Suggestions for the improvement of Runbox

[gecko]

Dear Runbox Team,

Please excuse that I am posting this message to the forum - I've already sent it to your directly, but I do fully understand if you cannot reply to every single mail you get.

In a nutshell, I am looking for a high quality, professional mail service for which I would be happy to pay if it really convinces me and meets my expectations. There are only few mail providers out there with ad-free, fast, and slim webmail interfaces. However, if I do pay a considerable amount of money for the service, it should have a distinct competitive edge over free mail services. A few suggestions I would like to make are as follows:

1) implement one-time passwords that can be used when logging in from untrusted terminals (e.g., when travelling) and/or support hardware tokens
2) show the IP and timestamp of more than only the last login
3) update the SSL cipher for secure.runbox.com to AES rather than RC4
4) implement some sort of notepad to keep some notes ready at hand

I truly wish you success in your endeavour to provide high-quality email to demanding customers so that there is an alternative to bloated flash-ad-banner-graphics-and-so-on free services! Unfortunately, you have not yet convinced me entirely (see suggestions) :( -- but I hope that future enhancements will make my decision easier!

Cheers
Gecko

[kservik]

Hello gecko and thanks for considering us!

We have had some discussion internally about your suggestions and here is the response:

1. We have not had this in our internal plans so far, but these are things we will add to our Suggested Improvements lists. Hardware Tokens might be fun. We have been thinking about a API in the future.

2. We do have more data available and we use it internally. I will tell developers to add it.

3. We are actively looking at the total usage of SSL in Runbox and we will take your suggestion with us in this process.

4. Updated Contacts and adding Calendar and Notepad is one of the highest things on our lists for new features development.

These are all really good suggestions. Apart from the first thing, they are all about or will soon be implemented.

Kim

[gecko]

Dear Kim,

Thanks a lot for your reply. Your answer once again underscores that there are real people behind runbox :)!

I am happy to hear that you approved of my suggestions and added them to your internal pipeline.

Let me make one more comment: My first point (OTPs) is of top priority for me. That would be almost a unique feature to runbox -- not many other services support that. As soon as you implement that, you'll see me sign up ;)!

<edit> Ease of use of the OTP/hardware token solution seems crucial to me. It wouldn't be much help if one had to install drivers or use specific programs when checking mails from a public cyber cafe. What comes to my mind are solutions as known from internet banking -- tokens generating OTPs or even simpler lists with OTPs that you can print from inside your runbox account when logged in from a trusted terminal. Ultimate security cannot be achieved anyway, but these measures would make it a lot harder to phish your login credentials or have them unintentionally stored in the browser's auto-complete feature (have you ever tried to clear the browser's history on a terminal whose language you cannot even decipher ;)? )</edit>

Keep up the good work!

Regards,
gecko

[gecko]

Dear Runbox Team and forum users,

I am still unsure whether or not to sign up. As mentioned above, the OTP feature would be of paramount importance to me. Is it feasible for you to implement it some time in the near future or is waiting for it futile?

Maybe some other forum users could also comment on this matter in order to shed some light on whether this is a feature that would be appreciated by others as well or not.

Cheers,
gecko

[kservik]

It is feasible that we will implement something like this. I really dont know when and its hard for me to estimate.

It all depends on the traction on other projects, how we prioritize our development pipeline and what our users most want.

Currently the large projects we work on is domain registration, message search and the new Webmail.

Then I suspect the next projects to be completed will be improved contacts/address book, calendar, notebook, file storage, iphone/android/mobile apps and changes to our spam systems.

Kim

[gecko]

Hello Kim,

I was just wondering if any of the suggestions 1, 2, and 4 which I made a couple of months ago are on your radar meanwhile . Is there any chance of seeing them being implemented in the near future?

Just asking out of curiosity.

Best wishes,
gecko

[dbowdley]

Hi gecko,

I meant to point this out at an earlier time, but number 2 on your list has been implemented. If you go to Account > Main Account and scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see a list of last logins. This will also include failed logins (if you have any).

I'll let Kim comment on the other items, but yes, they are still in development and high on the list.

David

[Geir]

I can add that we've discussed adding a function that would let you add notes to an email -- sort of like a post-it feature. Maybe this would be useful?

On a related note (sic) we're currently testing tagging of email messages to provide an extra dimension of classifying messages beside the folder hierarchy. We hope to start a closed beta test within a week or two so stay tuned.

- Geir

[tomhab]

Sounds interesting. A bit like the tagging system in Thunderbird? Guessing it won't sync over IMAP though which would be a shame...

Just seen this list of features:

http://doc.runbox.com/twiki/bin/view...ComingFeatures

Any news on Full message body searching? I'd be very interested in being able to search sub-folders (ie search Archive and it gets all items from Archive/2009, Archive/2008, and even Archive/2010/January etc), even if it was just subject and from/to etc

[kservik]

The new search is almost ready for public beta testing.

It will be nothing like the old system (searching in db), but based on a index of all your emails, so very fast and no restrictions.

Kim

[hajonez]

This sounds brilliant, Kim! Let me know if you need any more private beta testers. As one of Runbox's older users, I'm always willing to give a hand (and preview new features).

- Henry

[kservik]

Originally Posted by hajonez

Let me know if you need any more private beta testers.
- Henry

I added you to the list now.


Kim