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

History and Background

When the Internet became a significant public communications medium in the 1990s, many saw it as a good chance for a personal and instant communication system - email. Many free email providers arrived, but the very first major player was Microsoft, with the release of Hotmail. Qualcomm soon released Eudora, accompanied by Yahoo and only recently, Google. And so the race to offer the most profitable and popular email service began

Microsoft Hotmail -

This is definitely typically the most popular email service on the web. It's success is due mainly to massive publicity, worldwide services and has become nearly the default email service for starting Internet users. If you want a contact, you head to Hotmail. It was barely threatened by other companies until the recent launch of Google's Gmail. A year or so ago, Hotmail offered a measly 2 MB storage for email. Then out of the blue, Gmail launched a massive 1 GB email
service for public use. Luckily for Hotmail, Gmail is in beta and only available through an invitation based signup. Hotmail has increased email capacity to 250 MB in an attempt to rival Gmail.

Personally, I don't like Hotmail. It's pages load slower than other providers. Ads are located literally everywhere. Even with 250MB, the capability is still small compared to Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Being the greatest provider of email, it can be the most targeted by hackers and unauthorized users.

On another hand it has got 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 instance 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 massive 1GB of free email storage. This is 500 times what Hotmail and 250 times what Yahoo offered at the time and thus users around the globe just couldn't get enough of Gmail. People have been fortunate for an invitation were generally great beta testers, however, many began selling these invitations on websites like eBay. I myself was fortunate for an invitation from Gmail in its early stages. During the time most users were given no more than 10 invitations handy out. Today I have 50, with quickly replenishment of these after use.

Personally, I love Gmail. It's got a clean and fast interface, with very simple to use features. It's storage is very good, but few users will ever use even 1 / 2 of the space. It's spam filters are good, but I will have to say Hotmail did a much better job. POP and IMAP access are now available, along with 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 choice 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 on most pages are contextual. What this means is these ads are generated centered on page content, or in this case email content. Therefore every time you view a contact, you're email content is analyzed and then became ads for Google's revenue. In accordance with Google, this is all done by robots not humans, and therefore the e-mail is never read by any humans, but none the less, many users get freaked out once 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 to not delete read messages, but simply to archive them for later viewing. If a consumer decides to trash an email anyway, their is really a clause in the Gmail privacy policy that causes some dispute. The clause states that if deletion of a contact, Google can keep it in storage for as long as it wishes. Therefore, whenever you trash an email and expect it to be gone forever, maybe it's simply just sitting on a Google server, waiting to be accessed by unauthorized users.

Most are linking Gmail with selling your soul to the devil. Are you going to fall into a 1GB storage temptation to sell your privacy? Well I know don't believe these privacy allegations, but you have to create up your own mind.

Also please i'd like to let you know that as of April 1, 2005, Google upgraded all email accounts to 2GB storage, and as a added gimmick, that amount is continually growing at approximately 3.5 MB per 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 make use of this Gmail Invite Request Form and I'll happily give you an invitation.

Yahoo Mail -

Yahoo Mail is the next largest email provider on earth, just behind Hotmail. Before Gmail was introduced, it gave 4MB of space to free users, double what Hotmail offered. To compete with Google's Gmail, Yahoo has increased their email capacity to a massive 1GB. Needless to say, since Gmail increased their accounts to 2GB, Yahoo is still 2nd to the brand new email giant.

Ignoring space for storing 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 very good spam and virus filters, and also works great with other Yahoo products such as for instance Yahoo Messenger. Also whenever you register for Yahoo Mail, your Yahoo ID may be used for practically everything else Yahoo.

It's very few cons as well. The ads are often flashy and your yahoo mail login in sign in pages might load slower because of these but that's really the only downside. So maybe Yahoo is your email service choice.

Conclusion -

Even though some of you would like me to, I won't blatantly state the very best email service here. This is because I don't believe there is such thing while the *best* when it comes to email services. I know like Gmail, but you can find millions out there that could disagree with me. Many people love the simplicity of Gmail, the support of Hotmail or the fantastic spam filters of Yahoo. You've to make a choice based in your liking and your needs. So proceed and find out on your own what email service is most beneficial for you.