which is the best email to use

[netnerdnerd9]

which is the best email to use as , I find that some web servers go done more often than others and some are slower than others while others are faster?

I am wondering what is the best I am talking about free email accounts here

 

[goombawaho]

Never seen GMail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail down, personally. Those are the big ones, though there are tons of others. Create an account in each and see if you like them.

"Best" would really be determined by features and visual appeal to you. Or something like storage size if that was your priority.

Your question is too vague to drill down to a BEST answer.

 

[58sniper]

There has been outages at all of those. In fact, there has been multiple GMail outages in the last year.

As for which is "the best", it all depends on what you're trying to do. If you're going to use their web interface, you may prefer one over the other. If you're going to use an email client like Outlook with them (which most support), you may prefer a different one. I have both Yahoo and Gmail account in my main Outlook profile - primarily for testing mailflow. Both work fine.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[goombawaho]

What did I just say??? ""Best" would really be determined by features and visual appeal to you. Or something like storage size if that was your priority."

Regarding outages - it's a free service so nobody should complain about some downtime. People are getting greedy these days.

OP never specified using the web interface vs. using a mail client. It almost doesn't pay to use a mail client if you're not doing some type of backup on your mail (if you think your mail is important). And most people aren't disciplined enough to do a regular backup and test it out.

People that have 2GB of Outlook mail and have a system crash are some hurtin' puppies if they have no backup. And 95% of residential customers have no backup of their PC's data.

 

[netnerdnerd9]

thanks okay I am understanding. I understand it is vague but I have been reading up some of the new gmail features like buzz ect and thinking that is the best way to go.

 

[kjv1611]

I've had some others in the past, but once I got Gmail, it's all I use now for free email (personally).

Yahoo can support POP3 mail access via Outlook, but it requires you buy their paid version - still not terribly expensive, but you have to pay for it. MSN used to be that way as well (hotmail), not sure if they still are. Also, if you ever intend to forward you email, Gmail allows you to do whatever you want with it - forward to/from any gmail account, I've not noticed any limits at all so far. Ease of use is wonderful, and the ads are very minimal and can be disabled altogether. I've gotten people to switch to Gmail who used Yahoo, AOL, etc, for their email client, and I've not had one yet who didn't like Gmail better, or at least as well.

I'm not saying the others are bad, but if it were me, I'd just stick to Gmail.... unless I wanted to set up my own personal email server, which I don't... for now. I have heard from some people that they prefer the Yahoo! interface. Also, don't forget Microsoft's Live email accounts... if you create a Microsoft Live account, you also get a free email address with that. I don't know if it works with hotmail servers or not.

There are limits to any/all of them, but Gmail pretty much feels limitless on capabilities (via plugins/addons) and freedom to choose. You can use POP3 or IMAP, you can forward to other accounts... you can use your Gmail account to receive other accounts, and even send from other accounts... although it will still show the "on behalf of" to do so.

Anyway, I'll hush. I just had lunch, and my typing at the moment is distracting me from my office hunch back-pain.

I was just telling a coworker this morning that I think I'm already gettting "old man itis" (I'm in my early 30s).

 

[SevendWorm]

As a Technical Specialist in an Internet Service Provider, most of our consumers still uses Outlook Express 6. Even though that they have upgraded their system already to Windows Vista or Windows 7 they are still looking for the older version. Aside from it's not too complicated to set-up, for most of the consumers who uses Outlook Express 6, it's really easier and user friendly for them.

Have been to 5 different ISP's already and the Outlook version that we most encounter with issues is the MS Outlook 2003. If it starts to ask for your email address and password ones it has been working already, no matter how we re-create the email profile, it's still the same thing. When we safe boot the system, it is there that we find out that it needs to be updated.

In my case, I have been using Windows Mail but I have not encountered any issues with it. Probably it all depends on the servers the program's connecting to.

 

[cmeagan656]

If it starts to ask for your email address and password ones it has been working already, no matter how we re-create the email profile, it's still the same thing.

This is a common (and acknowledged) issue with Gmail if you're using POP3 to d/l the mail to your mail client and also occasionally access Gmail via the browser from the same computer. The fix is to clear your temporary Internet files and cookies of anything related to Google or Gmail. You could try the fix with other mail providers by using their temp Internet files and cookies in place of Google's and Gmail's.

Hope this helps.

Please help us help you. Read Tek-Tips posting polices before posting.
Canadian members check out Tek-Tips in Canada for socializing, networking, and anything non-technical.

 

[netnerdnerd9]

Thanks all kinda makes sense now