Web Based Email Solutions

[flesso]

This is for anyone who uses the web-based email solutions such as GMail, WL Mail and Yahoo! Mail. What I want to know is, which one do you think is best? I've just got and looked at my WL Mail account this morning to discover that I now have 5GB free space, which kind of leaves GMail in the dust for storage space.

[DPS Computing]

1. WL Mail
2. Gmail
3. Yahoo!

In my opinion. I like Windows Live Mail a lot as I like the interface, gmail has a lot of space but a less 'helpful' GUI and Yahoo! I've just never really used a lot, although I do have an account, as I always used hotmail first and then let gmail become a secondary account (especially as the address is smaller and easier to remember and is easy to write on forms and say down the telephone as opposed to my WL Mail address which is a bit tricky to explain sometimes!!).

[WelshTom]

In my opinion, I dislike most public mail services. I prefer to setup my own mail accounts on my Dedicated Server - it saves a lot of time, and means I have complete control over them, unlike I would on a service like Google Mail.

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by Thomas

In my opinion, I dislike most public mail services. I prefer to setup my own mail accounts on my Dedicated Server - it saves a lot of time, and means I have complete control over them, unlike I would on a service like Google Mail.

But that means you don't get a really nice GUI that they provide - thats the advantage for me - plus it means if my Dedicated Server goes down I don't lose contact with the outside world and vice versa, if their server goes down I still have my own internal mail system to keep me going.

Is there any chance of having an 'All' option on the poll Josh? .

[WelshTom]

Microsoft Outlook is a good enough GUI for me - anyway, at the end of the day, the whole intention is to send e-mail, not to feed your eyes candy.

[flesso]

Originally Posted by DPS Computing

Is there any chance of having an 'All' option on the poll Josh? .

Hmm that would defeat the object of the poll really.

I do like to have my own mail accounts on my own mail server, and what you're saying about nice GUI is a very good point, but I use Microsoft Exchange so I have a nice web GUI anyway.

With these public mail services, I have never known any downtime in the last few years, normally if one server goes down there is no problem, these large companies normally have the money to have large load-balanced clusters meaning that downtime is probably non-existant. If you have your own mail setup you should always have a second mail server, which again means that you should still be able to recieve your mail if your primary server goes down.

[WelshTom]

Originally Posted by flesso

Hmm that would defeat the object of the poll really.

I do like to have my own mail accounts on my own mail server, and what you're saying about nice GUI is a very good point, but I use Microsoft Exchange so I have a nice web GUI anyway.

With these public mail services, I have never known any downtime in the last few years, normally if one server goes down there is no problem, these large companies normally have the money to have large load-balanced clusters meaning that downtime is probably non-existant. If you have your own mail setup you should always have a second mail server, which again means that you should still be able to recieve your mail if your primary server goes down.

100% uptime on my Dedicated Server in the past 6 months - with no clusters.

[flesso]

Originally Posted by Thomas

100% uptime on my Dedicated Server in the past 6 months - with no clusters.

What if has a sudden spazum?

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Microsoft Outlook is a good enough GUI for me - anyway, at the end of the day, the whole intention is to send e-mail, not to feed your eyes candy.

No but the GUI makes it easy to use - squirrelmail and other things like it frustrate me with the primitive interface and lack of features and options that I have become accustomed to.

Originally Posted by flesso

Hmm that would defeat the object of the poll really.

I do like to have my own mail accounts on my own mail server, and what you're saying about nice GUI is a very good point, but I use Microsoft Exchange so I have a nice web GUI anyway.

With these public mail services, I have never known any downtime in the last few years, normally if one server goes down there is no problem, these large companies normally have the money to have large load-balanced clusters meaning that downtime is probably non-existant. If you have your own mail setup you should always have a second mail server, which again means that you should still be able to recieve your mail if your primary server goes down.

Why? The question is which email service do you use? - so technically I would not be able to vote if there wasn't an all option. Maybe if you don't want the all option you could change the question to "Which email service do you prefer?" or "Which email service do you use primarily?".

I had my Windows Live Mail out for two days for "long overdue server maintenance reasons". Apparently different peoples accounts would go down on different days so the servers that held them could be updated and maintained - according to MSN website hosting it affected everyone at some point or another. The first affected were the oldest accounts going all the way up to the latest which were affected being the newer accounts.

I know what you mean about the secondary mail server for your website hostings but that can be beyond the scopes of small business / personal website hostings and does take more time to setup, more maintenance time and more money so that might be the downsides that put people off.

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by Thomas

100% uptime on my Dedicated Server in the past 6 months - with no clusters.

Arn't you lucky - which server are you on? I want it .

Originally Posted by flesso

What if has a sudden spazum?

- the website hosting or Thomas .

PS - must have posted at the same time.

[paul]

I like yahoo!- both Instant Messaging and RSS integration are overwhelming and I get into yahooanswer through it, my storage limit are fare behind 1GB so I have not thought to use other service.

Here is a comparison chart that shows its heading in user base and some features from other web mail.

[gordo]

I have a gmail account I use for certain things like forum registration but normally I use dreammail for 95% of my mail I just want to send and answer quickly

[flesso]

Originally Posted by paul

I like yahoo!- both Instant Messaging and RSS integration are overwhelming and I get into yahooanswer through it, my storage limit are fare behind 1GB so I have not thought to use other service.

Here is a comparison chart that shows its heading in user base and some features from other web mail.

Nice comparison there Paul!

WLM is now offering 5GB space, which may put them ahead of the rest.

[paul]

Originally Posted by flesso

Nice comparison there Paul!

WLM is now offering 5GB space, which may put them ahead of the rest.

Well, I would like to use their classic version, I heard that have some nice features, btw I am not aware is there any way to open an email account in live.com, do you've any idea to open myname@live.com? I heard that's reserved for microsoft employee only, but not sure about this.

[schoolbag]

I think Gmail is the best, because it has almost the largest storage space and it is fast... Maybe because I dont like any Micro$oft and Yahoo! products... Walla.com is also good...

[flesso]

Quote: