Should I go with Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail?

[gracie123]

I've used Hotmail for a long time now but since they came out with Windows Live Mail, it takes forever to load. I am wondering if going to Yahoo email or Gmail would be a better choice?

I think I like Gmail best but I'd like to see what others say :)

[Osaban]

I'm very happy with Gmail. It works all the time, their spam filter is one of the best, and they even notify you when an e-mail is suspicious (I have my own defenses anyway). Ever since I'm with Gmail I stopped using Outlook. Some people complain about the privacy issue, and ads being added: IMO a small sacrifice for a great service.

[gracie123]

Osaban,

Do you know of a program that I can download that will alert me of new email in my Gmail account?

[Boost]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/173

Gotta use firefox with this entension :argh:

[zapjb]

I vote YM.

GM privacy concerns & forever email retention are a deal breaker.

[bigc73542]

Of the three you mentioned gmail by far has the best spam filters.

[Osaban]

-{ Quote: "https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/173

Gotta use firefox with this entension :argh:" }-

One can activate Gmail notifier with Gmail and choose which browser to go with.

I think it is really not ready to go with Vista, as it was working erratically when I activated it. I'll give it a try as a Firefox extension, thanks.

[WSFuser]

Another vote for Gmail here. The interface is fairly clean and the spam filter is one of the best.

[computer geek]

-{ Quote: "Of the three you mentioned gmail by far has the best spam filters." }-
Seconded, I applied for registration somewhere, and now I get 1000 spams a week, however gmail blocks 99.9% off them into the spam filter, including the ones that adress me personally. (I don't read private policies you see)
You can also see that Gmail records contacts automatically, and the memory increases by the second.
Its spam filter is surprisingly good, since the AV companies also adress me personally, and that does not get on the spam filter, and other websites I subscribe to, even if they do have some ads. But the ones where they adress me personally when I didn't subsribe to them (probably a breach. :( ) get in the spam filter.
Good huh! A vote for Gmail

[gracie123]

I thank everyone who has replied to my question and it seems like Gmail is the best choice.... although I have done some research and alot of people have said their account was deleted by Google. For this reason and for Gmail still being in beta, should I still go with Gmail?

[Boost]

I've used gmail for a looooong time now,no problems.

Try it out,see if you like it. If not,try somethin else! It's free,nothing to lose!

[Long View]

I have never used any of them. I wouldn't know which to choose. Do people use them simply because they are free or is there some other significant benefit ?

[Boost]

-{ Quote: "I have never used any of them. I wouldn't know which to choose. Do people use them simply because they are free or is there some other significant benefit ?" }-

http://www.google.com/mail/help/why_gmail.html

[ASpace]

The vote results say it all.

[Long View]

-{ Quote: "http://www.google.com/mail/help/why_gmail.html" }-
Thanks - I may give Gmail a go but I'm somewhat skeptical about "Just type a few keywords into the search box" when I do this sort of thing with my work I get thousands of responses.

[tisungho]

I'm using three of them ;D
I use Yahoo because it's very popular in my country. I use it to stay in touch my my friends and family.
I use Hotmail to communicate with my friends from other countries since they almost use hotmail.
I use Gmail for important cases.

[Coolio10]

-{ Quote: "I thank everyone who has replied to my question and it seems like Gmail is the best choice.... although I have done some research and alot of people have said their account was deleted by Google. For this reason and for Gmail still being in beta, should I still go with Gmail?" }-
Lies!

I have had my account for longer than a year without use.
I just logged in a couple of seconds before this post to see if its there and woohoo its still there! But with 1202 emails in the spam folder :D. Can you guess why i don't use gmail anymore :D.

They probably got their account deleted due to storing files on it.

[djohn]

I voted for Gmail since thunderbird Is not there.

[InfinityAz]

-{ Quote: "I just logged in a couple of seconds before this post to see if its there and woohoo its still there! But with 1202 emails in the spam folder :D. Can you guess why i don't use gmail anymore :D." }-

Isn't this where you want spam to be (i.e., isn't this indicative of a good spam filter)? If the spam was in your inbox, I could see why you'd be upset and not use gmail.

[EASTER]

What difference does it make, all those free internet mail programs give away spam bandwidth like theres no tomorrow, i thought Gmail would lighten the load but they allow garbage in like Yahoo but at least Yahoo lets you send them directly to the trash whereas Google you have manually can the crapola mail. But thats the price for free internet mail right?

[Osaban]

-{ Quote: "I have never used any of them. I wouldn't know which to choose. Do people use them simply because they are free or is there some other significant benefit ?" }-

I'll give you at least one reason for using Gmail(I don't know anything about the others): I've had an e-mail address which I always used with Outlook, and I was getting an average of 20-30 spam messages daily.

I really wanted to change my e-mail address only to get rid of the spam, but never really did it because I have too many important contacts with the old e-mail.

Gmail gives the possibility to import all your messages in real time from your old mail server to Gmail, where they are scanned for spam and viruses. Hopefully in a year time, I might just delete my old e-mail account (will love doing it) satisfied the all my contacts have my new e-mail address.

Another reason is opening e-mails in a sandbox is very safe, and they are never stored in your computer

[ASpace]

-{ Quote: "What difference does it make, all those free internet mail programs give away spam bandwidth like theres no tomorrow, i thought Gmail would lighten the load but they allow garbage in like Yahoo but at least Yahoo lets you send them directly to the trash whereas Google you have manually can the crapola mail. But thats the price for free internet mail right?" }-


You must be kidding , right ?!

GMail misses one SPAM message per month for my two emails . I get about 30 - 50 SPAMS daily , all filtered and coming to my SPAM folder instead of my Inbox. I have used Yahoo and Hotmail (now Live) and they miss much more.

GMail filters on server level and doesn't deliver the SPAM mail to POP3/IMAP users' inboxes .

I am sure all GMail users can confirm how smart their anti-spam / antivirus filtering is.

I am very happy Google services customer , will never change GMail , even if I get paid to use another mail service .

[Boost]

-{ Quote: "What difference does it make, all those free internet mail programs give away spam bandwidth like theres no tomorrow, i thought Gmail would lighten the load but they allow garbage in like Yahoo but at least Yahoo lets you send them directly to the trash whereas Google you have manually can the crapola mail. But thats the price for free internet mail right?" }-


You obviously dont use gmail because if you did,you'd know hardly any spam is allowed into the inbox, but to each their own I guess....

[Long View]

-{ Quote: "I'll give you at least one reason for using Gmail(I don't know anything about the others): I've had an e-mail address which I always used with Outlook, and I was getting an average of 20-30 spam messages daily.

I really wanted to change my e-mail address only to get rid of the spam, but never really did it because I have too many important contacts with the old e-mail.

Gmail gives the possibility to import all your messages in real time from your old mail server to Gmail, where they are scanned for spam and viruses. Hopefully in a year time, I might just delete my old e-mail account (will love doing it) satisfied the all my contacts have my new e-mail address.

Another reason is opening e-mails in a sandbox is very safe, and they are never stored in your computer" }-

I never give out my real e-mail address to anyone I can not trust. Most of the time I use disposable aliases - see below:



Create up to 100 disposable aliases that can be used to send and receive email through your account. Email to these aliases will be directed to your account where it can be filtered. Why use aliases?

* Protect the identity of your primary email address when surfing the Web.
* Stop spam by handing out email addresses other than your primary. If you start receiving spam to an alias, you can simply delete the alias or use a filter to redirect the mail.

[Tony]

Gmail all the way for me, as others have said, there spam filter is head and shoulders above the rest.

I do have hotmail and yahoo accounts so as i can IM friends and family.
A good webmail notifier for these
- mail.google.com(Gmail)
- mail.yahoo.com
- mail.live.com(Hotmail)
- www.daum.net(hanmail)
- www.naver.com
- www.empas.com
- www.nate.com
can be found here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4490

[TOMxEU]

I used Gmail until last year, when I got tired of its instability, so I moved to Hotmail and it works all the time. I also use Bluebottle for official emails.

[HURST]

I use GMail since 2004. Works great, never any problem. It offered 1GB storage when hotmail was still offering 2MB and Yahoo 100MB. Now it's like almost 7GB and increasing.
Spam filter is great.
POP and IMAP work great, not a problem using Outlook or T-bird.
You can block adds with "customize google" extension on firefox.

[EASTER]

-{ Quote: "You obviously dont use gmail because if you did,you'd know hardly any spam is allowed into the inbox, but to each their own I guess...." }-

Would you like me to post a screenshot for you as proof?

You got it all wrong, i get very little Spam if any on the Gmail Inbox at all, thats good of course, i'm talking about the Spam Box, that thing after a week is almost at between 300 to 500 sometimes and more. It's no threat, just a big pain to manually have to dump the crap, unless you know an automated way to do it daily gmail says spam messages get dumped every 30 days or so.

Do you think i was born yesterday friend? I been using Yahoo for years and at least in it's settings i don't even see the Spam Box because it allows me to autodump them as they come in, and if any show up in the Yahoo Inbox as they almost always will, i send them like you would to the Spam house.

[HURST]

I prefer to have the spambox, and I use to check it once a week or every other week, just in case of a FP.
But i NEVER had a FP in GMail.

[EASTER]

I like Gmail and it's been my free web based mail over a year or better now, but have any of you guys ever got that live IM thingy on the side bar to work where you could actually chat with someone?

Mine always says sorry, seems we're experiencing a problem blah blah etc.

Maybe theres a key setting that needs changed?

[Carver]

I use inbox it has excellent spam filters, it correctly labels the email the spam addressed to me as spam and the spam that addressed to me and has my email address as a from email address AS spam. So I filter out all spam and news letter I don't want to keep and just download what I want to keep with thunderbird. I also use Mailwasher to let me see just what is coming in amd if it is somethng I can read and delete without downloading the email.

[Boost]

-{ Quote: "Would you like me to post a screenshot for you as proof?

You got it all wrong, i get very little Spam if any on the Gmail Inbox at all, thats good of course, i'm talking about the Spam Box, that thing after a week is almost at between 300 to 500 sometimes and more. It's no threat, just a big pain to manually have to dump the crap, unless you know an automated way to do it daily gmail says spam messages get dumped every 30 days or so.

Do you think i was born yesterday friend? I been using Yahoo for years and at least in it's settings i don't even see the Spam Box because it allows me to autodump them as they come in, and if any show up in the Yahoo Inbox as they almost always will, i send them like you would to the Spam house." }-

As long as the spam is in the "spam box" thats what counts! Better then being in the "Inbox" :thumb:

[EASTER]

I'll ask once more.

Is anyone every got Gmails IM to actually work so you chat talk to your contacts with it?

[gismo999]

-{ Quote: "I'll ask once more.

Is anyone every got Gmails IM to actually work so you chat talk to your contacts with it?" }-


Nope, No me and I've had it since 2005!

[EASTER]

-{ Quote: "Nope, No me and I've had it since 2005!" }-

Thank You gismo999

I guess we can still consider Gmail still in beta phase yet even now although the mail works OK.

[ASpace]

-{ Quote: "I'll ask once more.

Is anyone every got Gmails IM to actually work so you chat talk to your contacts with it?" }-


Do you mean the integrated chat option ?


199414

199415

[EASTER]

Thats the one!

So it works ok fo you?

I'll have to give it another try then.

[HURST]

@EASTER

it works fine for me, except when i'm behind a proxy

[chrisretusn]

I have a Gmail, a Yahoo and two Hotmail Accounts.

If you are going to go with the web interface, I suppose they are all fine.

I like Yahoo the best. I am using the new Yahoo interface it works fine for me. Loads up fairly quickly and I like the way it handles attached images. Spam I have set to low and so far nothing has been marked as spam. I would prefer to turn it off. My preferred method to access my Yahoo account is to use YPOPs!, which allows me to receive and send messages via my email client program. At the moment due to recent changes in Yahoo, YPOPs! is temporarily broken so I have login to the web interface via my browser. Eventually I may actually fork out some cash and go premium, so I can use POP.

Hotmail Live, once it loads it's still somewhat slow, but the interface is not bad. One thing I do like is the ability to switch over to my other account without logging out and then back in again. I use FreePOPs to download messages from Hotmail Live to my email client. No sending using FreePOPs but Hotmail Live is for junk anyway. I would never use for anything important. I have spam turned off in Hotmail.

Gmail, well I just cannot get used to conversations, I hate it. It's the worst of the three in my opinion. Spam, spam goes to my Inbox, legit messages end up in spam. Sometimes even if I put the sender in my address list. I have to check spam on a regular basis to clear out the legit. If I could turn it off I would. If you are going to use POP or IMAP, be prepared to do it the Gmail way not the RFC way. The only way I use Gmail is via POP, with it set in Gmail to delete message after downloading. I use IMAP to check Spam and that's it.

[BuzzStone]

Easter, I think I know what you mean by the chat option as Hi_Tech has shown. If the person you want to chat with is not on Gmail and signed in, it will not work. Also, if you are surfing in another window, thinking you may hook-up with a friend and have Gmail minimized, it won't work. It works fine for me as long as I am in Gmail only. If someone knows a setting to enable the Gmail chat box to pop-up when someone wants to chat when surfing around, please let me know.

[19monty64]

I voted for the one I use the most, Hotmail. I have all the others plus my ISP-mail, with no complaints about any except for Yahoo and it's "sign-in seal." Oh well, it's my spam-account anyway. As far as features, gmail is definitely tops. OT-I use WindowsLiveMail and have only experienced problems with checking gmail (errors) on occasion, no slow-downs with any...

[Badcompany]

Gmail all the way, There spam filter is second to none. :thumb:
Badcompany.

[gracie123]

Everyone, thank you all for your replies. It has helped me decide I want Gmail for my email provider :).

Thanks again!!;D ;D

[sweater]

I don't know why, but I still love Yahoo Mail. It's more easy for me to use it, simple but beautiful. ...and I am curious to look what's inside in my every box so I also check the spam in my email coz some of those things considered by spam filter as spam are not all spam. Thanks God, it still reach in my email inbox, at least I can still read them. 8) ;)

[ASpace]

From GMail's official blog

Russian Gmail art
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCNSWwAJNZE

Nice GMail preview

[Escalader]

I love polls, they never include all the sw's I use ::)

Voted for yahoo because that's the one my ISp forces me to use for web mail.

Don't like hot mail as it is the "student" choice for spamming! Anybody who sends me email from hotmail I add to my spam blocked address list. In fact I blocked the whole domain.

Gmail well I only knew one guy who wanted me to use it and the reasons were well how to say this.... dubious.

I'm not trying to create FUD ( I hate fud) but these are my honest opinions.

Yes Yes I know the poll show Gmail is the "winner" but I don't care.;D

[chrisretusn]

-{ Quote: "Voted for yahoo because that's the one my ISp forces me to use for web mail." }-Your ISP forces you to use Yahoo?

[Escalader]

-{ Quote: "Your ISP forces you to use Yahoo?" }-

-{ Quote: "Voted for yahoo because that's the one my ISP forces me to use for web mail." }-

Yes, but just for web mail. I can use any one I want on my own PC.

[SourMilk]

I use both GMail and Yahoo. GMail for secure email (https) and Yahoo for everyday correspondence. I think Yahoo is more convenient even though GMail has more uses.

SourMilk out

[cortez]

I use Yahoo for all daily benign messages; it seems to filter out most spam into the bulk folder; as it should.

For important stuff ( like medications, legal correspondence [ or quasi-legal stuff ] ect., the U.S. Mail's service of "Certified Mail" delivery, which comes with online confirmation that an article of mail has been received by a real human being is a true blessing.

This is a necessity in this bureaucratic world ( proof is everything to a bureaucracy: a lesson that should be learned early in life, if real life nightmares [ and their attendant costly remedies, are to be avoided ]).

[the Tester]

Haven't tried gmail.
Dumped Hotmail and have used Yahoo mail ever since.

[poison]

Yahoo certainly looks the best IMHO and has a pretty good spam filter AFAIK but I currently use Gmail as they offer the ability to get mail from other accounts using POP3.

[focus]

I used Hotmail when it was new. Then I used Gmail. Hotmail is history for me (too much crap on the screen) and Gmail I now use for my publication emails (like Computerworld and Cnet stuff). Google does good software, IMO.

I use my ISP for my personal mail service, the mail is downloaded onto my PC and deleted off the server (probably held for awhile but not over 6 months I bet). I just don't want my personal email stored on some server forever.