Everyone of us use emails. But, we might face difficulties at times, either in accessing email, opening mail box etc etc. So, how to choose the best email? TO tell you frankly I have used nearly 50-60 email addresses of different providers. But currently satisfied and using just 2!
Well here it goes.
First, choose an email service which is popular and thousands of others are using like Yahoo, Hotmail, Rediffmail etc. Because, some small scale providers suddenly change all accounts to paid accounts, and in that case, you’ll need to pay a fee, else your account will be suspended!
Another reason for this is, in some cases, suddenly one day you may find the email site disappear! Even if you type the sitename hundred times on your browser, you’ll get ’Page cannot be Displayed’!!!. You cant ask anyone about your emails. Now, there’s no way things like this can happen with reliable services like Yahoo etc. Dont go behind Fancy emails like Rock.com, mumbaimail.com etc. You dont know how long they’re gonna survive!
Second, emails can be accessed in two ways. Through Web and POP3. Web access is the usual way for most of us. We go to mail.yahoo.com, login and usual stuff. POP3 allows you to have your mails downloaded to your computer and you can read them offline using clients like Outlook, Eudora etc.
Hotpop.com and few others offer free POP3 email, but you cant access mail through Website in Hotpop. While Yahoo, Rediff etc offer Web based mail for free accounts and an additional POP3 access only for paid accounts. The best thing is to have account that supports both Web and POP3. Its not a good idea to have one account that works with POP3 and the other through web. POP3 works only if email client like Outlook is installed and configured. So if you want to access your account which offers only POP3 from a place other than house, its difficult. Hotmail supports both Web based and POP3 for free accounts (Using Outlook). Even free Yahoo account users can do a trick to get POP3 access.
Just download this software YahooPOPS from : https://yahoopops.sourceforge.net
and install it. You can access Yahoo mail from any email client, offline.
Third thing is Site load time. Hotmail can be really horrible at times. I have spent 1 hour at times to open my mailbox in Hotmail. Hotmail is loaded with images, graphics and its too slow at times. Especially when you want to send an urgent email or read an important mail, it would prove to be difficult. Who wants all that? Go for a simple mail structure like Yahoo. Yahoo is quite good even at very slow connection. Even the forthcoming Gmail seems promising.
Fourth is Mailbox capacity! Hotmail offers mere 2 MB. Guy, It exceeds that limit everyday for me! And new mails are bounced back to the sender even if the excess usage margin is small! Yahoo is good again. It provides 4 MB for new registrations. While I registered in 2000, it was 6 MB, and Im retaining that 6 MB. There are sites that offer 10 MB emails like MailBolt.com. Mailbolt.com is quite good- simple interface, 10 MB space, quite popular, and fast.
Spymac.com offers 1 GB email. However dont know really how well this works. Searching for a mail would be a tedious task. Gmail is planning to bring in 1 GB mailbox-lets see.
Fifth is Security. Myself being a hacker, I can tell Yahoo is the best in terms of security. As a small evidence I can show you one thing. Log in to your mailboxes, Yahoo and Hotmail. Check some mails, log out. Disconnect from internet. Click ’History’ button on Browser. If you click on the Hotmail links, you’ll be actually able to read those mails whoever’s mail checked on that computer! However Yahoo mails dont open! No one can see your mails when you’re off. This can happen when you browse at Cafe.
So my choice for email is : Yahoo!.. I guess, its the choice of most of us. And your choice is right. Let’s look if something’s special from Gmail!