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Five E-mail Services in Search of SubscribersSep 05 '00 Write an essay on this topic.In the realm of free e-mail services on the web, the list seems to grow ever longer with each passing month. This brief examination must necessarily be a personal one, geared more to the average user who does not want to send huge graphic files to colleagues or video clips to Cousin Cleo. They just want one or two e-mail addresses to use for filling in forms online and as a backup when the SMTP server of their ISP is once again throwing a little tantrum. "I've got a little list" to quote W.S. Gilbert, which contains a few well-recognized names and perhaps one or two that may be unfamiliar to you. In order, from barely-making-it to how-could-I-live-without-it, here are my candidates. 5. Netscape Webmail Netscape mail offers an easy to remember address and a typical web interface. An offshoot of usa.net, it follows a similar interface, albeit somewhat more streamlined and it loads with a bit more haste than usa.net, which is always a plus. It had been so long since I initially set up an account there that I had to go prowling around the site to nail down a few substantial facts. Five megabytes are allotted for storage and a running percentage of used space is presented when you log in. It offers the usual filters for organizing incoming mail as well as dealing with spam but not a comprehensive, all purpose Bulk Mail purge like some. E-mail from up to five other POP accounts can be collected and forwarded to the Netscape account. An autoresponse feature allows you to send out a canned reply when you're not up to much more than twiddling your cowlick. It also offers an "historical" record of your e-mail comings and goings for times when you feel life is getting away from you and you'd just like to pin something down. 4. Excite Mail A cheerful or somber but always cluttered interface awaits you at Excite. The ability to chose your own colour scheme preferences can be a decided advantage if you dislike the chilly hues of Netscape Webmail. Excite seems to highly regard this offering since the subscriber is urged at every logon to take advantage of it. A rather miserly three megabyte storage limit or 1000 messages, presumably whichever comes first, is offered. However, there are a few additional perks with this service, including voicemail messages and fax capability. Tucked away in the "preferences" sites are a few pleasant extras, including the option of having your Excite e-mail automatically sent to another account but you must be willing to accept targeted commercial mail in exchange. You may also have other e-mail account messages collected to your Excite account and use a different "Reply To:" address, should you wish. An automatic Junk Mail filter is placed on the account but that may be somewhat ineffective against the ravening hordes of junk e-mailers. The surprising lack of a spelling checker and the inability to filter specific e-mails into designated folders may deter some from using this service. However, despite these drawbacks it is a pleasant experience to use and Excite has gone out of its way to allow its subscribers to personalize the environment. 3. NewMail.Net NewMail.net is a somewhat different breed than the preceding well-known webmail offerings. Billing itself an "International" e-mail service, it is located two time zones east of the United Kingdom but I have not been able to narrow its origins more precisely than that. Unique among those on this list, it offers e-mail services in German, Hebrew as well as English and WebTV, with Arabic coming soon. However, NewMail is not simply a web-based e-mail service, although it may be used as such. It also offers POP service, so that it can be used from the "comfort" of your own e-mail client software, such as Eudora or Foxmail, without ever going on the Web. However, if you should be parted from your computer, you can still access your e-mail on the net. NewMail has an SMTP server, which they admit is still in "beta". In other words, not all the bugs have been ironed out yet. Offering five megabytes of storage space, filters for incoming mail and using the "international garbage' filter, NewMail can also collect mail from four additional e-mail addresses. A nice touch is the automatic address book which stores addresses of all sent and received e-mails and sits 'open' beside you when you are in the composition window online. The combination of several language choices, POP and web-based services make NewMail an interesting alternative. 2. MoreMail.com After the somewhat exotic splendors of NewMail, MoreMail might seem rather bland and pedestrian. Do not be misled by its vanilla appearance. This is a solid, reliable, no frills service but with a truly personal touch. No, the subscriber cannot gild the web interface but recently, when a minor glitch appeared to be affecting about 30 users, all 15,000 subscribers received an e-mail urging them to report any difficulties they might have experienced with the service and it was signed by a real human being, not the anonymous 'Tech Support'. MoreMail offers four megabytes of storage and the convenience of having a notification automatically sent to another e-mail address, when new messages arrive. Fast loading pages, a clean and easy interface, and a spelling checker with grammar and thesaurus make MoreMail functional and efficient. With only 15,000 subscribers, chances are that you can have the user name of your choice. 1. MailandNews.com Possibly the very best of all these e-mail offerings is "MailandNews". Like NewMail, it offers both POP and web-based services. Unlike NewMail, its SMTP server is not in beta but robust and dependable. Unique among web mail services MailandNews offers access to thousands of Usenet groups, should participation in a particular group be one of your avocations and your ISP reluctant to indulge you. The onsite ads are remarkably restrained and seem to be only for the various products offered by the company, Infinite Technologies, which makes for rapidly loading pages, even with an ancient computer. While most free e-mail web services add a promotional tagline to every e-mail sent, MailandNews allows the user to dispense with this entirely by adding their own signature closing.There are filters and forwarding services for online implementation, as well. Offering a comfortable TEN megabytes of storage and the option to enter 'secure mode' when online, MailandNews could easily replace the e-mail service from your ISP, provided that your ISP does not deny access to other SMTP servers' Port 25. If MailandMews supplied an alternative port for SMTP, their service would come close to perfection. As it is, MailandNews is possibly the most comprehensive e-mail offering on the web. Alas, I have not been as brief in describing these e-mail services as you, gentle reader, might have wished. However, I hope that what the above lacks in brevity is compensated by some useful information that will help you to winnow the many e-mail offerings online.  |
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by texas-swede
