Trends in Free Email Services

These days, if you want to get in touch with someone, chances are that you'll contact them by email rather than by regular post. Email has become one of those essential things in life that one just can't do without. To be able to send or receive an email you obviously need a valid email address and there are plenty of providers around the Internet. Temporary and permanent, free and paid-for services are all available, and which you choose depends on your personal preferences and requirements. If, for example, you need POP3 access, extra-large space and an email address with your own domain name, you will need to go for paid service. Otherwise a free service will do just fine.

Free email services have come a long way from the limited features and limited storage space that were available previously. The major turning point came when Google announced their Gmail service, which was rather remarkable then, for offering a 1 GB mailbox. You also got the Google search facility and Google Talk in the same service, as well as some sturdy SPAM protection. Google has since upped its ante to 5.11 GB and, who knows, it may up that as well.

Soon after Yahoo and Rediff, the two other major players, announced they were going to be generous to subscribers too, denied that this generosity owed anything to Google's move, and respectively went from 4 MB mailbox to 100 MB mailbox and a 5 MB mailbox to a 1 GB mailbox. Yahoo and Rediff are both now offering Unlimited Email Storage. If you have a UK or Canada account, Yahoo also gives you either free POP3 access.

Microsoft didn't want to be left behind. So Hotmail went from a 2 MB mailbox to a 250 MB mailbox. Microsoft has now transitioned to Windows Live Hotmail which started out with 2 GB of online storage and now boasts 5 GB.

Currently the trends point towards not just towards increasingly larger mail boxes, with greater or unlimited storage spaces, but also stronger SPAM protection, anti-virus check and easy access from anywhere at anytime. In addition, it is almost de rigueur to offer handy features like a notepad, calendar, improved address book, contact importing from Outlook, folders to help you sort your emails by category, ability to send larger files as attachments, a search facility that lets you search by keyword, HTML mail capability, right-click support for deleting and forwarding, personal signature for outgoing mail, automatic notification of new email at another address, drag and drop support, and much more. The emphasis seems towards encouraging people to stay with their current email accounts for life. Some popular service providers are -

Yahoo - Yahoo has a great and easy-to-use interface and an excellent SPAM protection. You can send and store pictures, text and documents. You can also send 10 MB files as attachments. If you want more space, the ability to send 20 MB files as attachments and no ads, you can buy Yahoo! Mail Plus which comes for $19.95 per year.

Gmail - Gmail has extensively used AJAX technology which helps it to load quickly. You can store files with third-party applications and resources in Gmail.

Windows Live Hotmail - This too uses AJAX technology. Aside from the 5 GB storage, it comes with some better security measures, so, hopefully, it won't wind up being the Hotbed of Spammers. Windows Live Hotmail has the usual features like Contacts, Calendar and Windows Live Messenger. You can write emails in 35 different languages, so long you know how to.

MyTrashMail - If you want a temporary email address that is disposable, anonymous and doesn't require any registration or password, this is a good place. They've now gone to a new domain name @trashymail.com because, according to their site 'Receiving over 10,000,000 emails per day is just way too much for a single dedicated server.'

HushMail - Go for this if you're in the hush-hush business and need to encrypt every email you send. Attachments are also encrypted, so the secret data can be exchanged in due safety.

MuchoMail - That's 'Mucho', not 'Macho'. Just to be clear. You get 25 MB of storage - 1000 MB if you go paid Premium - and can send up to 3 unlimited-size attachments.

These were some of the best service providers. We hope that this information would be useful to you.