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What's the best or most reliable and long-lasting (company won't go under soon) webmail service like Yahoo mail, Gmail, Hotmail, etc?

Shinova wrote:What's the best or most reliable and long-lasting (company won't go under soon) webmail service like Yahoo mail, Gmail, Hotmail, etc?

I like my Gmail service. It's free, pretty effective at handling spam, has a reliable and clean interface (mostly) and a very large inbox (though it has annoying restrictions on attachments--no 50 meg attachments, gmail? C'mon!)

That last comment was a bit of a joke. So far, overall best service I've had from those three. Hotmail has a lot of annoying ads and is a pain in my ass. Yahoo is the same. I don't want an 'experience' or a buncha' fucking newsfeeds from YahooNewz or whatever. Just gimmie my email. It also works superwell with the iGoogle homepage.

I've had all three you mention, and I prefer gMail.

Shinova wrote:What's the best or most reliable and long-lasting (company won't go under soon) webmail service like Yahoo mail, Gmail, Hotmail, etc?

I'm going to +1 the Gmail love. It's fast, accessible from anywhere (I can check it from any Web-capable cellphone or other device, even,) and the advertising is unobtrusive.

I've been using Gmail for years with no issues. It also has the nicest interface out of all the lot.

*makes the sign of the great god Google, lord of all things informational, finder of lost links, bringer of pornography and saviour of students*

Or to put it another way, Gmail is by far the best of the big name free webmail services by a wide margin.

GMail_count++

imap support, being able to send and receive from other (pop accessible) accounts, and the huge inbox all combine to make it one of the best, if not the best webmail service.

Nitram and I only use gmail

Out of the ones you list, I say Gmail. I can't attest that it is the "most reliable" because outside of Hotmail, Yahoo, and GMail I haven't tried others...but GMail offers the most storage and best interface. Heck, it even includes AIM-in-a-browser in the webmail page for those who want it.

GMail pretty much does it the best. Hotmail (or as it is now known, Live Mail or whatever the fuckups at Redmond are calling it now) sucks ass. So does Yahoo. If those two had merged, I would have expected an even shittier product to come out of it.

Gmail. Massive storage, fast, good clean interface, easy to use, and has some fun advanced options (IMAP, POP, and even built in AIM & Google Chat, along with forwarding and Signatures).

You can even customize it for a small company with logos and the like, for free no less .

I'm afraid I have to, er...
*checks # of replies*
...11th the nomination of Gmail. I've used nothing else for the past 4 years, and I've had no issues with it whatsoever.

I sold my soul to Gmail.....I regret nothing.

Another G-mail user here. You can also set up Mozilla Thunderbird to retrieve your emails for G-mail unlike Yahoo or Lycos, you have to pay for POP access.

I think this provider isn't well known in the US: GMX (Global Mail Exchange). Have them for years, costs me nothing, and is extremely reliable. They have a good spam filter and my adress is personal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMX_Mail

GMX is nice, but the google interface is a lot easier to use... less advertisement, links, ect. just mail...

Oh boy. Landslide victory for Gmail (a me-too), so far.

Gmail's been good for me because it's vaporized any incoming spam. Admittedly, I haven't distributed my gmail address online (registering for forums and the like) so it's not been a true test of Google's skills, but I've still always been confident that when I check new messages they're relevant.

I've actually re-directed my university email address to Gmail because the UWashington interface is so terrible. Works like a charm.

Gmail again. I can use it with Outlook and it'll auto-archive stuff. Very nice.

LMSx wrote:Gmail's been good for me because it's vaporized any incoming spam. Admittedly, I haven't distributed my gmail address online (registering for forums and the like) so it's not been a true test of Google's skills, but I've still always been confident that when I check new messages they're relevant.

I've actually re-directed my university email address to Gmail because the UWashington interface is so terrible. Works like a charm.

I use my Gmail for just about everything online, and perhaps less than 5 spam messages actually get through per month. So its filters are really up to par.

Another one for Gmail.

My university (Rolla) no longer allows forwarding to other email accounts for "security reasons." Basically they say that they can't guarantee that you received a message if you have them forward it to another email account.

I'll take my chances. Luckily, Gmail can be set to pull from and shove to other email accounts via POP3 (maybe IMAP -- I'm not so sure about this), so I can send and receive messages at will, using Gmail, through my university mail address. Only downside is you can't set the frequency for how often it checks the other servers for mail.

Gmail's okay, but it takes a bit longer to load than hotmail seems to. I prefer the gmail layout, but the mild annoyance with loading times makes me like hotmail more.

Dave wrote:Gmail can be set to pull from and shove to other email accounts via POP3 (maybe IMAP -- I'm not so sure about this)

You can access Gmail using IMAP or POP3, but Gmail can only pull from other accounts using POP3.

Only downside is you can't set the frequency for how often it checks the other servers for mail.

I think it automatically checks every hour. You can manually force a check at any time, though.

Oh, and I'll throw in my vote for Gmail. I've lost messages using Hotmail (though that was years ago), and Hotmail's ads take up too much screen space last I used it. Yahoo's interface is too cluttered, but I haven't had any reliability problems with it. And, of the three, Gmail has shown, by far, the best spam protection.

Gmail no questions. Been using it for years and trust it enough to teach my 65+ year old parents on it.

Zuul wrote:Gmail's okay, but it takes a bit longer to load than hotmail seems to. I prefer the gmail layout, but the mild annoyance with loading times makes me like hotmail more.

The vast majority of that is the AJAX loading. If you switch to the basic html, it'll load orders of magnitude faster.

Of course, you loose all those cool AJAX features though.