Choosing the right email service!

yashsr · 23 Mar 2005, 06:56 PM

Now-a-days, no one uses 1 email service, its either 2-3 or more. And its virtually impossible to select only one email service that meets our needs, except for the fact that we use emails only to send and receive mails, no other features required.

My emailing needs in short-----
1) Space and simplicity
2) Reliability, Group Features and many advanced features..
3) Preserve my old email address (which is active from 6 years).

I think I have hit the right combination----
1) Gmail (free)
2) Fusemail (Group Basic)
3) Rediffmail (free, using it from the past 6 years).

Although I am having a serious look at Bluebottle as a 4th option.

So when I need simplicity, I go to Gmail. When I need advanced features, I go to Fusemail and when I need to mail my old pals, I fall back to Rediffmail. No emailing problems.

And if someone wants to have only one email address, Yahoo! is the place, it has a mix-blend of features, simplicity, space (heard news of it being upgraded to 1Gb) etc.
OR
Try Fusemail where you could fuse accounts from----
1) Hotmail
2) Yahoo!
3) Juno
4) Mindspring
5) MSN
6) Earthlink
7) AOL
8) Other POP3 accounts
9) Other IMAP accounts

Good Luck in your decision.

EDIT : I have many accounts, but use 4 of them, Gmail, Fusemail, Rediffmail and Bluebottle.

xbot · 23 Mar 2005, 07:33 PM

My email needs are fairly simple.

-Space
-Email Client access
-Few (or none) ads
-No flash/java advertisements.
-Reliable
-Fast webmail interface

All these are covered by my own service, but I use 7+:

1. Fusemail
2. Fastmail
3. NXS
4. Mailarge
5. Hipocampo
6. Yahoo! (Using SBC Yahoo! DSL--get paid account

)
7. Gmail

And those are the ones in the client--I have many more

Redpin · 24 Mar 2005, 04:37 AM

I started an email service (which got incorporated into the current business two years ago) because, although my needs were (I thought) simple, I couldn't find anyone out there who met them.

Then as now, I wanted speed and reliability, first and foremost. My hobbies involve a fair amount of travelling, so basic webmail is a must. Anything else falls under the "nice to have" heading.

I have four email addresses. One thru my ISP, which goes up and down like... something that goes up and down a lot.

They also use "greylisting" and Postini spam/virus filtering, which mean that it can take over an hour for mail to reach me there... when things are working right! I have one address thru my business, and one address at my personal site's domain, hosted on one of my servers. This latter one is my "primary" email address. I also got a Gmail account way back when they were rare, to see what the hype was about. I was not then, and still am not, impressed. It's painfully slow, and all the neat "features" are nothing you can't do with an IMAP client or nicely-configured install of Squirrelmail. Even for free, I'm just not impressed. <shrug>

At the risk of perpetrating a threadjacking, I'm really intrigued that everyone so far lists storage space as their primary requirement. Even with fairly heavy usage buying and selling on eBay, buying from other online stores, running a business, and communicating with family, friends, and business contacts via email, I send less than 1.5MB of mail a year, and receive about 4MB, including spam. Of that 4MB, about 400k is stuff worth saving more than a week, and most of *that* is customer billing or support stuff that I keep "just in case".

The majority of our customers use less than 10MB of space... the average right now is 6.43MB/account, if I'm doing the math correctly. Admittedly, a few are using POP3, not IMAP, so the above figure is probably a little low, but still under 10MB. Why on earth do you folks (think you) need 1GB of space?!

stonecypher · 24 Mar 2005, 05:27 AM

I believe some people are really into storing pictures, movies, and audio files in their email accounts. Otherwise 10 Mb should be plenty for most.

registered_user · 25 Mar 2005, 01:05 AM

Every attachement that's been sent to me since I started using FastMail is still on my account and even then, I still haven't used 10MB of disk space. I don't who is using a gig of email space but I sure wouldn't want to have to sift through that massive library of mail looking for a specific message, advanced search tools or no advanced search tools.

Ernie@ · 25 Mar 2005, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Redpin

The majority of our customers use less than 10MB of space... the average right now is 6.43MB/account, if I'm doing the math correctly. Admittedly, a few are using POP3, not IMAP, so the above figure is probably a little low, but still under 10MB. Why on earth do you folks (think you) need 1GB of space?!

I think in your case, 250 MEG would be sufficient for a while.

For my self I'm a real junk collector, and have not thrown anything away in three years on my IMAP account, and I'm over 120 MEGS, and growing. I do think I need to clean it out some day. Even though I have the account setup up for 10 GIGABYTES, I will never use it up anytime soon!

Ernie

rmns2bseen · 25 Mar 2005, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Redpin
Why on earth do you folks (think you) need 1GB of space?!

ahhh think back to the days when finding a webmail account that had a 10MB storage capacity was something great

I'm with you, Redpin...I really don't need 250MB. If I don't want to save an email (which is about 80% of the emails I've ever gotten, I guess) I delete it. It always seemed logical

SusanUKF · 25 Mar 2005, 12:06 PM

I am actively using 6 Paid Fastmail accounts and a lot of Yahoos, Promptpost, msn's (mostly for messenger), and quite a few others, (mostly to keep an eye on the performance levels of the services).

Susan.

yashsr · 25 Mar 2005, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SusanUKF
I am actively using 6 Paid Fastmail accounts and a lot of Yahoos, Promptpost, msn's (mostly for messenger), and quite a few others, (mostly to keep an eye on the performance levels of the services).

Susan.

6 paid Fast mail accounts! You seem to be very rich

registered_user · 25 Mar 2005, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rmns2bseen
ahhh think back to the days when finding a webmail account that had a 10MB storage capacity was something great
I'm with you, Redpin...I really don't need 250MB. If I don't want to save an email (which is about 80% of the emails I've ever gotten, I guess) I delete it. It always seemed logical

Exactly. So many people think that just because you have a huge inbox that you should keep every single scrap of text that you recieve. I don't delete mail because I want to save space. The mail I delete, I delete because it's just needless clutter. I think I'd appreciate large email storage more if most of my mail wasn't so disposable.

All of my important email is kept, and organized nicely. I have all of the attachments on those important messages saved on the server too. And still, I don't use even a tenth of the storage space that is available to me.

Accumulating all of that mail isn't useful. It just complicates the process of finding the things you really need or want. I wonder sometimes if the people who use their full 1GB allotment of mail aren't just hanging on to all of the spam they receive, or even worse, if they're sending humungous files through email rather than some more sensible alternative.

Quote:

The historical process is (or should be) a process of distillation and not accumulation
Paul Rand - Legendary Designer

**psalzer** · 25 Mar 2005, 07:54 PM

I don't like a lot of clutter either, but the way people use e-mail is increasing the need for large storage. 10 or 15 MB would be a constant worry for me because I get business related files that are a couple of mbs each or more on a regular basis. Most people have no idea how to use ftp or other methods to send the files.

Not having a laptop, I used to worry a lot when I went away for a weekend or something. A couple of day's worth of mail could send me over quota. Starting with Fastmail, no more worries on that score. Now there are a lot of choices. I don't need a gig, but it's nice to have. Last night I sent a plain message to someone with a mac.com account, which I believe is 125 mb. I know he depends on that account for important, business related mail, but the message bounced and the error that I got said his account is over quota.

yashsr · 25 Mar 2005, 08:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by psalzer
Last night I sent a plain message to someone with a mac.com account, which I believe is 125 mb. I know he depends on that account for important, business related mail, but the message bounced and the error that I got said his account is over quota.

Hmmm, 125Mb attachment, too huge, which service provides that limit....?

I have heard of Runboc 30Mb, Fusemail 50Mb and MailSnare 100Mb, but not 125Mb anywhere. And yes I know Fastmail now provides 30Mb for Full accounts and 50Mb for Enhanced Accounts.

xmailer · 25 Mar 2005, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by yashsr
Hmmm, 125Mb attachment, too huge, which service provides that limit....?

I have heard of Runboc 30Mb, Fusemail 50Mb and MailSnare 100Mb, but not 125Mb anywhere. And yes I know Fastmail now provides 30Mb for Full accounts and 50Mb for Enhanced Accounts.

I believe psalzer was referring to the total size/capacity of the mac.com account mailbox, not the attachment size limit.

yashsr · 25 Mar 2005, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by xmailer
I believe psalzer was referring to the total size/capacity of the mac.com account mailbox, not the attachment size limit.

Oh yes, sorry for creating a confusion, thanks xmailer for correcting this...

**psalzer** · 26 Mar 2005, 05:04 AM

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was talking about the total capacity of the account, which you'd think would be pretty big, but apparently not big enough for some.

View Poll Results: How many active email accounts are you using?
1	7	10.45%
2-3	18	26.87%
4-7	22	32.84%
more than 7	20	29.85%
Voters: 67. You may not vote on this poll

23 Mar 2005, 06:56 PM	#1
yashsr Essential Contributor Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Mumbai, India Posts: 240	Choosing the right email service! Now-a-days, no one uses 1 email service, its either 2-3 or more. And its virtually impossible to select only one email service that meets our needs, except for the fact that we use emails only to send and receive mails, no other features required. My emailing needs in short----- 1) Space and simplicity 2) Reliability, Group Features and many advanced features.. 3) Preserve my old email address (which is active from 6 years). I think I have hit the right combination---- 1) Gmail (free) 2) Fusemail (Group Basic) 3) Rediffmail (free, using it from the past 6 years). Although I am having a serious look at Bluebottle as a 4th option. So when I need simplicity, I go to Gmail. When I need advanced features, I go to Fusemail and when I need to mail my old pals, I fall back to Rediffmail. No emailing problems. And if someone wants to have only one email address, Yahoo! is the place, it has a mix-blend of features, simplicity, space (heard news of it being upgraded to 1Gb) etc. OR Try Fusemail where you could fuse accounts from---- 1) Hotmail 2) Yahoo! 3) Juno 4) Mindspring 5) MSN 6) Earthlink 7) AOL 8) Other POP3 accounts 9) Other IMAP accounts Good Luck in your decision. EDIT : I have many accounts, but use 4 of them, Gmail, Fusemail, Rediffmail and Bluebottle. Last edited by yashsr : 23 Mar 2005 at 07:09 PM.

23 Mar 2005, 07:33 PM	#2
xbot Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Michigan Posts: 922 Representative of: xxos.us	My email needs are fairly simple. -Space -Email Client access -Few (or none) ads -No flash/java advertisements. -Reliable -Fast webmail interface All these are covered by my own service, but I use 7+: 1. Fusemail 2. Fastmail 3. NXS 4. Mailarge 5. Hipocampo 6. Yahoo! (Using SBC Yahoo! DSL--get paid account ) 7. Gmail And those are the ones in the client--I have many more

24 Mar 2005, 04:37 AM	#3
Redpin Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Saint Paul, MN Posts: 21 Representative of: Redpin.com	I started an email service (which got incorporated into the current business two years ago) because, although my needs were (I thought) simple, I couldn't find anyone out there who met them. Then as now, I wanted speed and reliability, first and foremost. My hobbies involve a fair amount of travelling, so basic webmail is a must. Anything else falls under the "nice to have" heading. I have four email addresses. One thru my ISP, which goes up and down like... something that goes up and down a lot. They also use "greylisting" and Postini spam/virus filtering, which mean that it can take over an hour for mail to reach me there... when things are working right! I have one address thru my business, and one address at my personal site's domain, hosted on one of my servers. This latter one is my "primary" email address. I also got a Gmail account way back when they were rare, to see what the hype was about. I was not then, and still am not, impressed. It's painfully slow, and all the neat "features" are nothing you can't do with an IMAP client or nicely-configured install of Squirrelmail. Even for free, I'm just not impressed. <shrug> At the risk of perpetrating a threadjacking, I'm really intrigued that everyone so far lists storage space as their primary requirement. Even with fairly heavy usage buying and selling on eBay, buying from other online stores, running a business, and communicating with family, friends, and business contacts via email, I send less than 1.5MB of mail a year, and receive about 4MB, including spam. Of that 4MB, about 400k is stuff worth saving more than a week, and most of that is customer billing or support stuff that I keep "just in case". The majority of our customers use less than 10MB of space... the average right now is 6.43MB/account, if I'm doing the math correctly. Admittedly, a few are using POP3, not IMAP, so the above figure is probably a little low, but still under 10MB. Why on earth do you folks (think you) need 1GB of space?!

24 Mar 2005, 05:27 AM	#4
stonecypher Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 123	I believe some people are really into storing pictures, movies, and audio files in their email accounts. Otherwise 10 Mb should be plenty for most.

25 Mar 2005, 01:05 AM	#5
registered_user Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 164	Every attachement that's been sent to me since I started using FastMail is still on my account and even then, I still haven't used 10MB of disk space. I don't who is using a gig of email space but I sure wouldn't want to have to sift through that massive library of mail looking for a specific message, advanced search tools or no advanced search tools.

25 Mar 2005, 12:06 PM	#8
SusanUKF Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 5,428	I am actively using 6 Paid Fastmail accounts and a lot of Yahoos, Promptpost, msn's (mostly for messenger), and quite a few others, (mostly to keep an eye on the performance levels of the services). Susan.

25 Mar 2005, 07:54 PM	#11
psalzer Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Long Island, NY Posts: 2,654	I don't like a lot of clutter either, but the way people use e-mail is increasing the need for large storage. 10 or 15 MB would be a constant worry for me because I get business related files that are a couple of mbs each or more on a regular basis. Most people have no idea how to use ftp or other methods to send the files. Not having a laptop, I used to worry a lot when I went away for a weekend or something. A couple of day's worth of mail could send me over quota. Starting with Fastmail, no more worries on that score. Now there are a lot of choices. I don't need a gig, but it's nice to have. Last night I sent a plain message to someone with a mac.com account, which I believe is 125 mb. I know he depends on that account for important, business related mail, but the message bounced and the error that I got said his account is over quota.

26 Mar 2005, 05:04 AM	#15
psalzer Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Long Island, NY Posts: 2,654	Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was talking about the total capacity of the account, which you'd think would be pretty big, but apparently not big enough for some.