survey: free webmail, your best and worst

[elbert]

Gmail, Yahoo, Yahoo.co.uk, Lycos, HotMail, mail.com, spymac... so many free web-based e-mail services. Of course, being free, there are compromises to be had.

Among all the free web-based e-mail services you've encountered, which would you rank in your top 3 (highly recommended) list? Conversely, which would you rate as the absolute worst (highly recommended -- to your enemies)?

Please qualify your responses (based on speed, reliability, storage space, interface, ease of use, extra features, etc.).

p.s. I think we can include Edsamail.


[Edited on 10-30-2004 by elbertc]

[dude_funk]

Best (too close to call): Yahoomail and Gmail
Possible 3rd place: email.com

Yahoomail is still full-featured (adequate spam protection), "mature", and with proven reliablity for FREE.

I love Gmail's speed and the use of "labels" instead of "folders" and would want to rate it better than Yahoo if only for the 1GB free storage space. BUT Gmail is still in beta status. Also Gmail's "interface" has these uncanny rules of wether it wants to open a page in a new browser window or not (maybe confusing behavior for less savvy Web surfers).

I once used email.com (which is mail.com now?). I recall that it's usability is similar with Yahoomail back then.

Worst: Netscape mail

No features to speak of.


Also hated the message size limitations of Hotmail a long time ago. I don't know how current Hotmail users would rate the service. EDSAmail's free service would've been legendary if not for two(2) major flaws: 1. No alternative OS version support (what would you expect for client software that is dependent on Microsoft Windows coding, not to mention the GUI un-intuitiveness which requires another discussion), and 2. well, it's no longer free.

[leigh]

I like Yahoo! Mail and Gmail quite a bit. Yahoo!'s spam filter is obsessive-compulsive. ;-) Of course, it does mean I have to open my bulk folder once in a while, just to see if mail that shouldn't be there just happened to land in it. The recently redesigned interface is also more pleasant to use.

My Gmail account is 1 day old, and the interface seems simple enough - although I probably won't need the search function (which is the way I think they're trying to tie it in with what people know Google for) all that much. One gig of free storage is nothing to sneeze at, though.

HTH,
Leigh

[chairman]

Number 1 for me would be Gmail. Why? The search email function says it all. It's just awesome. No need to sort email by threads or labels. Just type what you want to find and it lists it all. The labels are good also. Oh and the 1GB space.....

[super_ed]

Gmail for me. (big thanks for the samaritan mugger who send me invite.)
it works well for my free-lance emails; every communication is kept, tapos nako-colapse lang siya. its easy to track down communications like the normal outlook client.
i just wished they'd come up with a preview panel for the attachements' thumbs.

[rickey]

I prefer Yahoo! Mail, then Gmail. I don't think there's a third place out there although I use Excite.

Yahoo (originally RocketMail for those who remember) has a lot of space in it's free offering, and its spam filter is very good. Since a Yahoo Mail account is the same account for everything else in Yahoo, I think it's a good deal. The paid version, a cheap $20/year, has 2 GB space, no ads and POP access. You also have an option of using your own domain with Yahoo, which I like. The interface has not changed too much since it was Rocketmail, and I think that's a good thing. (Compare that to Hotmail which has changed interfaces several times and not really getting any better.)

Gmail needs an invite, until its out of beta. The best feature of Google is how it clumps e-mail threads into collapsible groups. This is so useful when you are exchanging a lot of e-mails back and forth. Much has been said about privacy issues with the ads in Google, but I have found that they are non-obtrusive. However, there is no option to remove them completely in a paid version. I have also found some issues with Safari. 40% of the time I need to press "reload" after I log in which is annoying. This has not happened to me on any browser in Windows. (E-mail me if you want an invite.)

The worst of course are Hotmail and Spymac.

Hotmail promised all free users 250 mb of space to compete with Yahoo and Gmail. In truth, they still offer 2 mb when you sign up (go ahead, try it right now). I however already have the free 250 mb for a couple of months now, so their roll out has not been as seamless as Yahoo's. This is so typical of MSN Hotmail.

Spymac announced a few months ago that they were offering free 1 gb of space as well, but it is unusable since you can hardly connect to their servers. As a "solution" they have blocked all e-mails from Yahoo Groups (probably because of porn) arbitrarily without even an announcement on their website.

[Gomi]

Gmail rules!

Yahoo sux real bad when it comes to filtering tonnes of virus emails... blech!

[Satoshi]

Best? My domain e-mail! naaah, kidding.

For now? Yahoo!Mail + GMail. I think I'm gonna use GMail a bit more soon, once the beta test ends.

Worst:

HOTMAIL definitely.

Small space, ugly spam filters and everything unwanted.

Plus, it's Microsoft!

[ikenn]

tthe best for me will be yahoo.co.uk, although yahoo from other countries is allright too except from yahoo.com. I like it coz of its POP. Haven't really tried Gmail. i mean it sure is nice to have 1 gig for a mail box, but for me its kinda unneccesary. And the worse? i should say hotmail!

[hilaga]

Yahoo! I've been using it for ages!

Worst: Hotmail. Remember when Hotmail accounts were hacked years back? That's Microsoft for you