Free e-Mail service wanted.

aquafire

Doesn't it always happen...

I had a great Free email provider with 5 megs of storage +up to 2 meg transfers..

Now they've been taken over by a bunch of cash jocks who want to start charging for use...the temerity of these pip sweaks...!



In the meantime I'm using Hotmail which is really totally crap.



I know how savvy you guys are..so I'd really appreciate your naming names here....

Thanx a bunch

stevenr

Try www.myrealbox.com. It is a free service provided by Novell.



Steven

escher

Hotmail is definitely the worst of the worst. Personally, I use Yahoo for free e-mail. I've used my Yahoo account for several years and have yet to receive a single piece of SPAM. Mac users also seem to like SpyMac's free e-mail service.



I'm still pissed that Apple started charging $100 a year for .Mac e-mail.



Escher

logan

Sure Escher, sure. Yahoo for years and no spam I really believe that.

evo

There's a little known email service called Fastmail ( http://www.fastmail.fm ) and I've been using it ever since iTools became .Mac. It's been great.. it has IMAP support so I can use Mail, web-based email, 10MB storage, 40MB bw/month, 50 domains to choose from, very reliable service, and little advertising.. there's no banners on the webpage and the only way they intrude on your emails is putting a little link and slogan at the end of your email.. but who DOESN'T do that for free? I'd reccommend this to anyone looking for free email.

mcq

Myrealbox doesn't do it, but you have to put up with random (though infrequent) outages from time to time since they use it as a way to test some of their products. I use Myrealbox and have been pretty happy with it overall.

not unlike myself

Quote:

Originally posted by Escher

pissed that Apple started charging $100 a year for .Mac e-mail.

Awww....sour grapes.



But seriously.. me too. I dropped my free account and never paid. It's a shame. I had stevejobsismydad@mac.com

brocktoon

Try http://www.myway.com ... it's like Yahoo without the ads.



--Dale

groverat

Does anyone know when Apple is going to release all of the old iTools names and make them available to .Mac folks?

jegrant

I thought that all the old iTools names (blahblahblah@mac.com) were still reserved as iChat / AIM names. I have to wonder though, if a paying customer really wants one of those names, if Apple will eventually release them. There should be some kind of inactivity rule. Like, if you don't sign up for .Mac and you don't login to AIM / iChat with that name at least once every 90 days or 180 days, it gets tossed back into the pool of available names. I think that would be fair, because anyone who really wants to keep a name could pay for it, or keep it for free by occasionally using AIM or iChat.



Also, Low End Mac has a decent page about free email providers:

http://www.lowendmac.com/misc/03/0609.html



They list 11 free providers & 2 low cost providers.

murbot

Quote:

Originally posted by Logan

Sure Escher, sure. Yahoo for years and no spam I really believe that.

Escher is probably the last guy here that would lie about anything. I assume you're being a tad sarcastic?



I also have email accounts that have never received a single spam email. It's not THAT unheard of. My hotmail account is just terrible though - I haven't used it in at least 2 years, and I still get around 25 emails a day. That's 25 emails a day, for 2 years, and not one single legitimate email - 100% spam. I just have it around because some family members only use MSN Messenger, and I fire it up when I need to talk to them. I log into the email every few weeks and just delete everything in the inbox.

leoo

Quote:

Originally posted by aquafire In the meantime I'm using Hotmail which is really totally crap.

Actually, with the capability of setting your Inbox to exclude ALL email other than from addresses and domain names you know and trust, Hotmail has the most powerful spam filter imaginable. Add everyone in your Address Book to your online Hotmail Address Book, set your Junk Mail Filter at Exclusive, and welcome to ZERO spam heaven.



Furthermore, you can check your email via an actual email program instead of a slow cumbersome website. On OS9 you have Outlook Express, on OSX you can use Entourage, and on Windows you can use Outlook or Outlook Express.

torifile

You can also use mail.app to check your hotmail account. Junk mail filters work too. It's called httpmail and it works pretty well.

dog almighty

I got a netscape.net acount when I downloaded Netscape 7.01. As far as I know, there aren't any restrictions, and it's free.



EDIT: Ah, nevermind. It's got a five meg limit, the bastards.

leoo

Quote:

Originally posted by Dog Almighty

I got a netscape.net acount when I downloaded Netscape 7.01. As far as I know, there aren't any restrictions, and it's free.



EDIT: Ah, nevermind. It's got a five meg limit, the bastards.

Well, that's better than free Hotmail's puny 2MB limit.



And Netscape.net email works pretty well, and you can check it via Netscape 7's email client, which is available for Mac, Windows, and even Linux. Plus it gets you a Screen Name which you can use on AIM.



The downside is, while the email software is just as good as Outlook Express, Netscape.net email itself doesn't have nearly the same feature options that Hotmail does. Clicking on Options on the Hotmail website gives you a great array of powerful choices, including filters to send incoming mail to various folders according to criteria you decide, and so on. Also, again, Hotmail has server-level spam blocking, with the Exclusive setting being by far the best that I've seen.

junkyard dawg

I second www.myrealbox.com from Novell. What made me choose this service is that it has an smpt server so I can use it with mail.app. It has SOME outages because Novell uses it for beta testing, but they are infrequent and short.

macusers

www.macmail.com is great