Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail - So Many to Choose From, So Which One is For You

Posted by fareed shakir on December 1st, 2019

History and Background

When the Internet became a major public communications medium in the 1990s, many saw it as a good opportunity for your own and instant communication system - email. Many free email providers arrived, but the first major player was Microsoft, with the release of Hotmail. Qualcomm soon released Eudora, followed closely by yahoo mail login in sign in and only recently, Google. And and so the race to supply the most profitable and popular email service began

Microsoft Hotmail -

This has always been the most popular email service on the web. It's success is due primarily to massive publicity, worldwide services and has now become nearly the default email service for starting Internet users. If you prefer an email, you go to Hotmail. It was barely threatened by other companies until the recent launch of Google's Gmail. A couple of years ago, Hotmail offered a measly 2 MB storage for email. Then from the blue, Gmail launched a huge 1 GB email
service for public use. Luckily for Hotmail, Gmail is in beta and only available through an invitation based signup. Hotmail has now increased email capacity to 250 MB in an effort to rival Gmail.

Personally, I don't like Hotmail. It's pages load slower than other providers. Ads are located literally everywhere. Despite having 250MB, the capability remains small when compared with Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Being the largest provider of email, it is also the most targeted by hackers and unauthorized users.

On the other hand it gets the backing of Microsoft, has generally top quality spam and virus filters, has nice HTML email features and also works beautifully with other Microsoft products such as for example MSN Messenger and MSN Spaces.

Google Gmail -

Released as an invitation only beta on April 1, 2004 (no it wasn't an April Fool's joke) Gmail made free email history when it announced that its new email service would boast a huge 1GB of free email storage. This was 500 times what Hotmail and 250 times what Yahoo offered during the time and thus users around the globe just couldn't get enough of Gmail. People who were fortunate to receive an invitation were generally great beta testers, but some began selling these invitations on websites like eBay. I myself was fortunate to receive an invitation from Gmail in its early stages. During the time most users received only 10 invitations handy out. Today I've 50, with quickly replenishment of the after use.

Personally, I enjoy Gmail. It's got a clear and fast interface, with very simple to use features. It's storage is very good, but few users will ever use even half the space. It's spam filters are good, but I would have to say Hotmail did a much better job. POP and IMAP access are available nowadays, as well as email forwarding.

But even Gmail has its cons. It lacks thorough HTML email support, both for viewing and composing. It lacks some traditional features in other email services, like a selection of spam filter level, the capability to trash messages easily and also doesn't work nicely (works only in plain HTML mode) with Opera and other older browsers.

Also there have been 2 privacy issues raised with Gmail. Firstly, the unobtrusive and generally clean looking ads on the best of all pages are contextual. This implies these ads are generated centered on page content, or in cases like this email content. Therefore everytime you view an email, you're email content is analyzed and then converted into ads for Google's revenue. In accordance with Google, that is all done by robots not humans, and therefore the e-mail is never read by any humans, but nonetheless, many users get freaked out if they see their email posted in ad-form on the best of the screen.

Another privacy issue is that of trashed messages. With 1GB of space, Gmail encourages users never to delete read messages, but only to archive them for later viewing. If a person decides to trash a note anyway, their is really a clause in the Gmail privacy policy which causes some dispute. The clause states that if deletion of an email, Google can keep it in storage for as long as it wishes. Therefore, once you trash a note and expect it to be gone forever, maybe it's just simply sitting on a Google server, waiting to be accessed by unauthorized users.

The majority are linking Gmail with selling your soul to the devil. Are you going to fall under a 1GB storage temptation to sell your privacy? Well I personally don't believe these privacy allegations, but you have to produce up your own personal mind.

Also please let me let you know that at the time of April 1, 2005, Google upgraded all email accounts to 2GB storage, and as a added gimmick, that amount is constantly growing at approximately 3.5 MB a day (this rate constantly changes). At the time of the 6th of August, 2005, how big all Gmail accounts was at 2465 MB.

Since Gmail is in invitation-only beta, if you would like to join, please utilize this Gmail Invite Request Form and I'll happily send you an invitation.

Yahoo Mail -

Yahoo Mail is the 2nd largest email provider on the planet, just behind Hotmail. Before Gmail was introduced, it gave 4MB of space to free users, double what Hotmail offered. To contend with Google's Gmail, Yahoo has now increased their email capacity to a huge 1GB. Obviously, since Gmail increased their accounts to 2GB, Yahoo remains 2nd to the new email giant.

Ignoring storage area for some time, Yahoo Mail is really a pretty robust email service. It's ads are considerably smaller and less obtrusive than Hotmail's, and isn't contextual like Gmail's. It's interface is slower than Gmail's and around the exact same speed as that of Hotmail. It's great spam and virus filters, and also works great with other Yahoo products such as for example Yahoo Messenger. Also once you sign up for Yahoo Mail, your Yahoo ID can be utilized for practically the rest Yahoo.

It's hardly any cons as well. The ads are now and again flashy and your pages might load slower because of them but that's the sole downside. So maybe Yahoo can be your email service choice.

Conclusion -

Even if a few of you would like me to, I will not blatantly state the most effective email service here. The reason being I don't believe there's such thing since the *best* when it comes to email services. I personally like Gmail, but you will find millions out there that will disagree with me. Some people love the simplicity of Gmail, the support of Hotmail or the truly amazing spam filters of Yahoo. You have to produce a choice based on your liking and your needs. So proceed and learn on your own what email service is better for you.