"I like my e-mail with exclamation points!," she exclaimed!
Written: Nov 17 '00 (Updated Nov 17 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Many features and options, simple to use, POP3
Cons: Yahoo! fatigue from watching the company merge with other online services
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| Verbivore's Full Review: Yahoo! Mail |
In the 4 ½ years I have been using e-mail, I have opened many accounts. Some are for my personal e-mail, and others are for junk mail. I regarded Yahoo! as being in the latter category, having dismissed them due to previous experiences with other Yahoo! services. I like unusual-sounding e-mail addresses, ones that few have ever heard of. But Yahoo!...well, you just can't avoid them. So far they've bought geocities, egroups, and webring, and I am certain that they will find more ways to plaster their logo all over the internet.
So, then, how did I end up with not one, but TWO Yahoo! e-mail accounts?
I had been using unbounded.com e-mail for a year, and I was satisfied with their service. But there is potential drawback to using smaller providers: they disappear easily. The folks at unbounded.com announced that they were "moving on with their lives," and shutting the service down if they couldn't find a buyer soon. I prefer POP3 because I can read and compose email offline. What appealed to me most about unbounded was POP3 access, so I searched emailaddresses.com for other POP3 services. I thought Yahoo! was web-only, but there they were, on the list of POP3 services.
I was (and still am) bitter over the way Yahoo! ruined a perfectly good webring system, so I figured that their email couldn't be much better. I looked at the other POP3 providers, but none of them had very high ratings. Finally I realized that I couldn't be picky anymore; I needed a reliable, flexible e-mail service, period. Yahoo! has had consistently high ratings at epinions, and elsewhere online, so I gave them a try.
Hmmm...I guess they really DO have a lot of features...
Mail delivery options: One kind of POP3 (Post Office Protocol) allows the user to download and send e-mail with a program like Eudora, or MS Outlook. The procedure for setting up your program for a POP3 account varies depending on which program you have installed. With Yahoo! mail, you can also access up to three other POP3 accounts from the web.
Another option is having your Yahoo! e-mail forwarded to another address. Click on "options," then "POP Access and forwarding" to set up your delivery preferences. You can send and receive voice mail messages, or have e-mail forwarded to your pager or cell phone.
Address Book: Not only does each entry contain a name and e-mail address, but you can use this space to store phone numbers, offline address, and other personal information. Addresses can be entered individually or in groups.
Composing mail: Every e-mail program has this feature, of course, but Yahoo! lets you compose in either plain or formatted. Formatted means that you can use different fonts, colors, and other HTML to enhance the appearance of your e-mail (but keep in mind that the individual receiving the e-mail may be able to view plain text only).
Filters: A program called Spamguard automatically sends bulk e-mail to the Bulk Mail Folder, where it is deleted after 30 days. In addition, the user can block specific address from their account. Simply select "options" from the menu, and go from there.
Vacation response: If you plan on being away from your e-mail for awhile, you can arrange for an automatic response. This means that every time an e-mail is sent to your account, the sender will receive a note to let them know that you are away.
Premium services: For $19.95 a year, you can upgrade your mailbox size from 6 MB to 25 MB. And for $35 a year, you can register your own domain name, with up to five separate addresses. If you already have a domain, Yahoo! can host your e-mail for $10 a year.
Access to other Yahoo services: Your Yahoo email ID also serves as your ID for all Yahoo! services. It is your ID for chatting, posting in clubs (Yahoo!'s message boards), building a geocities webpage, and Yahoo pager (which is like AOL IM). Other features include Yahoo! Calendar, Yahoo! Finance, games, shopping, file storage, news, stock quotes...oh, and Yahoo! has a search engine, too.
In short...
Yahoo! e-mail came through for me! Seriously, I am impressed with the reliability of their service. The web interface is easy to navigate when I am away from my own computer. yahoo.com addresses don't exactly stand out in a crowd, but chances are someone will remember a yahoo.com address because Yahoo! is so well-known. While I still wish they had left webring alone, that's another review. As for Yahoo! e-mail, it almost makes me wish I could legally add an exclamation point to the end of my own name!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Verbivore
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Location: Syracuse, NY
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 76 members
About Me:
I stopped writing for epinions last year - not worth the drama.
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