Which email provider should I choose?

[gosh]

Hi everyone,

I am switching to a new internet-provider. This means that my email-address will change as well.
Therefore I am thinking about getting an account with a free email-service (gmail, hotmail, ...).

Which one do you think is best?

[Tamil]

Gmail.

Lot of features. See https://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.html

[gosh]

Do you need to get invited to use gmail or is it possible just to create an account?

[Tamil]

You need an invitation. If you want I can PM invitation to you.

[gosh]

Yes, please.

[Tamil]

Done.

[gosh]

Thanx a million!

[jpeddicord]

Gmail just added new features today:
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.html

The interface looks overall sharper now. Talk while Offline is pretty handy.

[po0f]

This one (http://www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrst uvwxyzabcdefghijk.com/signup.php).

[Hobbsee]

fastmail.fm is good

[chaosgeisterchen]

I can only second gmail. I am vey very satisfied with it.

[kazuya]

Gmail all the way. It is awesome and chock full of features.

[puppy]

The good think about Gmail is that you can use a client like Outlook or Thunderbird to manage your mail, in addition to using the browser based version - they also have smtp servers you can use for outgoing mail.

[esaym]

The good think about Gmail is that you can use a client like Outlook or Thunderbird to manage your mail, in addition to using the browser based version - they also have smtp servers you can use for outgoing mail.
Yea I love it. I use it with thunderbird and I have it set so all the emails stay on the server. So that away if I am ever really looking for an old email I just log onto the web page app and then search :D

[EdThaSlayer]

I use Yahoo Mail, and i think its quite alright.

[Bezmotivnik]

I suggest bluebottle.com, which is a straight POP3/SMTP free provider with alternate SMTP port access. You can run a real mail client (if you can find a decent one -- I can't) and not have to put up with webmail inconveniences.

I dislike and mistrust Google and won't jump through their hoops for their services.

If you must have webmail, I suggest avoiding Yahoo, which has all sorts of problems with false-positive spam/malware filtering, so LOTS of your good mail will vanish, no matter what your personal settings. They also mangle page format worse than anything and have more than the usual hassles with DOS/UNIX linefeed conventions. :rolleyes:

[Dual Cortex]

Actually to sign up, all you need is a cell phone that's able to receive text messages.

[Kernel Sanders]

Another Gmail vote here :cool:

[patrick295767]

gmail gmail

[gorilla]

Gmail dosen't support IMAP and never will, so that's a big turn-off.

I also don't like that you don't have directories. Instead you can label mails, and yes, you can filter with your mail client, but I think it's more handy to do that on the server.

And last but not least, google collects information and makes it searchable for a living; I don't think that's a good thing for a mail provider.
One day they'll lose in court and some government gets access to my conversations. You'd better avoid certain keywords when using gmail :P

[Bezmotivnik]

And last but not least, google collects information and makes it searchable for a living; I don't think that's a good thing for a mail provider.
Google is about advertising and data-mining. Everything else is incidental. It astounds me how these foolish kids never shut up about the evilness of Microsoft and then totally fall for Google's bogus "Don't be evil" hogwash. Google's far worse than MS for sheer rapacity.

I block as much Google scripting as I can to simply use the web without their pernicious interference with my browsing. There's no way I'm letting them have my mail.

[mdsmedia]

I've had a hotmail account as long as I can remember. I only use it now as a "Passport" login, when I can't avoid a MS affiliated site. But in Windows the other day I was playing with firefox extensions and downloaded a mail checker plugin (can't remember which). My hotmail account had deactivated from non-use, but when I re-activated it there were 20 spam messages in the box. And a lot from MSN.

My Gmail account, which I opened about 12 months ago, was clean.

There could be a number of reasons for this....but I never used my current hotmail address for email, or the Gmail account either, so neither has been exposed by me to the outside world...other than through passport logins.

[dbbolton]

Actually to sign up, all you need is a cell phone that's able to receive text messages.
right on.