Are free email services worth it?

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Actually, if you want a _real_ throwaway e-mail for spam or something, just use an instant e-mail address at mailinator.com, spambob.com, or pookmail.com. You can't send mail with them, but they're easy on-the-fly if you want to get one. For example, just go to pookmail.com, and login with "mop" and you'll see all mail sent to mop@pookmail.com within the last 24 hours.

But I digress. Free e-mail accounts generally suck. They're generally choppy, limited in features, and full of ads. Even some big name ones, such as yahoo or msn have ads. You're right about that, Leo.

The golden exception is gmail. Gmail gives about 2.8 gb of e-mail space. And they're very flexible with settings, sorting, searching e-mail etc. You can download the files to a POP3 mailbox. And they have built-in spam filters. But you can see all the e-mail labeled as spam, just in case you think something that's not junk might've been put there (rarely happens). Also, they only allow legit people to send e-mail from there. C'mon, it's google. They're the pros of search. And if someone says that the mail coming from that address is spam (there's a button to do this in gmail, to label a piece of mail as 'spam' so gmail will know in the future, if it gets labeled 'spam' enough, to label it 'spam' for every user and not put it in the inbox), then that gmail account will be shut down.

Now far from it for me to advertise for gmail. On the contrary, gmail has its downsides. If you're looking to protect your privacy, think again. Every piece of mail that you voluntarily keep on your gmail account for more than thirty days is fair game for them to keep on their servers for years based on US data storage law and the agreement necessary to sign up to gmail. I honestly don't care if google is reading my e-mail, and I know google goes to great lengths to defend a citizen's privacy against the governmnet, but it's just not something I comfortable.

But the same holds true for ISPs, they'll certainly keep your information for as long as they damn well please, too. Of course, it's not like they always have the means to, with all the internet traffic that goes on, of course, they run out of storage space pretty fast. Either way though, someone else has access to your e-mails for quite a long time, and the government is perfectly able to get your e-mails from that someone else through, say, monitoring the site or ISP through the National Security Agency or the Patriot Act.

Oh, sure, who cares about privacy, right? We've got to protect the nation from terrorists, right! Obsessions with security have recently ruined a good deal of civil liberties for the American people, including our right to privacy.

That's why it's gotten to the point where people have to take their right to privacy into their own hands if they want it at all, and it begins to seem like too much trouble to have privacy, even though it was something that was free originally. Nowadays if you want your e-mail to be private you've got to encrypt it. You can't even _use_ the phone because you know someone will be tapping it. And don't even think about going inside a store or busied traffic corner to talk. And if you put your personal information online? You might as well have screamed, 'hey, world, look at me!'

It shouldn't be this hard to keep one's personal information secret, but with the advent of technology without ethical limitations, through the creation of an untamed power, both the people and the government have a power to break the rights and liberties of others.

You'll be spammed even if you're a PAID account or an ISP account, or even if you have your own MX server with Spam Assasin.

Bottomline: DON'T BE STUPID.

hi, i love your site btw; you're amazing and helpful with alot of info i would never think of... ... oh yeah, but i've used yahoo mail for awhile, ever since i had problems at hotmail... yahoo works fine i guess, but im hesitant to give them valid personal info, like name, zip code, etc.. they have the right to delete my account due to this eh? ... and have you ever heard of mail.com? im considering tryin out their service based upon your analysis... thanks so much for everything leo, i will buy you so many latte's someday when i have the funds!!!

Hmm...you're perfectly right. My Gmail account disappeared, went nonexistant for some odd reason... What a PAIN. I also used that email to sign on to myspace and youtube etc. etc...

Yahoo is consistently rated as the #1 free email service. Spam is VERY low, you'll get maybe a sponsored message a week or so. If you have more, it's probably because you gave your email to the wrong site.

my account say its lockedout what does this mean, but the other users on hotmail account in my household theirs are working normal i would like to know the cause that my one is lockout??

thanks for your co operation

Dennis

Usually too many login attempts with a bad password, or abuse by the account.

This is a REALLY REALLY helpful artical and website u no everything and i appreciate that you have took the time to do this for everyone. Excellent Job!

I don't get spam in my Yahoo! account. If I do, it might be once every 3-6 months - in my Bulk mailbox.

As for hotmail, yeah - it seems to have an affinity to junk. About one every month.

- Then again, the reason I don't get much junk is possibly because I sign up for few newsletters - that is under hotmail.

I have had a GMail for 2 years now with no problems, its true i do get spam, but all of it is filtered into the 'Junk' folder, I think GMail is the best web based email available.

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