What Is Microsoft Thinking About In Disabling The WebDAV Protocol?
Microsoft Cuts Of All There Hotmail Users
I’m going to keep this short to try and avoid the danger of a total rant. What are Microsoft thinking about when they decided to disable free access to the WebDAV protocol?
Microsoft have cited spam as the reason, I think that is utter rubbish. If you want to stop spammers then simply disable the SMTP part of the protocol so no mail could be sent whilst still allowing honest users to read their mail using the various tools that utilise WebDAV. They have mentioned that no active users will be affected until next year, well i’ve already had one GetMail user report that they have been cut off?
The whole thing seems to be another blatant attempt at ripping of the public! Are they really that worried about GMail? Microsoft don’t like the idea of upping their storage to so many accounts so cut the one feature that makes it actually useful, remove a load of users and charge $20 a go to everybody else whilst banging on about FREE 250mb storage and virus scanning (who doesn’t run a virus scanner these days?)
What is even more annoying is the fact that if you do pay your $20 you don’t get a nice industry standard protocol like IMAP4 but are still stuck with Microsofts proprietary WebDAV meaning that you are paying Microsoft to use Hotmail either through OE (which you have bought Microsoft Windows to use) and/or Outlook (which you have bought Microsoft Office to use). The whole thing in my honest opinion is mad.
I know people hate to switch e-mail accounts but there are some decent providers out there offering free POP/IMAP access and a nice webmail interface. And with GetMail you’ve got the ideal tool to help you with the switch!
Come on Google, bring on the free access for GMail!
Microsoft Being Stupid
The Announcement
The announcement of the disablement of the WebDAV protocol as per the BBC website