From the Telegraph UK, it is reported this morning that Gmail has been down for several hours across Europe, parts of Asia and Australia.
This has to be frustrating for Gmail users. It highlights to me, however, the inherent danger in relying on a web-based email program. It can go down, indeed disappear forever, at any moment. It probably won’t, but, would you risk all of your emails on it?
I am not saying you should abandon web based email like Gmail, I don’t know what I would do without it personally, and web based email does offer some positive trade offs, like being able to access your email from any computer.
Take a minute instead to look into backing up your web based email. This post from Lifehacker is a good place to start. Or you could also consider offline gmail, a new feature in Gmail Labs that I have highlighted here.
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