Yahoo is planning to enhance Yahoo mail in an effort to make it run more efficiently than other Web-based e-mail systems, providing a service that will rival that of desktop mail. The company has developed ways to short-circuit the multi-second delays that typically characterise web based mail environments, and has eliminated the need to repeatedly refresh a browser to open e-mail.
"The process of going through the inbox is much, much faster," said Ethan Diamond, product manager for Yahoo Mail and a co-founder of Outpost, the company which supplied the underlying technology used in the Yahoo Mail upgrade.
New features also include keystroke shortcuts that reduce use of a mouse pointer, faster searching through e-mail and an auto-complete feature for addressing e-mails to frequent correspondents. There are apparently many similarities with Microsoft Outlook.