For those of you using an email provided by your school, work, or ISP
(internet service provider) instead of a free and permanent email
account such as Yahoo!,
Gmail,
or Hotmail
(or something like that) it's a good idea to switch your email to a
free provider now.
This way, when you leave your job, school, or current provider, you
don't lose all your emails or have to worry about people emailing you
at your old address that you don't have anymore. With some email
providers, gmail specifically, you can forward your emails to your
current address so you only need to check one account.
I recommend Gmail &/or Yahoo! - Get BOTH & forward your gmail to your Yahoo so you only have to check one account for all your mail!
Both have their advantages & dis-advantages...
For example:
- Yahoo! is the second-most used search engine next to
Google. Yahoo Mail is the largest e-mail service in the world with
almost half the market share & their e-mail service offers
unlimited storage - Gmail storage is still limited.
- Yahoo users can use their yahoo ids as OpenIDs
which allows them to log on to many different web sites using a single
digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and
password for each site.
- Google has Picasa,
while Yahoo has Flickr.
- Yahoo also provides a personalization service, My Yahoo, which
enables users to collect their favorite Yahoo features, content feeds,
and information into a single page, while Google has IGoogle.
- Gmail users can use the Gspace
Firefox extension to use your Gmail Space (over 6 GB and growing) for
online file storage.
- Gmail users can forward their email to any other address
while Yahoo! users can only do that if they are paying "Plus" members.
- Google is evil (not that Yahoo isn't!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google
http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/11/google.html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google_pr.html
- Google and Yahoo both have Groups, Video, integrated
Instant Messenger services, & lots more - they both also offer
various services that the other does not.
For a more complete comparison, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_webmail_providers
Google/Gmail:
10 reasons to use Gmail: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about.html
Gmail features: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.html
All that Google has to offer: http://www.google.com/intl/en/options
Yahoo!:
Take a closer look at Yahoo! Mail: http://info.mail.yahoo.com
See all Yahoo! has to offer: http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/family/more
Yahoo!
-vs- Gmail:
http://lifehacker.com/software/email/yahoo-mail-innovates-gmail-stagnates-293929.php
Whatever you choose, PLEASE
AVOID AOL!!!
A few reasons why AOL sucks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL#Controversies
http://www.aolwatch.org
http://anti-aol.org/oldindex.shtml
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-aol.php
http://www.mercola.com/2006/jul/8/yet_another_reason_why_aol_is_evil_and_should_never_be_used.htm