My letter to Microsoft today, after they made me go through a ton of automated shit that doesn’t answer my question:
This is where my fellow Dopers all come and tell me Yahoo is a much better free, web-based email service, with a lot more standard storage space. I know.
A conga-line where everybody passing by me just boots me in the ass will suffice.
Changing email services, and informing people I want to know about the change, is going to be a BITCH.
You forgot “You get what you pay for.” 
~da dee da da conga~boots milo’s ass~da dee da da conga~*
Dammit, tiggeril beat me to the punch. 
Now I’ve got nice conga music in my head.
And I’m picturing a line full of crazy whacked out Dopers conga lining and kicking you in the head.
So all in all, I’m rather amused.
It’s not so bad to change mails - no one says you have to shut one down while starting the new one. Just reply to every mail that you care about on Hotmail from Yahoo. It may take a few months, but you can wean yourself off of it.
If you’re risking losing messages anyways due to your account being full, then you have little to lose.
MicroSoft’s acquisition of Hotmail is yet another example of a good, relatively dependable free service turning to crap unless you pay the premium.
The only reason I had a Hotmail account was so that I could access my ISP e-mail remotely. They shut that service down two weeks ago. Haven’t been back to Hotmail since.
Sayonara, little Billy…
jayjay
yahoo-yahoo-yahooo kick yahoo-yahoo-yahooo kick
(I know, Lola beat me to it. But I just got these neat new boots)
Yahoo has removed POP access as well.
I would love to find out if Bill Gates has a problem receiving spam mail.
The minute he gets pissed off at receiving 10 e-mails about viagra, 5 e-mails on hot barnyard porn, and 42 e-mails about how to find out what your kids are doing on the Internet, that’s when Gates will kindly ask the Microsoft tech wizards to come up with the ultimate spam-killer.
Of course, such a solution would be so fraught with bugs and errors that it wouldn’t make much of a difference for a while.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the Custom Filter option were a bit more dynamic. Something along the lines of “If Subject Contains Attachment >such-and-such amount, Send to Trash”. But no-o-o-o-o-o-o, you can only filter out words…
Excite and OperaMail both allow POP3 access.
I know two people already beat me to the conga line thing, but I just gotta say: now I have that “Folow the Leader, leader, leader…” music in my head from the weekend grad banquet afterparty when a bunch of people did a conga line. Then there was the limbo thing…
Hotmail has a whole bunch of spam, which is why I got off it a couple of years ago.
F_X
And, as a nice little coda to this thread, Hotmail appears to be down, hard, right now.
Update: I got an email back from my friendly Microsoft support person. I’ve already trashed it, so I can’t quote it verbatim. But it went something like this:
“Hi, my name is Dieter (or some other name that reminded me of “Sprokets” for some reason), and I’ll be assisting you. Sorry you are having this problem. If you could please tell me what your Junk Mail filter was set at, and email me back, I will see what I can do to fix the problem.”
I fire back with,
“Um, did you read my first complaint letter? My filter is set at ‘high.’ If I set it at the only higher level, ‘exclusive,’ you will simply automatically trash all of the letters that go into my junk mail folder. I’ve already told you the reasons I don’t want this to happen. My question was, why can’t you give us more filtration options? I can’t possibly be the only person getting this virus attack via email.”
Now they’ll send me an email back telling me to set the filter at exclusive, or there’s nothing else they can do.
Gee, thanks. I’ve already figured that part out, dickwads.
It’s a relief to see that I’m not the only person having trouble with Hotmail lately. Today, I can’t even get in. In spite of my blocking as many addresses as I can, and setting the box to remove spam to the trash bin, I keep getting it, but messages from friends, or from groups like mediasquatters don’t even reach my box!
It sucks rocks.
A few months ago, I signed up for byteme.com, but that was just an angry reaction to Hotmail. On the other hand, byteme offered 8 mg free space (4 times what Hotmail allows now), though it seems possible that the policy of byteme may change. You can pull in email from other POP boxes. I also have an account at www.philipkdick.com, but it gives only 5MB free space, which is still 1MB more than Yahoo. The big advantage to the byteme account is that for some reason, people DO remember my address…
Weird … my Hotmail is fine today, but my Yahoo! inbox is completely inaccessible; I can only reach the login screen.
Update:
Here’s how the good and helpful people at Microsoft responded to my most recent letter. Not that this is not the same person who responded to my first letter:
See, “they understand my problem.” I want to know how the junk mail folder works! Because I don’t understand it now! And I want to protect those children I don’t have from things in my junk mail folder!
I’m glad they clarified that for me! When you go back and read my OP, it all makes so much sense now!
I’m not being flooded with spam and junk mail, you useless fucks!!
I’m being flooded with emails from real people, who have received a virus causing them to send out emails unbeknownst to them, containing the virus as an attachement they want people to inadvertently click on and further spread the virus. These attachments are LARGE, and only about six of these emails sent to me causes me to be over my capacity. And then you stop giving me emails I want.
If I set my junk mail filter to “exclusive” and automatically trash all incoming mail that is not on my list, I will DEFINITELY lose unopened emails I want to receive. (Incidentally, for whatever reason, this never has happened to me on my work email address, which is Yahoo.)
I did their little customer survey, and when they ask what specifically contributed to me giving them a low mark, I put:
“That the two people who responded to my inquiry didn’t seem to read or understand my inquiry at all, and rather than READING WHAT I HAVE TO SAY AND RESPONDING SPECIFICALLY TO IT, they read some pat answer you have in a notebook somewhere. It’s no more useful than your mountain of automated crap that also didn’t answer my question.”
I’ll stop boring you all with this. But … man.
Ah feel yo pain. I’m not picky about food but I hate canned responses.
I signed up for Hotmail a few months ago and I stopped using it almost immediately because my mailbox was filled everyday (from day one) with spam mail…even though it was a new address. Signing up for Hotmail was like signing up to receive nothing but junkmail. WTF!!!
I feel your pain. Oh I do.
I too would really, really rather not switch e-mails. I have other e-mail addys, but I have had my hotmail one since I was 13. everyone I have ever known knows they can reach me at that e-mail.
SIgh.