 |
| CNN WEB SITES: |
|
| TIME INC. SITES: |
| MORE SERVICES: |
| video on demand |
| video archive |
| audio on demand |
| news email services |
| free email accounts |
| desktop headlines |
| pointcast |
| pagenet |
| DISCUSSION: |
| message boards |
| chat |
| feedback |
| SITE GUIDES: |
| help |
| contents |
| search |
| FASTER ACCESS: |
| europe |
| japan |
| WEB SERVICES: |
From...
Web-based e-mail gets better and better
October 14, 1998
Web posted at: 11:30 PM EDT
by Glenn McDonald
(IDG) -- Web-based e-mail services are getting better all the time. No longer ugly ducklings in the shadow of traditional client/server accounts, these Web sites now offer truly full-featured services, including spam filtering, automatic message forwarding, file attachments, and more.
Because these Web-based accounts can be accessed from anywhere with only a browser, a user name, and a password, they make a lot of sense in our increasingly mobile computing world. With one of these accounts you can check your messages at any time from a computer at a friend's house, a library, or an Internet cafe.
|
| ||
|---|---|---|
 |
IDG.net home page | |
| PC World home page | ||
| FileWorld find free software fast | ||
| Make your PC work harder with these tips | ||
| Reviews & in-depth info at IDG.net | ||
 |
IDG.net's desktop PC page | |
| IDG.net's portable PC page | ||
| IDG.net's Windows software page | ||
| IDG.net's personal news page | ||
| Questions about computers? Let IDG.net's editors help you | ||
| Subscribe to IDG.net's free daily newsletter for computer geniuses(& newbies) | ||
|
Search IDG.net in 12 languages | ||
| News Radio | ||
 |
Fusion audio primers | |
|
|
Computerworld Minute | |
HotMail: Still the champ
HotMail -- the first Web-based e-mail service -- is still the best. While other sites have caught up by offering many of the same services, none can match HotMail's general ease of use.
Signing up for an account is easy: Just choose an ID (yourname@hotmail.com) and a password, then fill in some general demographic information. HotMail does not sell your information to outside parties; instead it uses your profile to generate targeted advertisements, a common practice everywhere online.
That's all there is to it. You now have a working account from which you can immediately send and receive e-mail. You can store up to 2MB total, so assuming an average message size of 10K, you can store up to around 200 messages at a time. HotMail also provides a personal address book for entering the names and e-mail addresses frequent correspondents.
You can also configure your HotMail account to access e-mail from other accounts, such as your company e-mail (providing it's on a POP server that is not protected by a firewall). HotMail grabs your messages from the other account and replicates them in your HotMail in-box. This is handy for checking on office developments when you're away.
You can also attach files to your outgoing e-mail (up to a maximum file size of 1MB). Files can be downloaded directly to your hard drive or, in the case of HTML files or GIF and JPEG images, automatically displayed in a browser window.
Finally, HotMail has a nice set of e-mail filters you can use to block unwanted messages and spam.
Yahoo Mail: Bells and Whistles
Yahoo Mail is another solid choice. It offers all the features of HotMail, plus a few interesting tweaks for the hardcore Yahoo user. If you are registered with Yahoo, Yahoo Mail is the way to go -- it nicely integrates with the portal's other services (instant messaging, chat, and so on).
Yahoo also offers a reminder feature that you can set to automatically e-mail alerts regarding anniversaries, birthdays, and appointments. (It got me to the dentist on time just last week.)
You get a goodly amount of message storage space with Yahoo -- 3MB -- although file attachments top out at 500KB each.
Excite and others: Roll the dice
Speaking of roomy, Excite offers a good deal with its Excite Mail service. As with Yahoo and HotMail, you get a full-featured e-mail account with message forwarding, spam filtering, and file attachment features. But the size limit for your account is 4MB--twice that of HotMail -- and attached files can be up to 2MB in total size. However, Excite Mail is considerably clunkier in overall design, and I often found general navigation to be slow going.
A relatively new contender, Snap's Email.com offers probably the best domain name option for your free e-mail address: YourName@email.com. But that's about the best it has to offer at this point. I found registration confusing and a little off-putting. Besides the usual profile information, Email.com also requires you to enter your occupation, income, and an existing e-mail account just to sign up.
You'll find lots of other e-mail services out there, including those on Lycos and Netcenter. In coming months expect to see even more free services appearing on smaller sites.