Right up front: apologies for what might be a stupid question for those of you who understand technology.

In a few months, I will be selling my home. My current ISP (Frontier) only serves a limited area, and they do not offer service where I will be moving. For the 10 years in my current home, I have had an e-address with @frontier.net communications. My email downloads to my computer. While on the road, I can go to Frontier's web site and access all new messages before they are downloaded to my computer.

I know lots of friends who use Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail, etc. What is the advantage and disadvantage of using one of these accounts instead of using the ISP's email service?

Hints greatly appreciated. Suggestions for other "good" email services also welcome.

thanks!

G-mail will let you auto-forward to your 'new' ISP-mail, or POP (iirc), for free; Y! wants $$ for either ~ anti-spam is about even.

Wouldn't wish Hotmail on anyone less than my worst enemy, or a politician. {edit} or the TSA.

Set up your Gmail accts (yes!) now, & fwd to frontier & let your contacts get acclimated ~ Change the redirect target after the move .. easy.

/.

One vote for GMail.
You can use webmail, IMAP, POP or some combination of the above for access.
You get 6GB of storage.
You get 20MB attachments.
Your e-mail address isn't dependent on your ISP.

What's not to like?

Gmail - my school's systems switched to Gmail after a whole lot of research and test periods. Everyone is happier now. Essentially i get a ".edu" address but full gmail functionality.

Tons of storage space too - i actually dont suggest downloading email to your computer, rather leavin it online and accessing it via the web. Keeps your PC clutter free.

Thanks for the suggestions.

hmmmmm......"Desired login name not available." WHO STOLE MY LOGIN? Guess I will have to come up with something else creative.

Another vote for Gmail! Very reliable and free!

The big advantage of using something like Yahoo! or Gmail is that when you switch ISPs, you keep your email address. Also, if you don't download your mail, it's available anywhere you are as long as you have an Internet connection of some sort.

Downside is assorted privacy concerns.

I suggest Gmail which offers email forwarding, POP, and IMAP access, which are additional-cost features with other services.

(POP and IMAP will let you keep using whatever email software you're using now, though I've found that Gmail's interface is good enough that I've stopped using Thunderbird and Outlook)

I would also second the gmail suggestion, but with this addition: get your own domain name. Then in the future if you ever need to change from gmail for some reason, it's a 30 second matter of updating mail re-directs.

The other thing I like about gmail is that you can use it's smtp server now for all your outgoing mail (and it automatically archives all sent mail too), so no more smtp annoyances when on the road and not connected to your home isp.

I only use webmail (and work of course). Why would you get wedded to an address that will disappear when you change service providers?

Reviewed and ranked in order of preference-

Gmail: Advantages - easy to set up, nice interface, easy to import contacts, lots of storage. Also you can download a nice GMail application that runs on almost all cellphones and is better than any of the competition (at least for razr phones - obviously not an issue if you have a blackberry or other keyboard phones). Free POP3 which was easy to set up on my ipod touch (downloads mail every time I connect to free wi-fi). Disadvantages - no folders. This is bigger than you think, as you can't really organize your mail in Gmail. The "labels" don't really cut it.

Yahoo: Advantages - nice folder system, integrates well with other yahoo net products like yahoo home page, groups, finance, hotjobs, etc. Easy to open multiple messages. Free POP3 like Gmail. Disadvantages - phone interface is poor compared with Gmail program, and the new Yahoo Go! application doesn't work on many phones.

Hotmail - Advantages: Easy to create folders. Disadvantages: Poor user interface, no free POP-3 mail, no phone program, annoying bulk mail system. The worst of the lot.

= Google Apps

Is anyone else frustrated with Hotmail's latest "upgrade"? The server is always busy, the interface is always "loading" and frequently times out or simply has an error and shuts down all the open windows on your screen. The clunky new format makes it a lot harder to use. Is there any way to switch back? And if I switch to gmail, can people still contact me at my hotmail address which I simply forward to gmail? Im worried I might lose contacts if I change email addresses.

I also have gmail, and some folks get that address. On top of it, I use a mail forwarding service- www.pobox.com and get a [email protected] address. I've had this for about 10 years or so, and move the pointer to different underlying accounts. This is about $15/year (and was $60 for 5 years). In addition to the forwarding, I can have up to 3 or 5 addresses and they do some nifty spam filtering. Very happy with this.

Cheers.

Could someone elaborate on this, please? Can you really use GMail's SMTP server?

Yes. I currently have in enabled for one of my domains and used to use it for several.

You basically get the same Gmail interface (though it doesn't have the "Themes" yet) and access to the other Gmail features, including POP3/IMAP/SMTP access.

I don't really see the value in this. For $8/year you can get your own domain name and then just set up Gmail Apps to handle your email. And you get to choose your email domain instead of having the pobox.com one. Plus, when you send email it will come from your default email address instead of mail going to pobox.com and coming from the forwarded account.