More Gmail details

Dive Into Mark has this post regarding Gmail accessibility. Mark is one of the lucky ones (or not so lucky if you subscribe to what privacy advocates are saying) that has a Gmail trial account.

You should read the whole post if you're interested in details (and bugs) with Gmail, but here, from the post, are the most telling details about Gmail:

"Gmail is the least web-like web application I have ever seen. It requires both JavaScript and cookies in order to load at all. It uses frames in such a way that prevents bookmarking and breaks the back button, and frames can not be loaded in isolation because every frame relies on scripts defined in other frames. The entire application appears to have been designed to thwart reverse engineering (of the YahooPops and Hotmail Popper variety)."

What it sounds like to me is that Google really tried (and succeeded fairly well) in creating an e-mail application that happens to run through a web interface (rather than a Citrix thin client or other method). Very interesting.