By Khalid Hosein aka Chief Gadgeteer
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Remember when everyone operated a portal and offered a free e-mail account with a web interface? Yahoo, Netscape, Excite, Lycos, etc. The storage wasn’t anything spectacular by today’s standards – typically less than 10MB, but since then storage on these free e-mail accounts really hasn’t grown in step with the drop in prices of storage hardware. The number of freely available webmail services has also dwindled, and while there are still , most are certainly not backed by the kind of money behind the original set of dot.com companies.
Enter Google
First they displaced the leading search engines to the point where their company name has evolved into a verb, and now with Gmail, they just may do the same with webmail.
Storage
Perhaps the biggest buzz about Gmail was and is its storage: 1GB when it initially debuted. This was in stark comparison to Yahoo’s and Hotmail’s 100MB. This prompted Yahoo and Hotmail to increase the capacity on their free mailboxes to 250MB. [Update May 2005: Yahoo just increased their free storage to 1GB.] Additionally, for a fee, both Yahoo and Hotmail offer more storage and other features. Both Yahoo and Hotmail offer 2GB of storage for approximately $20/year.
Just recently in March 2005, Google upped the ante again by increasing Gmail’s storage to 2GB and hinting that may not be the last such increase. In fact, they have been constantly upping the total space in Gmail accounts. At last count (May 20, 2005), it was 2211 MB. Incidentally, in late 2004, and this isn’t a gag, a motorcycle magazine called began offering a free 100GB webmail account. I’m not going to cover their service in this review for a number of reasons, including a poor interface, it is factors slower than the others, the fact that technology is not the main line of business for this company, not to mention that I could not even send an e-mail to the account. They have also not established that this new service will still be around in a few years. Source:
RTN Asks: Which do you prefer? Post a comment below and let’s see who really wins.
I’m not certain I’d call that much of a shootout. It seems more like they’re reviewing Gmail, giving occasional comparisons to Y! Mail and Hotmail. Even when they talk about Gmail, the details are limited.
For instance, he points out that Gmail has the ability to save drafts and then says such a thing is not common in most webmail products (when, in fact, both Y! Mail and Hotmail have drafts). Terrible “review” if you ask me.
Did you read the while thing? He has much more on his site and charts and everyhing. Should we include more here?
Email Shoot-Out: Gmail vs Yahoo Mail vs Hotmail
Remember when everyone operated a portal and offered a free e-mail account with a web interface? Yahoo, Netscape, Excite, Lycos, etc. The storage wasn’t anything spectacular by today’s standards – typically less than 10MB, but since then storage on t…
The only real way to appreciate Gmail is to try it for a while – not just look at it. Those who haven’t aren’t really qualified to comment on it, and would do well to stop knocking other people’s efforts to help them out.
Bill Webb
I like the features Gmail offers, like the ability to use my own email client if I wanted to, but I prefer Yahoo’s web-interface.
Error: when Gmail debuted, Yahoo and Hotmail were nowhere near 100MB. As I recall, Yahoo was at 6MB for old-time users, and 4MB for new accounts. Hotmail may have been as little as 2MB.
Pardon the plug — if you’re looking for a comparison of four Webmail providers, I have one on my blog:
I’ve tried setting up a few ” google “Wonder” Email accounts and never was able to access it to send mail and or receive it…..
I MEAN WTF …. needless to say I’ll stick with both hotmail and yahoo
SCREW GOOGLE !!!! its still a 4th rate search tool and when R they gonna stop requiring a SPECIAL INVITE & whens it comming out of BETA !? and who gives a BLEEP about them
Gmail is probably the best but I have to negatives.
1.I have had numerous outages where my pop 3 access fails on receive.
2.It does not allow any form of executable attachment. That is a killer for me. I basically keep it for huge traffic newsletters but do not use it for anything else.
3. I detest forced SPAM filtering. I should be allowed to turn that off. It means I must often go to the website to mark the false positives which defeats the neat pop acces benefit.
I am not sure any of the other free services are any better.
well, gmail is really nice.
You don’t need to use the web interface as you do with yahoo. pop3 access is rarely down, and it is becoming more and more stable lately. disk space is great, and the interface is too. I mean, I can’t even find the sign out and inbox buttons on yahoo. Hell I am nearly using it for what, 6 years?
My first love is Yahoo-it works.If it’s not broke;why fix it.
I use Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Hotmail is my “junk” account. Anything I want access to but fear masses of spam will result goes to Hotmail. Yahoo is the account all my family and friends use because I’ve had the same email address there for years. What I don’t like is having to pay to use pop3 access. Gmail is great for mail I want access to from anywhere and I have a Gmail account specifically for my genealogy research. I’m up to 2.5Gb of storage capability on Gmail.
If I had to give up all but one, I’d stay with Gmail. Free pop3 access, free masses of storage and I’m not afraid of whether they’ll be there tomorrow.
BTW, there’s a newcomer that uses a Flash interface and is kind of fun to play with.
Sheesh, You give someone something nice and then they bitch about it.. Try running a spyware scan after logging into hotmail, and yahoo, Then do the same after logging into GMail.
I think that it will speak for itself.
Google,Linux,BSD.. Everything else is just malicious software..
“Google,Linux,BSD.. Everything else is just malicious software..”
Hate to break this to you, but less than 5% of the populations agrees..
Update: Google has 2.7 gigs
Update: Yahoo has 2 gigs I think
Update: Invites are ?
APPLY FOR LOAN……………NOW
Email:john_leeloanfirm_6006@yahoo.com