Which email provider is best?

[Sylence]

For the past three years I've been using my college email account to send and receive email. Since I'm graduating next year, I think the time has come to get myself another email address set up and working.

So. . . what would you recommend? Hotmail? Juno? Yahoo? Which one do you think is the best?


-- Sylence

[Kat]

Don't use Hotmail unless they have a gun to your head. And even then you might want to think twice about it.

True, it has been quite some time since they lost all messages in my inbox and folders, but my sister still uses it, and it was only a couple weeks ago that they lost all the messages in her inbox.

[hightechburrito]

I have never had a problem with my Yahoo email. It is tons better than my ISP email. This is because I get tons of spam with my ISP email, yet none with the Yahoo address.

[USCDiver]

The biggest advantage to Hotmail is that you can access it through Outlook Express 5 and keep the messages you want on your computer.

[chief]

ive used yahoo mail for about 2-3 years and its great
its fast, lots of features and is integrated into a lot of the other yahoo services.
i highly recommend yahoo mail.. i havent lost any mail or it wasnt down for long periods of time either

[Sylence]

Two votes for Yahoo, one for Hotmail, and one against Hotmail. Okay. . .

But are there any others I might think about checking out besides the ones I named?


-- Sylence

[waterj2]

Well, my college provides free lifetime email for alumni, but I'm guessing you don't qualify. Personally, I have my college email address forward to my yahoo address. I like yahoo mainly for the other services they offer, which you can see at my.yahoo.com.

Plus, they have POP access, so I can download it to my computer, using Microsoft Outlook 2000. I also use yahoo Messenger, which alerts me as soon as I have email, then I download it. If I'm not at my computer, I can check my email over the web, then download it to my computer when I get back.

I haven't had any more serious problems than a couple hours of my email being inaccessible, and I can't even remember the last time that happened.

[swisemankcmo]

I would probably vote for Yahoo even though I have both Yahoo and Hotmail addresses.

Just reminds me of one of the funnier things I've seen on the internet. I was on Hotmail before Microsoft bought them out, so I still remember the message the Hotmail CEO sent us at the time of the buyout: "Hotmail is merging with Microsoft!" I about blew soda out of my nose. Would that be like a bait worm saying "I'm about to merge with that bass out there"? Hotmail, you got eaten.

[mouthbreather]

I have Hotmail, Yahoo, as well as http://www.Mail.com addresses. I primarily use mail.com now. It's the newest of the three, you have a better chance of getting the username you want.

Also, I hate the way that Yahoo bundles forwarded email. Nothing as annoying as opening a joke or URL that you have to open 6 attchments to get to. OK, maybe there are some things as annoying, but...we won't get into that.

[handy]

Some give you attachment permission & some don't. Some let you have larger mail boxes & larger attachments. I don't have a preference that you can choose because I use an ISP & that way i don't get ads...

Pacific Bell has a new email machine, $129 after rebate & $10 month. Just plug it in.

[Sylence]

I have no problem with getting more than one account. . . I'll try Yahoo and see how it works. Still open for suggestions, though.


-- Sylence

[Raza]

I stumbled onto mailandnews:
http://www.mailandnews.com
and now use it. No ads, POP and WAP access; almost too good to be true.

[Anti Pro]

NetAddress is the e mail provider and my ISP is NetZero, all free, but the downside is tons of spam and X rated stuff. If you don't care about THAT, then that would be my recommendation. I've never lost anything, and have had the account for three years.
-------
Judy

[Geenius]

You get what you pay for. Period. If you want free E-mail service, expect to get the kind of service that you would never pay for.

There is no substitute for a good local ISP. Check the Yellow Pages.

[anyi]

Yahoo makes you go through multiple pages before they show you your e-mail. Excite will get you there a lot faster (you can even bookmark your inbox page -- they'll give you a logon screen first), and has a neat page where you can see a bar showing you how much space you have left. The page is rather cluttered, but they all are to some degree. I prefer Excite.

Annie

[EnigmaOne]

I'll second the http://www.mail.com suggestion. So far their service has been excellent.

The perks are somewhat cozy as well.

[Glenoled]

Raza... I've been on mailandnews.com for a month or so, and it's the best non-ISP email I've found... I very highly recommend it.
I have it set for POP, and works really slick...

http://www.mailandnews.com

[sailor]

I have a TON of free email addresses and the main advantage is they are quite permanent while I have lost a few over the years when I changed ISPs. Here's the rundown:

Hotmail: never had any emails lost, can be used with Outlook Express 5 and from any other computer using a browser

yahoo: it is POP3 so you can also use OE5 or a browser

MSGTO, netzero and softhome are also POP3...

Junk mail I think depends more on how you use your email than the specific address

I recommend using several so that you always have a backup when one has problems (they all do ocassionally).

[handy]

Well sailor, my ISP [& a few others] give you as many email accts as you want if you buy from them. Don't even have to do anything after the first acct. In other words, suppose you have http://www.potheads.com & your email address of mike@pothead.com If anyone sent email to any variation of:
"@pothead.com' it could come into the mail box of mike@pothead.com. Thus all the email addresses, questions@pothead.com sales@pothead.com etc forever unlimited variations, would all send the mail to that one box. cool!

[sailor]

maybe that is useful for you but I do not find it useful for me. My problem is that I seem to switch ISPs fairly often and the free email accounts are the best way for people to keep track of me.

[sailor]

oh, i am not sure if you are implying it serves to cover the "have several emails as a backup" but it wouldn't because if they are all in the same server they all go down together. in fact you would be better off having several hotmail accounts as sometimes they are on different servers but the best is to have them totally separate.

[Abe]

I'm surprised that there is less mention of email providers other than the mega popular yahoo and hotmail.

You can go to such sites as http://www.emailaddresses.com and http://www.fepg.net/index.html in order to select an email provider.

I find that http://www.graffiti.net is an excellent provider. Reliable and sturdy 10 MB spam-free email, calendars, message boards (wacky stuff), mailing lists, web hosting, greeting cards, chat, and so on--eveything integrated into one account.

Plus, I know all the evolutionists will love the announcement they have on the login page. The guys who run it have a sense of humour. It's a short process to sign up. Frankly I don't bother with the big providers like yahoo and hotmail.

[handy]

I got a free email account at england.com Interesting to have accounts in other countries.

[Munch]

Oh, Yahoo!, definitely. I have both a Yahoo? and a Hotmail account, and Yahoo$ is definitely better. I get about 4 spams a day on hotmail, and have yet to receive one on Yahoo&.

Also, I would like to second the remark that Yahoo# has access to many other services, and Yahoo% Messenger is fabulous.

Connor

[Crusoe]

As already said, the amount of junk email you receive has nothing to do with the email provider, but has everything to do with where you leave your email address lying around. Try leaving a message with an email address in a newsgroup and see what happens.

I've used Hotmail since 1996 and have no complaints. I didn't like Yahoo because, at the time I was looking, it had a lot more images, adverts, Java and animations, and I was on a cheap, rubbish PC. Hotmail seems to run faster and I can leave the image loading switched off.

I also use disinfo.net as a junk account. Any sites requiring me to register an email address get that one to keep the junk mail separate from my Hotmail. About once a month I go in, skim over the messages and delete the lot.

I've also tried postmaster.co.uk (British, not particularly good) and 020.co.uk (British, seems pretty comprehensive).

[handy]

Juno.com has the smallest number of junk mails, you only get them from them.

"oh, i am not sure if you are implying it serves to cover the "have several emails as a backup" but it
wouldn't because if they are all in the same server they all go down together"

That might be true, with an ISP you are connecting right to your mail account but with Yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc, you have to go thru maybe ten computers on the way to your email account & all those computers have to be working.

[Jois]

Hotmail has two inboxes one for bulk mail and the other for regular. There are folders and room enough for me to store interesting things until I get them into the spare drive.

I have a Yahoo address, too but seldom use it because Hotmail worked out so well.

Jois