a Chrome one.
Hotmail was around way before Chome so it should be backwards compatible.
+1. Typical TechCrunch anti-Microsoft bias. You choose to use a relatively obscure browser (1% share), then demand that websites test for compatibility issues against it. Call Google and ask them when they’re going to improve their compatibility. When Chrome has 60% Browser Market Share, THEN you can complain about web sites that aren’t compatible.
If you owned the Live Mail business, would you invest in testing a browser with 1% market share? Just because it comes from the Google hegemony, doesn’t mean everyone must accommodate it. Seriously, how much is Google paying you?
Petty {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/RHF3si4Qfo_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Petty ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/iUBks6tAdE”}}}
TC is anti-Microsoft even when microsoft is right. The blog entry on “Photosynth down vs apple fiasco” anyone.
And Chrome sucks. pretty much. its fast but that doesnt mean a thing if half the sites dont work on it. and its not that those that dont work are not standards compliant. they work perfectly fine in firefox and opera. so why not on chrome. just because it has been made by google doesn’t mean it has to be right.
@ the amb – it’s not about market share. There are standards-compliant ways to build a website so that it works with all standards-compliant browsers, such as Chrome. Just good practice. It’s been widely documented that a lot of people have built sites that only work well in IE despite its poor implementation of standards – not good.
And since when has it been a good idea to alienate users of your service?
There’s the consipiracy theory of actively excluding “standards-compliant” browsers then there’s the simple business decision of not testing your site with browsers below a certain market share threshold (eg. 2%).
To use an analogy, all I’m saying is that if you choose to drive to work in a hydrogen car, don’t get upset when you find that every gas station doesn’t offer a hydrogen refueling station. You’re an early adopter, that’s great, so be patient while the rest of the world catches up.
There’s a difference between the ‘conspiracy theory’ of MS actively excluding users of Chrome and sloppy coding.
I’m no Google (or MS) apologist – frankly I don’t like the idea of any company being as powerful as either of them are – but when it comes to coding a webmail client you have to wonder why everyone else can get it right but MS can’t. Your hydrogen car analogy might have worked if we weren’t in a position where the web standards have been freely available to all for the past decade.
Read some of the more recent comments. Folks are saying that every other browser seems to work with Live Mail. There are also comments stating that Chrome doesn’t work properly with Yahoo. All I’m saying is it might, just MIGHT be a Chrome bug and this post, in typical TechCrunch fashion, jumps all over Microsoft.
Why is anyone surprised?
When you have so many sites out there that don’t even work with FIREFOX*, and don’t seem to care, why is anyone surprised to find something that doesn’t work with Chrome?
Those of us who understand that there are a variety of browsers and actually try to design sites that work on all of them are a very small minority. Most developers simply don’t know or don’t care.
* Pet peeve: Orange County Performing Arts Center – I lost good seats for Phantom of the Opera because their site didn’t support Firefox.
* New gripe: SocialToo blog becomes unreadable if you increase the font size in FF or Chrome.
As an email marketer, I have had bad experiences with Windows Live and Firefox. Safari is not bad but then chrome is a nightmare which is surprising as they use the same engine.
My Advise: If you have to use Live Interface, stick to IE.
I use Hotmail (Live Mail) almost daily in Chrome. Where is the problem? I’ve yet to find one…
Also, the line about GMail about to overtake Hotmail is downright laughable. There are 30 million GMail users and 300 million Hotmail accounts. Maybe in another decade…
I have not had a problem either and i don’t see why they have to be blaming MS if there is such an issue.
I notice their alot of Google fanboys/MS haters here that want to blame MS for everything that don’t work for them. I honestly have tried using gmail and have never seen the greatness so many claim it has. I am not saying is not a good product but i don’t see what’s all the happy fanboys love for it. I currently use Yahoo mail and hotmail and i have no complaints about it, they do everything i want. I guess that when you drink some of that google juice it’s welcomes you to google land. I am glad that has and will not happen to me.
Gmail had 52M users nearly 3 years ago.
http://googlesy...ar-webmail.html
According to the site you are reading, Gmail now has over 100M users.
http://www.tech...e-gmail-outage/
This is an over-arching problem – We are still living with an Internet that was built on Internet Explorer. While I don’t use Hotmail, I’ve had similar problems with other email sites, and countless css menus using a varitey of browsers.
This isn’t an issue with Google Chrome – it’s an issue with the Internet as a whole. If you aren’t complacent using Firefox or IE, you’re out of luck.
Even Firefox isn’t all that well supported, though.
A web site should /never/ change its presentation based on a User Agent string, and it certainly should never reject a user’s visit because their browser is “unsupported.” This discimination plagues iPhone/WM/Operamini users as well, who often have capable browsers but find that they cannot view common web sites because the server sees their user agent string and somehow knows better.
Microsoft has to get with the times and make their sites work properly in IE, Mozilla, WebKit and Opera.
Did anyone ever entertain the thought that MICROSOFT does not want people using a GOOGLE browser. If they fix their product to work with crome then it is their loss.
unless you want to come across as an airhead. It’s not like as if MS suddenly dropped the support for Chrome so that people would avoid using Chrome to access Hotmail. Instead, it’s that Chrome is a new kid on the block that does not come with Hotmail support. OK Hotmail interface might have decided not to religiously follow the ‘standards’. However to assumption that MS singled Chrome out is only a figment to your imagination.
There’s solid evidence that Microsoft has intentionally introduced incompatibilities for non MS browers (Opera) in the past, so it’s really not such a stretch to assume they may be up to their old tricks again. Take a look at the Opera testimony from the EU antitrust trial if you don’t believe me.
Wow a competing browser blaming the other one, so what’s new? Opera has had it’s chances and has never gone over the fence. Yeah they have innovated by packing tons of features into their browser but features does not necessary mean it’s a good thing. Firefox was the new kid in town no son long ago and look how far they have gone.
Why using hotmail ?
Errr, because it IS better than gmail.
Errr, u r an idiot.
On one hand, I can see why they choose to not officially “support” it. However, from an engineering point of view, given purely code and forgetting their server architecture, it’s quite possibly a one-line user agent detection fix.
Chrome is based on WebKit, much like Safari is. It does have a few quirks, and it’s definitely not as polished as Safari. But if they have Safari support, Chrome support would not be difficult at all to add and have working properly.
This discussion is really funny. I can tell there are SO MANY people that really have no clue when it comes to SW development (for large, well established SW companies that make products used by many, many millions of people world wide).
MS has developed its Hotmail and Live Hotmail products for years and has updated the versions over time. When about to release an updated version, which can take many months and sometimes years, and suddenly a new browser is released in (very) beta form long after the scope of the release has been locked, the ONLY acceptable thing to do is to formally not support the browser.
Officially and formally supporting your product on any platform (OS, browser, etc.) means you have THOROUGHLY tested it on the many combinations of environments it can be found on. Anything less than that means you are not engaging in real, quality-based SW development practices.
Their statement concerning their stance on supporting Google Chrome is actually the most responsible thing they could have said. Would people rather have them say “… we dunno, you tell us if there are issues you find…” ? Or do something irresponsible (in a business sense) and halt their release because third parties have released a new platform (browser) until the new platform works out all of its own bugs, allowing you to then start hunting & fixing ones in your product?
Google is the new Microsoft, doing everything a bit *different*. See their “imap support” in gmail …
Wake me up when you can get the email that Yahoo Mail holds hostage out with IMAP.
i haven’t managed to get yahoo mail working in chrome yet either – i can read mail, but composing mail doesn’t work.
is it just me who has this problem?!
The link to this article from the front page says “compatibility woos”. Does anybody know of a spellchecker around here?
Hehe, fixed, thx.
It’s especially surprising because I don’t think that Apple’s Safari has these problems … and both Safari and Chrome use Webkit. But it really doesn’t matter to me – I love Gmail and hate Hotmail. (I also can’t believe the articles I’ve been reading about Windows 7 stealing Linux thunder – gimme a break)
re: Windows 7 stealing Linux’ thunder, umm, Linux hasn’t realistically ever even produced lightning, much less thunder. Give us all a break…
Now, as to Webkit, it is just the rendering engine. Most incompatibilities beyond basic cosmetic stuff are related to the JavaScript engine, which is quite different for Chrome.
Errr, Linux thunder?? Last time I checked Linux was had less than 1% market share…troll.
And the Windows 7 beta shites all over Linux.
“..hate Hotmail”? Wow, you need to see a doctor man, it’s only a free service and unless it cheated on you with your best mate…..
You really gotta wonder about these Google / Apple fanboiz out there and worry about the future of the world!
I can’t reply all in Yahoo mail with Chrome either
GMail doesn’t work on Konqueror.
Although Google’s approach is;
“if you’re using a browser that doesnt work on our site,
we’ll tell you about it,
and redirect you to the HTML-only version”
Which makes sense.
Thanks for reporting this Michael.
I have similar issues with Gmail / Opear. Gmail is unusable with any version of Opear. Opera for me would be the best browser but Gmail is in fact important for me so I have moved back to FF on my work comp
I’m having exactly the same problems using Chrome with Yahoo mail. Can’t reply to mails. Problem appeared about 10 days ago. Has Google broken something?
Why is the burden on MS to fix their site for some obscure little browser? Did the writer ever think to ask why Chrome doesn’t work with hotmail when every other major browser does?
I am a web developer and on a daily basis test data rich ASP.NET/AJAX applications on both PC and Mac platforms in many different browsers. (IE 6-7, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome). I can say that overall I really like Chrome but will admit it does have some weird issues that my team does not get in any other browsers (including Safari on the Mac). I also have found many Webkit/AJAX issues. On the other hand, apps. that completely do not work in Chrome, developers need to be a little better in producing clean code that complies to web standards. Good developers should find a happy medium of functionality and compatibility. What is the point of the fancy AJAX if it doesn’t work for half your audience…
Since gmail doesn’t work properly with IE8 does that mean you will write an article about how slow Google is to support an update to a browser with ~80% marketshare?
I am unclear. Is this hotmail service new? It sounds great, of course new services will have a few bugs. Sign up and try it out for a while, I will be. I’m sure they’ll polish it up as they roll it out.
Ha Ha Ha!….Good One ; )….
What’s the market share of Chrome? Exactly. Now try to justify spending resources on getting things to work on it, which itself is a moving target since it’s nowhere near completion.
“these are essential functionalities that shouldn’t take a company of that size to fix within a day or two”…. Excuse me, are you a application developer? Do you have any idea what the workload on them must be and not to mention the tracking of bugs, code fixes and change requests that are involved with fixing ANYTHING? Be realistic and provide the developers a little time to do their job. Not to mention with the recession and layoffs I am sure they aren’t quite a fully manned ship any longer.
How about a follow up article on getting Yahoo Mail to work on Chrome too!
Yahoo Mail quit working on Chrome about 2 weeks ago. Only GMail works now. Hmm……….
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the pool of Google Chrome/Hotmail users isn’t high enough for either company to care. If you’re using Chrome at this point in time, you’re probably a Google devotee and you also use GMail. If you use Hotmail and are like most Hotmail users, you have no clue what Google Chrome is. And that’s that.
Zero. Engineers don’t work on these types of problems – code monkey community college drop outs do.
Yeah, my girlfriend is not able to start my computer, it must be Microsoft’s fault….
@Steve Bomber, I agree.
This writer is a “communications expert” with no clue on technical, engineering or programming matters. I don’t trust anything he writes on.
Hey Michael Arrington…
Can we like have an option where we can vote down junk articles like this one? I think it would be a great feature to have.
Good luck with the voting suggestion… Just consider the articles Arrington writes about Steve Jobs!
i think the another big issue is.
msft exchange and the extended or advanced mode or whatever its called…
doesn’t work in any other browser than ie
well, i haven’t looked into it, but i cant get a preview mode like the one in outlook in ff or opera or chrome
Shouldn’t it be Google who makes sure their browser supports such a popular site? If this were IE breaking a major site, everyone would be on Microsoft’s case for that, how come it’s ok if it’s Google that’s doing it? If I were Microsoft, I wouldn’t even attempt to fix it at all. Google actively states that their Web properties work “better” in Firefox and Chrome, why can’t Microsoft do the same with their browser?
Wow, another anti-Microsoft leaning article on TechCrunch..surprise, surprise!
First time I have heard that an incumbent service HAS to support a niche beta browser with around 1% market share!
Gotta love this closing comment, “Meanwhile, Gmail is steadily rising and on its way to overtake Windows Live Hotmail.” So, let me see there are approximately 500m Hotmail users and 29.6m gmail users! This statement is saying Linux at 1% market share has grown quart of one percent and is on its way to overtaking Windows on the desktop.
Seriously Arrington, where do you get these ignorant morons?
Sorry meant to say…
This statement is LIKE saying Linux is at 1% market share has grown a quarter of one percent and is on its way to overtaking Windows on the desktop.
Need an edit function on this site! lol
Sometimes i also think they are morons but i’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But it’s not secret that they are biased just like engadget maybe they should join forces.
They quite often make stupid mistakes with the title of their articles. Example today Crunchgear posted an article that’s link to the one here about the IBM/Apple Dispute -
“Apple calls off dogs: Papermaster can now work for Lenovo”
But i thought it was the other way around… and IBM and Lenovo are not one company.
I know, i know anyone can make a mistake but i’ve been seing quite a few mistakes here on techcrunch and crunchgear – maybe they should stop those joints(mj) meetings and perhaps then they can use their senses right.
http://www.tech...e-gmail-outage/
100M.
Sucks when superior information gets in the way of a good, uninformed rant.
I am also amazed by Robin blaming Microsoft for something is Google Fault… that is completelly ridiculous. Hotmail works pretty much perfectly in Safari and Firefox. and from what i have seen. the alpha of the next Chrome version works with Hotmail too. so how it is this Microsoft Fault?….
For the record many Asp.Net based sites using Ms ajax wont work well in chrome. same goes for some Flex Based sites and pretty much every single thing that involves Silverlight 2 + streaming will behave horrible in Chrome. that is Microsoft Fault too Robin?.
who cares about Google Chrome, another half ass project by Google