I was using Yahoomail as usual, and suddenly something popped up with a water bubble bursting sound. I could see a blue widget above my email folders. I never did anything to get this. No settings, no modifications, no plugins. I was just checking my mail and the blue widget appeared and after a refresh it disappeared. I used the back button in my FireFox browser and took the screen shots of the chat & sms widget.
It had already imported all the contacts and mobile numbers from my Yahoo! messenger.
It looks cool, loads fast.
Here are some screen shots:
It appeared in the Classic Yahoomail and not in the upgraded version of YahooMail. Upgraded version of Yahoomail already has a separate portion for chatting. But this is something new and better, as we need not move from the inbox to start chatting(some what similar to that in Gmail.)
Click above image to see in full screen
Tab for multiple user chat
Did you notice this widget in your Yahoo mail? Hope this is in the initial state of testing. And Yahoo! will rollout this feature to all its users some time in the future.
Got the Chat and SMS widget back in my Yahoo Mail again. Its not disappearing now. Its nice to chat and adds more fun to its already famous Mail
yahoo always tries to “catch up” with Google. I wish to see them do something “out of the box” and new which no one has done before.
@Raju, ya you are right. But Yahoo! built search engine before Google 🙂
Very DANGEROUS NEW CHAT FEATURE allows anyone to see your online status whether they are on your Approved Friends list or not.!!
This new feature now lets ANYONE who has a Yahoo email account to monitor you while you are logged into the Chat Feature in your inbox. This is a huge and unfortunate change from the Stand Alone Separate Yahoo Messenger product. When using the stand alone product you had to approve people to be on your friends list before they could see if you were online or off. With the stand alone messenger you could also set individual preferences for each individual person on your friends list to control if they could see your online status or not.
The new Inbox Chat & Mobile Text feature in your inbox now allows anyone access anytime to see if you are online when you change your status to online.
We tested this scenario by setting up a BRAND NEW Yahoo email address and adding the email address of our present account into the new email accounts address/contacts list. It instantly showed the online status of the account that was logged in through the inbox feature. This is a very INTRUSIVE! The new email address had absolutely no connection to the existing yahoo email address just seconds before setting it up. The New email account was granted instant Friends status to our old address – simply by just adding the email address to the contact list.
So if there is anyone out there that has problems with anyone one that may be a Cyber-Stalker or worse a Physical Stalker – I would AVOID Yahoo altogether. All the Stalker has to do is setup a new Yahoo Email account and add your email address to their contacts list and then they can see you anytime that you login to Yahoo and activate the Chat Feature. If you use the new Inbox Chat Feature as your source to Chat you will always be in danger of exposing yourself to anyone with a Yahoo address by simply logging in.
If you use the Yahoo Mobile IM feature on your phone you are exposed showing you on your Mobile IM through this new feature as well.
If you constantly have to show yourself as invisible to all just to insure that you are not exposed to the prying eyes of those you do not want to know your status – What is the point of the messenger service? Its original intent was to be a way to socialize with people in real time in the cyber world. If you are always invisible in IM you are not really using the IM service as it was originally intended, that was the whole reason for the Friends List and having to approve those people you wanted to include in your circle of trust.
What a shame that Yahoo Messenger team did not think this problem through before implementing this feature site wide and as you can see from this blog post the comments are Mostly AGAINST this New Feature for a ton of different reasons. Why cant the Yahoo Messenger team get the hint that the users want to be allowed to get rid of this feature from their inbox if they so choose to do so, not just change the status to offline.
Just a warning to Yahoo users everywhere – be aware you are now possibly being monitored whenever you are online.
Yahoo give us our Classic Mail back and Keep us SAFE!!!!
Be Careful fellow Yahooers,
John
Soon to be a Gmailer
@Soon to be Gmailer, Showing us online to others without our prior permission is more than annoying!
Welcome to Gmail.. 🙂
in my yahoo classic mail Chat and Sms widget is disappearing how to get it back please tell me. Thank you
@didi, It may be due to the lower bandwidth internet you are using. Or your browser may be the culprit. I am using FireFox with 256kbps speed and everything is working fine.
Another possibility may be, you have pressed the hide option by mistake. Just click on the show link and the chat box will be back. If nothing works, its better to switch to New Yahoo mail, if the web chat is a must thing for you. Please let me know, if this helps you
Thank you so much for your suggetion. I am not useing lower banwith internet and it was working before nicely in Yahoo Mail , But now I am useing for chat New Yahoo Mail but I want to use in Yahoo classic . You told about to click on show link and chat box will be back but I dint understand where is the link and where to click ,so could you please tell me where to click. It will be very helpful for me .Thank You.
Hi, you know in my computer other can open chat and sms widget in yahoo mail classic but I can not why ? please let me know. Thank you.
Hi ,
Finally I got my chat and sms widget.The reason was I was connected with the connection virson which is new and after that chat and sms widget was not there. but any how I got it back .Thank you so much that you were trying to help me . Thank you .
@didi, Oh…glad to know that it was fixed.
i m not able to use chat & sms service on my mail kindly do need full asap
thanks
Am not able to chat on my mail/from my inbox.Kindly install it for me.
thanks
in my yahoo classic mail Chat and Sms widget is disappearing how to get it back please tell me. Thank you
i have deleted of cat & sms option & now i have need it so how can i active it?
i had chat…yahoo chat on classis. i signed out and it disappeared. i see no link, no “hide” i cannot reactivate chat. please help!