OT: free e-mail recomendations

I am looking for a backup free e-mail service, for when ATT/SBCGlobal/Yahoo (these are my current providers, and they seem to all be the same thing) goes down.

I want free POP access; I don't need a lot of on line features.

Gmail is a big snoop.

What else?

Reply to
taxed and spent
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|I am looking for a backup free e-mail service, for when ATT/SBCGlobal/Yahoo | (these are my current providers, and they seem to all be the same thing) | goes down. | | I want free POP access; I don't need a lot of on line features. |

I got an account at inbox.com, simply because the other sites I looked at required a real email account as ID before one could get one of their accounts! (The only thing worse than having Google rifle through your desk is for Google to be spamming youwhile they do it. :)

Inbox just requires that you check your email at least every 90 days at their online site. But you can set up POP3. (I mainly just have it for companies that refuse to do business without an email account, so I don't really use my inbox account, but I have used the POP3 functionality and it worked fine.)

I have a niece in tech who's using hushmail. I haven't looked into it, but it's supposed to be more private than the mainstream, freebie services.

Other options are to pay a couple dollars per month for a more legitimate service, or get your own domain. The latter option is something that most people don't consider, but it's not hard to do. I pay $9/month for a fully functional website and something like 100 possible email addresses. And you don't have to be snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com if you have your own domain. You can be snipped-for-privacy@yourdomain.com You could set up a website or not. Some people just "park" the domain and use it for email, maybe file transfers, etc.

Web hosting is a lot like email, though. If you want free or very cheap then you can't expect a legitimate product. Cheapo hosts may sub out your email to the likes of Google or Yahoo. Or they may not even provide full email service. The business is crowded with $2/month bargain services that promise unlimited everything but assume that you won't actually use their resources.

Reply to
Mayayana

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Reply to
hubops

mail.aol.com Not bad, not a lot of crap to click through to get to your inbox.

mail.yandex.com Just started to try it out. Not bad so far. I think it is in Russia so the creators probably don't like Obama and I'd give them a higher rating just for that.

mail.com Way too many screens to click through to get to your inbox. This is why I went looking for and started using yandex.

There are many others. Give some a try and if you're not pleased abandon it and move on to the next. Besides, nobody uses their real info for these throw-away accounts anyway.

Reply to
Gordon Shumway

Set up your own domain, MX record and SMTP server.

If you expect someone to give you something for nothing, you are a moocher.

Reply to
Scott Lurndal

For "peristent" accounts, you can try AOL, GMX and InBox. I think GMail and Yahoo, etc. now want a way of tying a genuine person to a particular account (i.e., provide your telephone number, etc.). Or, at the very least, try to limit accounts to one per person with such mechanisms (I'm sure GMail wants to be able to tie your email to your phone and to your browsing and search histories!).

For disposable (very short term) accounts, I use guerrilla (e.g., for sites where they insist on an email address before they will let me download something -- and, *verify* that address by emailing a link to the actual download).

You can also find a friend with an SMTP server. But, that makes your convenience one of *his* "chores". :<

Many schools (colleges) offer free accounts to their alumni. This gives them a way of keeping tabs on you when they want to press for donations (to build yet another EMPTY building in lieu of lowering tuition costs).

Some businesses will slip you an account "on the side" -- as long as you don't abuse it (sending junk mail, big attachments, etc.).

If you're ambitious, you can set up your own email server (MX domain) but will probably need a static IP and/or DDNS service. You then assume ALL of the effort and risk for the service. Most folks don't want to be bothered to that extent -- very little upside reward and lots of potential downside risk (now you have a machine "exposed" that can be hacked, DoS'd, etc.)

And, if push comes to shove, snail mail! :> I've actually found that snail mail gets more reliable results than email -- esp if I include an email address *in* the snail mail! Email is too easy to ignore; not intentionally but, rather, just think of it as "It'll be in my inbox so I can follow up on it, later. Of course, as more messages arrive, its easy to forget which ones you were going to follow up on "later" (most people either fail to use the flags that their mail clients provide *or* use them so much that they lose their effectiveness)

ObTip: it can't hurt to have web access IN ADDITION to IMAP/POP3 for the account! Handy when you're someplace that won't let you configure a mail client (e.g., visiting a friend, business, etc.)

*but* makes web access available to you!
Reply to
Don Y

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