# What happened to Hotmail? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 19, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264 "2010-11-19T20:55:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/41 "2010-11-21T14:41:51Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > Sending advertising to everyone you email because you are too cheap to pay an ISP for an email account really annoys everyone…your friends may tolerate it, but it is not the foot I’d want to start out on when trying to get hired. I have to join the chorus, this is something I’ve never heard. As long as your email isn’t something like [StrippedThroughCollege@hotmail.com](mailto:StrippedThroughCollege@hotmail.com) or [Pimp420@hotmail.com](mailto:Pimp420@hotmail.com) I can’t imagine an employer having a problem with a free email address. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/42 "2010-11-21T15:08:46Z")
Hotmail was one of my first email addresses back in more innocent times. And I suspect, like many people back then, I hawked my email address about a bit too readily - not massively so, but enough to get spam to it. I still use it for registering with forums etc but the main reason I’m with Gmail now is that the spam filter on Hotmail is UTTERLY USELESS. Items that couldn’t be more typically spam-like - like appeals from Nigerians asking me to hold some money in my bank account for them, or lewd viagra sellers - regularly make it into my inbox. Whilst legitimate emails get put in the spam folder! On the the hand, my Gmail account successfully filters out even the most subtle spam emails and I can’t remember the last time it wrongly filed a genuine email in the spam folder. There’s just no contest between the two. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/43 "2010-11-21T15:58:30Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > A big part of this is HotMail adding advertising messages to the actual message… I have a friend with hotmail, I don’t see ads in her emails, are they getting stripped out (home and work)? ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Who](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Doctor\_Who](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Who)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/44 "2010-11-21T16:07:50Z")
Just posting to say: used hotmail all through college. Had tons of emails on there I would love to still have. But they all got wiped out. So I’m with the “never again” crowd. Gmail from here on out. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/45 "2010-11-21T16:25:23Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > A big part of this is HotMail adding advertising messages to the actual message. If a candidate called on the phone and played a spammy advert before they started talking, few people would wait out the advert, and most of those that did would only do so in order to cuss out the caller, bang the receiver on the desk five times and hang up. How impressed would you be with someone who showed up for a job interview wearing a Guinness tee-shirt: Brilliant? > > Sending advertising to everyone you email because you are too cheap to pay an ISP for an email account really annoys everyone…your friends may tolerate it, but it is not the foot I’d want to start out on when trying to get hired. > > Gmail still says cheap, but at least it puts the advertising burden on the sender rather than the receiver. > > Oh yeah, Gmail does robo-read your mail for targeted advertising. They tell you they will do this in the user agreement. I’ve never seen advertising in the body of a Hotmail message. There’s usually a little blurb at the bottom, yes, but never in the actual message. I do happen to pay for an ISP account, and I’ve done so since 1995 or so. However, I keep changing ISPs, sometimes because I’ve outgrown them (AOL) and sometimes because the damned ISP goes out of business. My Hotmail account might scream “cheap” to you, but it’s also PORTABLE. And I doubt that I’ll wake up one day to find that Hotmail has gone out of business. I’ve had at least two ISPs that I can recall that just went out of business, no advance notice. At least with Hotmail, if my internet service is down, I can toddle over to the library and read and send emails for an hour or so each day, until the repair people can do their things. I am uncomfortable with having even a bot read my email. Sure, it’s just a bot, but that’s outside my comfort zone. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/46 "2010-11-21T19:03:07Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Still use Hotmail. Too much trouble to change. To much trouble? You can set up gmail to send and receive all emails that go to your hotmail account they will even see the sent from address as your hotmail one except you get a better interface and no spam. No trouble at all If I interviewed two people and they were both equally qualified and one had a gmail account and the other a yahoo one I would go with the gmail guy every time. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/47 "2010-11-21T19:41:36Z")
Well in response to the [del]peer pressure[/del] suggestions of this thread, I’ve set up my own domain e-mail address, and I’m now going to use that for my CV rather than my hotmail address… But FWIW, I don’t think many of the cited problems of hotmail / live are true any more. I’ve got gigs of space, it has a 100% record in blocking spam (although genuine emails sometimes go into my spam folder) and my messages do not have a footer / boilerplate added. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/48 "2010-11-21T21:24:14Z")
Hotmail is still around, it just sucks compared to Gmail. [Obligatory Oatmeal comic: what your e-mail address says about your computer skills](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email_address) ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/49 "2010-11-21T23:06:02Z")
In all honesty other then having so many people update their contacts list for you gmail is better in every way. You may have a style preference but feature wise and capability gmail wins. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/50 "2010-11-21T23:45:53Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > [Obligatory Oatmeal comic: what your e-mail address says about your computer skills](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email_address) Hmmm…One of my friends still has a Prodigy email address. It’s awesome, as his user name and email address still shows up in ALL CAPS in my inbox. Wonder what that says about him? To be honest, I’ve never made any sort of snap judgment about a person based on their email provider. That said, font choice and font color will make some sort of subliminal impression on me. (For example, if you send me something in Comic Sans in purple, it’s hard from me to read your text without thinking of it as being written by a 12-year-old girl.) ---
**Author:** ![tingbudong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tingbudong/32/520_2.png) [@tingbudong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tingbudong)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/51 "2010-11-22T00:36:27Z")
Another long-term hotmail user here. Never experienced any of the common hotmail problems…although I will admit that I’m generally pretty good about not handing out my addresses liberally. Have gmail as well. But, to be honest…everything goes into Outlook anyway. I would rather drive a corkscrew into my arm than use a webmail interface to write a message or letter. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/52 "2010-11-22T02:06:41Z")
> [@tingbudong](#): > > Another long-term hotmail user here. Never experienced any of the common hotmail problems…although I will admit that I’m generally pretty good about not handing out my addresses liberally. Have gmail as well. But, to be honest…everything goes into Outlook anyway. I would rather drive a corkscrew into my arm than use a webmail interface to write a message or letter. Really you do not like Gmails interface? I used to use outlook to but ever since Gmail came out I never went back to an email reader again. I can open up Chrome and go to gmail faster then it takes outlook to open. To each his own i suppose ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/53 "2010-11-22T03:53:40Z")
> [@ChrisBooth12](#): > > Really you do not like Gmails interface? I used to use outlook to but ever since Gmail came out I never went back to an email reader again. I can open up Chrome and go to gmail faster then it takes outlook to open. To each his own i suppose To each his own, indeed. I never quite understood what makes Gmail users jizz their pants. I can’t stand using webmail interfaces, either. (I use Mac’s Mail program.) ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/54 "2010-11-22T08:05:01Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > To each his own, indeed. I never quite understood what makes Gmail users jizz their pants. One word: filters. (actually there are many more reasons it rocks, but I wanted to be all cool and pithy) ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/55 "2010-11-22T12:41:11Z")
> [@Imasquare](#): > > Yes that is correct. Yahoo accounts expire after 4 months of inactivity, and GMail after 9 months. > > [http://mail.google.com/mail/help/program\_policies.html](http://mail.google.com/mail/help/program_policies.html) > [http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Logging-In-en/browse\_thread/thread/62382110b7a811fa](http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Logging-In-en/browse_thread/thread/62382110b7a811fa) > > I find it interesting how people only hate Microsoft for this. That’s interesting. I’ve had a Yahoo account for eons that is basically a spam catcher. The last time I went over there – had to be a couple of months ago, maybe – there was something like 2K messages, all spam all the time. I’ve wanted the account to expire, but nope, it’s still around. I don’t even use it as an e-mail address anymore. My old Hotmail account? Gone with the wind ages ago. Never bothered to get another. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/56 "2010-11-22T14:41:47Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Hmmm…One of my friends still has a Prodigy email address. It’s awesome, as his user name and email address still shows up in ALL CAPS in my inbox. Wonder what that says about him? Damn, chalk that up to the list of things I had no idea still existed. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/57 "2010-11-22T22:36:02Z")
This is why I jizz my pants every time I use gmail [http://www.solidblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/gmail-attachment.png](http://www.solidblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/gmail-attachment.png) Not to mention I have pretty much unlimited storage, I see a Gmail drive on my computer and I drag and drop files to and best of all unlike yahoo I do not have to pay to auto forward all incoming emails 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/58 "2010-11-23T02:14:19Z")
> [@ChrisBooth12](#): > > To much trouble? You can set up gmail to send and receive all emails that go to your hotmail account they will even see the sent from address as your hotmail one except you get a better interface and no spam. No trouble at all > > If I interviewed two people and they were both equally qualified and one had a gmail account and the other a yahoo one I would go with the gmail guy every time. Thanks, but I’ll still be usiing my Hotmail account instead of my Gmail. Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about interviews and the like. and like I said, I alrady get almost no spam in my Hotmail; it’s very rare. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/59 "2010-11-23T03:53:53Z")
I’ve had a hotmail account for over a decade. My original email account was shared with my husband. When I first told my best friend our email address she said, “Hot male? Um . . . is your husband trying to tell me something?” 😃 I still have the account as my primary email address because I work for three companies. All three primarily communicate work related info via email. All three companies make it very difficult to switch emails. ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264/60 "2010-11-23T04:21:36Z")
> [@Allthegood](#): > > Absolutely sure. I was livid. I am sure they changed their policy to make the expiration period longer than ten days since then, but I don’t care. I will never, EVER use Hotmail again. There was some really sentimentally precious stuff to me in the deleted emails. Whoa, is the ‘grapist’ back? 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hotmail/561264.md?page=4)