E-mail help

Hotmail has jumped the shark. Terribly. Since the switch-over to the new design not only have I been subjected to a million offensive ads for dating services, the bloody thing doesn’t work. Half the time when I click on one of the buttons to, say, navigate between e-mails, I click and click away without any effect.

So, I’m going to get rid of my hotmail account. Does anyone have any suggestions for what service I could use instead? Ideally, a POP3 or IMAP service would be ideal, but I’m broke so I understand that those are probably out of the question. Oh, and there’s another preference: I have a fondness for long e-mail address, so I’d like something that can support my habit..

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26 Responses to E-mail help

  1. ubaid says:

    for free, web based mail, yahoo’s the best. 4mb of disk space, easy to use interface and a really effective spam filtering engine.

  2. sennoma says:

    I use ureach.com, and have had no trouble with it. It’s not great, but it’s serviceable and free. It does subject you to a (relatively small, unobtrusive) banner ad on every page, though IIRC yahoo is worse when it comes to ads. Pay for POP3/IMAP, sadly.

  3. Evan says:

    Wow, really? You get *more* spam on your hotmail account now than you did before? For me, when they switched over to the new design, it coincided with a drop in spam from about 100 messages a day to only two or three.

    Anyway, if you’re definitely switching, I’ve heard good things about yahoo’s free email service.

  4. PinkDreamPoppies says:

    No, no… I don’t receive any spam at all (I never have received any spam; it’s just never happened). The ads I’m referring to are the obnoxious banner ads that take up a third of the page.

  5. Starfish says:

    Another vote for yahoo. No spam a’tall, three years running now — which couldn’t be said about the CompuServe account that I was *paying* for…

    Good luck!

  6. Lachlan says:

    I agree with my fellow commenters: Yahoo, for free email, is superlative.

    Problem is, you have to pay for POP3 access- still their rate is decent, $20/year. No help if you’re broke, of course. :(

    Two additional suggestions: check out http://www.runbox.com and http://www.emailaddresses.com. The latter is a directory of email services.

  7. ScottM says:

    Netscape also has a good free web based email system. They’ve been pretty good to me.

  8. redcane says:

    I use “myway.com” and am very happy with it and it has very little adsvertising and 6 Mb of space free.

  9. redcane says:

    actually myway has no banners or popups.

  10. dave says:

    You can’t get set up with an amptoons POP3?

    How cheap is that… demand to be loved!

  11. Evan says:

    PDP: Oh, banner ads, right… I kind of forgot they existed after I started using Mozilla with the AdBlock extension… :)

  12. PinkDreamPoppies says:

    PDP: Oh, banner ads, right… I kind of forgot they existed after I started using Mozilla with the AdBlock extension… :)

    I’d forgotten about pop-ups since I started using Safari, but banner ads are still around. So I’ll suffer.

    Of course, I could just use Mozilla except that I can’t stand it.

    You can’t get set up with an amptoons POP3?

    How cheap is that… demand to be loved!

    Yeah, Amp no giv me turkee.

  13. parodie says:

    I have a friend who swears by fastmail.fm – I would consider switching to that if I didn’t already have too many email addys.

    And I concur that yahoo is quite good.

  14. Cori says:

    I agree with you! I miss my old MSN layout, I actually have to open up my MSN browser to check that account. Stupid idiots, the layout before worked, why change it?

  15. I have a vanity domain, 50 free pop boxes. I would be willing to offer one. shoot me an e-mail if interested.

  16. Assamite says:

    You can simply access Hotmail through Outlook. And yes, it works.

  17. Amanda says:

    I’m a big fan of hushmail. It’s free, encrypted and ad-free. I’ve literally never received a single spam message since subscribing and it’s a great way to communicate privately from any machine. http://www.hushmail.com

    I’ve also heard good things about fastmail.fm. Several of my friends swear by it.

  18. grimmtooth says:

    Check out http://www.softhome.net. Free POP3 service, minor limitations about polling frequency, webmail as a backup if your client dies, and did I mention it’s free? Owned by twocows, oddly enough.

    Only downside is that some blacklists have softhome listed, and they tend to block HTML-mail a lot (big deal).

  19. JennHi says:

    yes, be sure you have an ad-blocker if you’re going to use yahoo’s email. I found the health and fitness and dating banner ads to be really offensive, so I’m running Privoxy in addition.

    Yahoo’s not bad but I wish they’d make their spam blockers a little more user-friendly.

  20. Tor says:

    justice.com has a nice set up – no frills, but they’ve always been good to me.

  21. I can strongly recommend Fastmail.fm. I too was looking for a good, free mail service, and FastMail has some nice features:

    No popups
    Works well with mobile browsers.
    Free IMAP
    10 MB
    Several available domains (.com/.org/.net)
    Doesn’t need javascript
    Can upgrade for $ for more features too.

    Yahoo webmail is bloated to me, and won’t work well (or at all) in a minimal browser. Fastmail is sleek and non obtrusive. Plus their domains don’t scream out “free web mail user!”

    Good luck.

  22. JakeInTheHouse says:

    fastmail.fm rocks.

  23. doug says:

    get POP3 and SMTP access to Yahoo mail for free with this handy little open-source utility, YahooPops, from
    http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/

    Works great.

  24. joanne says:

    Another vote for FastMail here. Excellent service.

  25. I’ve had bad experiences with hotmail, yahoo, hushmail, and a local isp’s email. At the moment i stick with the devil i know, http://www.themail.com,
    but i certainly don’t recommend it.

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