How many email accounts do you have? If you’re like most of us, more than one. Some of us have many email accounts.

What about free web mail accounts? I’ve had a Yahoo email account since the early days of free email. These days it catches mostly spam.

Who’s got the best web browser email? Google? Yahoo? MSN Hotmail? .Mac? Don’t get me started on .Mac.

I love Apple’s new .Mac email interface and how it looks like Apple’s OS X Mail, but I hate the lack of reliability of .Mac, a big reason why I won’t renew.

The obvious advantage to web-based email, email in your browser, is that mail is accessible from anywhere you’re online, in pretty much any browser.

What used to be the disadvantage was storage options. What was once a measly 10-megabytes of total email storage has given way to 1 gigabyte, then 2 gigabytes, and more.

I’ve been keeping all my mail accounts and most important messages and attachements in OS X’s Mail app. The grand total after five years of use is less than 400-megabytes (and I’m sure I could prune that even more).

Yahoo, Google, and Hotmail all offer more than enough mail storage space for most of us.

The question for the day is, “Which Free Email Service Is The Best For You, And Why?” Ok, that’s really two questions. Almost everyone I know has multiple email accounts these days.

If it’s not Yahoo, Google, or Hotmail, it’s email from work, email from the local internet service provider, email from various organizations, and so on. Many businesses have web-based browser email, too.

From a general perspective, the free browser-based email services work pretty much the same way. LoginID, password, compose new email, retrieve email, store email, add signatures, save attachments, manage various folders, manage email address lists.

What else is there? The user interfaces are generally spartan and devoid of many bells and whistles, but the basic functions remain the same.

Of the Big 4 (I’m generously including Apple’s .Mac mail in the list), which do you use and why?

Google Gmail - now fully out of beta and generally available for everyone, Google offers their typically spartain look with added AJAX functionality which speeds up the interface a bit. I’ve had a Gmail account since the early beta and it works fine, though not much different than Yahoo.

Yahoo Mail - there’s free Yahoo, and Yahoo Plus which will cost you money each month or year. I’ve had Yahoo mail since the very early days of browser mail and it’s improved remarkably in the past few years, especially capturing spam. Your mileage may vary.

Hotmail - Ewwww! It’s Microsoft. Still, tens of millions of Hotmail users can’t be wrong, right? I had Hotmail before it was Microsoft’s MSN toy, and finally stopped checking the account. I don’t know if it works or what features they offer these days.

After all, how many email accounts can you use?

Back to the question: who’s your web-based browser email daddy these days and why? What features do you use? What problems have you had? Is there anyone better than Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, or (sigh) .Mac?

I had Yahoo email for many, many years, too, but finally dropped it in favor of Gmail. Too much spam in Yahoo. Maybe that’s the penalty for having a Yahoo account for so long.

Can’t say that I pay much attention to the feature sets of any of the free email services. Read mail, send mail, store mail. That’s about it.

Looks to me like Google is making a play for business email and services online such as word processing, spreadsheet, calendar, and contacts, but I prefer to keep those on my own Mac.

I use Yahoo for the singular example that they back up their free web-based service with pop access.  I’m not sure if everyone gets this, but as a yahoo DSL user I can access all of my Yahoo accounts using POP3 in my actual email client (not a browser). 

I like the convenience of web-based access when I’m either traveling or using someone else’s computer, but for regular use I can’t stand dealing with email in a web browser.  In Outlook for Windows, OS X Mail and Entourage for Mac, or any other physical email client, I can store and access my messages, open them in separate windows, drag and drop at will, and most importantly read, compose replies and do whatever else I want when offline as well as online.

Web-browser interfaces are also sluggish and access can be annoying.  A Mac or PC-based email client remembers my passwords and launches in a single click.  On a browser-based email system I have to remember the passwords for the different accounts, wait for them to authenticate and generally do a lot of extra typing.

Fine once in a while, but too annoying for regular use.

asiafish - 15 February 2007 04:19 PM

I’m not sure if everyone gets this, but as a yahoo DSL user I can access all of my Yahoo accounts using POP3

It was in the pay package till… maybe one, or two years ago. Then it became free for everybody :D

Personally, i have an email account for every device capable of managing them. And since the good time of free GPRS are gone, now i check everything in Mail.app XD anyway, it’s a bunch of Yahoo, a couple of Tiscali (my ISP) and a few Gmails, that i love from the deep of my heart. ctually, i just love the whole group of services offered by Google, i find them well done, and clearly integrated. That’s a good thing

asiafish - 15 February 2007 04:19 PM

I’m not sure if everyone gets this, but as a yahoo DSL user I can access all of my Yahoo accounts using POP3

asiafish
I am a yahoo user and I didn’t know that you can access to your web-based account with POP3. Now I’m using Mail app. Thank you for the tips.

I opened a Hotmail account so I could make purchases online. Then I used a public computer because I knew nothing about computers or operating systems. Fortunately the dark side never enveloped me before I was introduced to my Mac.  I knew little more than how to type and I didn’t like that very much. Typing was for support staff not me. How times have changed. I have a Yahoo account used for forum registrations, a GMail account because I was sent an invitation and an isp account because it was required by isp. Hotmail serves its purpose and is available to me when I’m away from home. Some times I feel a twinge of quilt using a microsoft product that involuntarily redirects to msn. Am I financially supporting microsoft with my hits to its websites even though I never click through to any of the ads? I feel ill even thinking about the possibility.

asiafish - 15 February 2007 04:19 PM

I’m not sure if everyone gets this, but as a yahoo DSL user I can access all of my Yahoo accounts using POP3 in my actual email client (not a browser).

Unfortunately, POP3 access is not available in the free Yahoo Mail. It was long ago but hasn’t been for ages. After reading the comments here I logged into my “Hoo” mail and under settings it says this is a pay only feature, $19.99 per year to be exact. 

For me POP3 access is essential which is why I use Gmail.  Of the big 3, Google is the only one to offer POP3 for free.  The only downside to using POP3 in Google Mail is that you need to login and go through the SPAM folder to verify your mail hasn’t been accidentally flagged as spam.  I’ve tried to locate a method of turning off Gmail’s spam filter to use Apple Mail’s but have not found a way of doing so yet, I don’t think it’s possible.

=^Genesis^=

=^Genesis^= - 15 February 2007 06:48 PM

Unfortunately, POP3 access is not available in the free Yahoo Mail. It was long ago but hasn’t been for ages.

That sounded weird, since i have all my mails in Mail.app and Yahoo ones work fine.
So i checked on the site, and it has nothing about money in the pop3 settings bit….
This most likely won’t make any difference, but i have a @yahoo.it mail.

AlexTheStampede - 15 February 2007 07:55 PM

=^Genesis^= - 15 February 2007 06:48 PM

Unfortunately, POP3 access is not available in the free Yahoo Mail. It was long ago but hasn’t been for ages.

That sounded weird, since i have all my mails in Mail.app and Yahoo ones work fine.
So i checked on the site, and it has nothing about money in the pop3 settings bit….
This most likely won’t make any difference, but i have a @yahoo.it mail.

Yahoo’s POP3 service works for people who have accounts through tie-in ISPs. I had a series of accounts on Yahoo that I got on Mail when all Yahoo mail was POP3-compatible, but when I switched ISPs to SBC, I made the mistake of tying the Yahoo mail to my sbcglobal.net address. Now that I am not an SBC customer, those accounts are dead for email (except from Yahoo Travel news, which I mark as spam, just for spite).

The free accounts have fewer services, and Yahoo keeps trying to parcel them out via ISPs (usually in the most useless configurations available). With this, free POP3 access died for those who do not have a related ISP. And people wonder why so many of us deleted our Flickr accounts.

I have always used dotMac. Since it was free and called iTools. Seriously, I cannot ever remember it being down more than 2 or 3 times in all of those years. When it was, it was for 10 or 15 minutes. The comments against dotMac just mystify every time I hear them.

I use Gmail for junk or sending myself stuff. Since it targets ads at my mail content, I don’t use it for anything sensitive or confidential. Obviously some robot is tracking the content. I have Yahho and Aim mail, but also don’t use them for the same reason. I don’t like my mail sitting on a server that probably reads it. dotMac is secure, I remove my own messages, and it gives me a paid email addy I can take with me if I change ISP’s.

If the online web mail services are free, then something pays for it.

Benton - 15 February 2007 06:20 PM

I opened a Hotmail account so I could make purchases online. Then I used a public computer because I knew nothing about computers or operating systems. Fortunately the dark side never enveloped me before I was introduced to my Mac.  I knew little more than how to type and I didn’t like that very much. Typing was for support staff not me. How times have changed. I have a Yahoo account used for forum registrations, a GMail account because I was sent an invitation and an isp account because it was required by isp. Hotmail serves its purpose and is available to me when I’m away from home. Some times I feel a twinge of quilt using a microsoft product that involuntarily redirects to msn. Am I financially supporting microsoft with my hits to its websites even though I never click through to any of the ads? I feel ill even thinking about the possibility.

I used to have multiple email accounts for various purposes, like online purhases, forum registration, stuff I was sure was going to be a spam-magnet, whatever. Now I use dotMac email aliases for the same purpose. It is much easier than managing multiple email accounts. I could even make one-off email aliases if I wanted to and delete them immediately after using them.

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned IMAP, which for me is a giff from heaven. On my dotMac account, I can check email with Mail.app from any one of 3 Macs in our house or from any web browser and anything I read or delete or whatever is automatically updated on the server and is reflected anytime I log in from the next whereever. Much better than POP3, which is great if you only have one computer, but seriously limited with multiple Macs or PCs.

Greg

I have yahoo, gmail, hotmail and .mac. And they are all pretty much the same.

I like gmail because of the threads, and it’s ability to tag and search. I don’t like that you can’t organize emails into folders and stuff.
I have an old hotmail account that I still keep because I used it for years and it’s a pain to switch all contacts and info, and I’m lazy.
I don’t like .mac too much except for the fact that you can have 5 aliases and gets the least spam. However, it’s slow and I hate the new interface.

Andrew Purvis - 15 February 2007 09:45 PM

AlexTheStampede - 15 February 2007 07:55 PM

=^Genesis^= - 15 February 2007 06:48 PM

Unfortunately, POP3 access is not available in the free Yahoo Mail. It was long ago but hasn’t been for ages.

That sounded weird, since i have all my mails in Mail.app and Yahoo ones work fine.
So i checked on the site, and it has nothing about money in the pop3 settings bit….
This most likely won’t make any difference, but i have a @yahoo.it mail.

Yahoo’s POP3 service works for people who have accounts through tie-in ISPs. I had a series of accounts on Yahoo that I got on Mail when all Yahoo mail was POP3-compatible, but when I switched ISPs to SBC, I made the mistake of tying the Yahoo mail to my sbcglobal.net address. Now that I am not an SBC customer, those accounts are dead for email (except from Yahoo Travel news, which I mark as spam, just for spite).

The free accounts have fewer services, and Yahoo keeps trying to parcel them out via ISPs (usually in the most useless configurations available). With this, free POP3 access died for those who do not have a related ISP. And people wonder why so many of us deleted our Flickr accounts.

That is correct.  My new ISP has offers a free “upgrade” to Yahoo’s services should I wish to enable it but for basic or free Hoo accounts POP3 access is not allowed.  I haven’t gone through the process of linking my existing free account to get the “upgraded” features for the very reason you stated.  If I move or change ISP’s I don’t want to lose access to my mail.  If you get it from your ISP know that you can take advantage of it but also know what you risk by doing so.

Always weirder…. i used it with my isp and with my cellphone, and those are two totally differnet companies o_O’

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned IMAP, which for me is a giff from heaven. On my dotMac account, I can check email with Mail.app from any one of 3 Macs in our house or from any web browser and anything I read or delete or whatever is automatically updated on the server and is reflected anytime I log in from the next whereever. Much better than POP3, which is great if you only have one computer, but seriously limited with multiple Macs or PCs.

This is very important to me as well. The way everything stays synced is heaven. Buying a new Mac is a snap to set up.

I also have aol (gasp) and google mail. I have it all funnel into aol, to keep it simple. They are never down.

Google. They haven’t offended me yet. Yahoo I think is only slightly less irritating than Hotmail.