Email Provider

mete

mete

Joined
Jun 10, 2003
Messages
15,288
More than a year ago the phone company gave the email job to yahoo and there have been problems ever since !! There are even websites devoted to the problems.This morning the email didn't work at all - AGAIN.
Could you give me some suggestions for an email source that knows what they are doing ? Thanks
 
After awhile, they all seem to turn to S***. My cable company turn it's email service over to Google. What a PITA that is. I tried hotmail for awhile, but they kept "improving" it
until it became unusable. Now, I use yahoo for most stuff and they are doing the same thing. The "improvements" just make it more difficult to use.

For years I used Eudora. I liked it so much that I even paid for it. :eek: They ruined it too. Sorry, I have no suggestions. They all suck.
 
Is MS Outlook worth investing in? I use gmail right now, but like others here I'm tired of "improvements" that just slow it down and bog down my computer. Why is it so difficult to offer a basic simple email? Like gmail used to be.
 
I recommend gmail. It has its faults, and there is some politics going that some disagree with. But Google is going to be around for a while, yahoo and micosoft/MSN/hotmail are probably going to shutdown, or at least really pull back on on the available services. Most of yahoo's employees don't even use yahoo service. Gmail has far fewer problems than any other provider I've had to deal with, and I'm wondering what problems Uffda is running into.

If you don't want to use web-based services, you can use something like thunderbird to manage your current email. There are other, better clients as well, depending on your needs (multiple device support, multi accounts, encryption) although a lot of them are open-source and require a fair bit of knowledge on the part of the user. I would avoid Outlook, unless you are already frequently using the rest of the microsoft office suite and are really comfortable with it, it is just painful. If you think Gmail slows things down, Outlook will make you want to burn things. Besides, if the main servers go down, that still means your email doesn't get through, no matter what method you are doing.

Keeping in mind that your provider (the @whatever.com) and your client are different, and if you want to change providers, you will loose your address, which might be a problem.

For those who are having trouble with Gmail on a slow machine or connection, click the "view in basic mode" or similar right as it is loading. it cuts out a few features, but if you like it, you get the option to default to it.
 
I too have used Gmail for over 5 years and no issues so far. Recommend you try it out. Very good anti-spam technology, unlimited storage space, easy to use, RELIABLE... etc etc. Of course, big brother is probably watching but that goes for anything these days (hi Bob!).
 
I have used gmail for a few years without too many problems. I use Thunderbird on my laptop so i dont have to deal with their annoying web interface, and my smartphone has its own email client built in that works with it. Have used it with Android and Apple devices and it works OK.
 
I have to say, I've used Yahoo for many years and it has always been very good; spam filters work well, seems very reliable...
I have a G-Mail account but rarely use it.

We use Outlook at work, and it has enormous numbers of bells and whistles that may be fine for people in a "productivity" environment but for us coppers it's unduly complex.
 
Are we talking email client software or are we talking an actual provider for the email service itself?
For home I often recommend using Windows live Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird, whatever the person is more comfortable with. For work, most companies including the one i work for uses Microsoft Outlook on Exchange servers. Some use Mac Mail, etc.

Now as Uffda mentioned, pretty much most email providers (Yahoo mail, Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, etc) have undergone some significant changes in the last few years. I use Yahoo, Gmail, and Outlook.com currently. Of the 3 I like Outlook.com the most. You get access to Microsoft Office software for free and the rest of the stuff you would normally get with other free providers. Very little ads compared to others too, and the layout doesn't much change unless you want it too.
 
Having used Germany's gmx.net for many years, I recommend United Internet AG's English language GMX Mail.

http://www.gmx.com/

Chief drawbacks: no encrypted mail, and their mail servers are in the USA — not that it makes much difference nowadays.

gmx_new_free_email_service_pop3_imap.jpg
 
I would always avoid ISP based email addresses, because you lose those when you switch ISPs. I've probably gone through half a dozen ISPs over the years, but my original Hotmail account from 1998 is still there. I prefer Gmail now, but any of the major web based email providers should be around for quite a while.
 
I'm trying to figure out which one to go with also. My primary email is with my internet provider Rogers (Yahoo). I also use Gmail but more for personal archiving of important documents for emergencies and such. My challenge is that once I do find a good replacement web mail provider, how do I transfer all my current Rogers Yahoo email folders and their contents over to the new account and keep them sorted? I haven't found any software yet that can do this.
 
There kind of isn't, email wasn't ever really set up for that kind of archive. It was originally assumed that anything important would just be saved or printed off. Your best bet is to save all of the things you want to save, either by copy/pasting them and saving as word processor documents, using the "print view" function and saving them as PDFs, alternately print them off into a book, or forward them all to your new address, and re-sort them again. It sucks if there is large amounts, but if this stuff is truly important, you should be backing it up in some other way than just the original provider.
 
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I've been using an email service called Fastmail (Fastmail.fm) for many years. They have free accounts, but I use their $40/year version which has no ads, tons of storage (I rarely delete mail), great spam protection, the system is powerful and I have it using my own domain. They have been extremely reliable. I think it's worth $40/year to not have Microsoft, Google or Yahoo in my email. I'm not a tin-foil hat guy, but to me it's money well spent to have more control over my email.

I highly recommend them.

Oh, and they do POP, IMAP and have a web client that is similar to GMail. I use all the key commands in the web client and it's very fast and efficient.
 
NaturalMystic said:
I'm trying to figure out which one to go with also. My primary email is with my internet provider Rogers (Yahoo). I also use Gmail but more for personal archiving of important documents for emergencies and such. My challenge is that once I do find a good replacement web mail provider, how do I transfer all my current Rogers Yahoo email folders and their contents over to the new account and keep them sorted? I haven't found any software yet that can do this.
Click to expand...

If you choose a replacement that will allow you to also set it up as a pop3 or IMAP acct (GMail will allow this) then you can set that account up in the same email client (Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Outlook) you have your primary email account in and merge the mail. Then you can move mail into folders that are on the webmail acct and you shoudl be good to go. Yahoo will allow you to do that for a fee but GMail allows that. Not sure about Outlook.com.

The best thing I ever did was register a domain and setup an Exchange Server acct. through GoDaddy. I get all my email on all my computers and other mobile devices....its all synced together and I never miss a thing. You get a free copy of Microsoft Outlook 2010 as well to run it on.

John
 
Didn't mean to derail the thread but thanks gadgetgeek and Caress of Steel for the input. I'm in the process of having my website for my photography business built by my buddy. I bought my domains from GoDaddy but he's gonna build and host the site and set up my email accounts for me. I'll ask him about the Exchange Server and see what I can do to transfer all my email from my Rogers webmail account. My main concern was transferring everything and maintaining the folders they're already in without manually having to refile things.
I used Outlook for years but got tired of having to do the same thing (transferring emails etc) whenever I moved to a new pc or laptop. I find keeping it all on webmail is easier because as you said John, everything stays synced across all my devices.

Anyhow, mete, sorry again dude for going off track, but hopefully this info was useful to you too! Cheers.
 
NaturalMystic, off track ? much of the discussion is like greek to me !! I'm a slow learner with computers. I'm still trying to find out how Microsoft or maybe Yahoo had removed all photos, screwed up documents and history whilw I was gone last summer .
 
LOL, K, just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't trying to railroad your thread. I figured it was in line with your original post anyway. Sorry your data got corrupted but here's what I can recommend for that. I'm not sure what can be used to recover what you've lost. This will probably require the assistance of someone you know who's more familiar with pcs though.
By default, you probably have one main hard drive (HDD) which is labelled as your C drive. Partition that drive which means you're going to split it and create several virtual drives. Windows 7 has a built in partitioner but there's also free software like "Partition Magic" that can do this. You can always adjust how much space is assigned to each drive. For example if your HDD is a 1Gb drive, Keep your C drive at about 100Gb and this will be used for your Operating System (OS) and all installed programs (Office, Photoshop, etc). The remaining 900 Gb (approx) of space on the HDD can be relabeled as your D drive (or whatever letter you choose to designate). You can label that D drive as your "Data" drive and this is where you should store all your data (photos, movies, music, documents, etc). This way if your OS is ever corrupted by a virus or whatever, it will (should) only affect your C drive and not your D (Data) drive.
I would also get a separate portable HDD (2 or 3 Gb capacity), and some free cloning or syncing software so you can create a backup of everything on your D drive. This way you'll always have a copy of your main data drive should anything happen to that main HDD.
This is basically what I do but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable can chime in.
 
I've been happy with Gmail. Don't sign up for any of that "Google+" crap, and I use Mozilla Thunderbird to check the mail.
 
NaturalMystic said:
Didn't mean to derail the thread but thanks gadgetgeek and Caress of Steel for the input. I'm in the process of having my website for my photography business built by my buddy. I bought my domains from GoDaddy but he's gonna build and host the site and set up my email accounts for me. I'll ask him about the Exchange Server and see what I can do to transfer all my email from my Rogers webmail account. My main concern was transferring everything and maintaining the folders they're already in without manually having to refile things.
I used Outlook for years but got tired of having to do the same thing (transferring emails etc) whenever I moved to a new pc or laptop. I find keeping it all on webmail is easier because as you said John, everything stays synced across all my devices.

Anyhow, mete, sorry again dude for going off track, but hopefully this info was useful to you too! Cheers.
Click to expand...


Well, if you set up an email account through a domain like that, you can use a standard account that uses POP3 or IMAP, or you can choose the option for Exchange Server. GoDaddy has a very good Webmail App you can use as well, so that might be something to consider. Exchange will cost you...I host several web sites so the few clients I have left from the days of web design pay for all my hosting/email services.

One of the things I like about Outlook is that you can take your PST/data file with you when you change email providers. That includes your contacts as well. Your buddy will probably know how to do all that. It can be a bit tricky but has been the best email client for the capability of backing email/contacts up for me.

John
 
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