Friday, September 07, 2007

Advice, Please!

I'm thinking of shifting from my current BT-based email to a web-based system like hotmail. (The impetus for this being that my current email folders seem to be corrupted and I can't receive any emails to my normal address at the moment)

As email is very important for my council work, I want to make the right decision...

So I'd be grateful for any comments or advice - particularly from other councillors- as to whether they are happy with hotmail or yahoo.

I probably send and receive 10 emails a day on average.

Thanks :)

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have used web based email ever since going on broadband. The advantage is you can access it from any computer. I guess the disadvantage is you cannot access without going on the internet but with broadband what does that matter and anyway it does not apply to my .Mac mail anyway as that automatically syncronises into the mail application so you can use either system. The other web based mail I use is http://www.orange.co.uk/ which I am happy with. I have used yahoo but just did not like the 'feel' of it though no particular problems. Never used Hotmail.

Anonymous said...

I have been very happy with Gmail. It provides over 2 gigabytes of free space. And you can connect it with your blogger account, which means that you'll only have to log in once. It's probably easiest to sign in with your blogger login in http://www.google.co.uk/ (on the right top of the page) and follow the instructions.

Anonymous said...

Have 3 emails for different things - Have tried and tested several web based emails. Agree gmail box is the best. They catch almost all the span and it's less stress on my own computer.

Tristan said...

My wife, mother and father all use GoogleMail (can't be called Gmail in Europe due to someone else owning that...)

Given my mother went on the Internet for the first time 2 weeks ago and is happily using it, it must be easy to use.

It is reportedly by far the best webmail application out there.

Google have, in my opinion, provided enough assurances about privacy as well.

Gavin Whenman said...

As above, I'm very happy with GMail - storage is so big you'll never use it all (and if you ever do, they'll probably have expanded it by then).

I've heard good things about Yahoo Mail - apparently the version coming out of beta at the moment is da balls.

Rob Parsons said...

Ditto. I've just started using gmail as well as my own private account, and I've started encouraging people at work to use it too. There is the big advantage with webmail that you can log in from everywhere. I personally would keep an eye on Google with regard to privacy issues, but I don't think there are any issues specific to Google, just that they're aiming to be bigger than all the other providers. I like the interface.

One of the issues about moving to the web interface is getting used to tagging rather than having a folder structure. Think out your tags first, and make yourself apply them consistently, then you'll be very happy.

Rob

Anonymous said...

I would avoid hotmail - I cannot send emails from hotmail to AOL or Yahoo - they all think I am spam.

Paul Hulbert said...

I suggest avoiding hotmail like the plague - it attracts loads of spam.

I highly recommend Google Mail. It's fast and very flexible - tags instead of folders, so you can put a message in two or more "places", e.g. "Libdem" and "Bristol" and "Council".

Onlinefocus Team said...

Ladies and Gents: - this is really helpful, I hadn't even thought about gmail.

Does it cope with attachments OK? How often do you have to log in to avoid losing your account?

Ryan said...

Having got an invite for Gmail when it was in beta I wasn't sure about it. I had been able to live with the way I had set up my own domain for several years, including getting stuff sent around the houses to find me wherever I was. However Gmail was just great. It's always available, the interface is really easy to use, you can download a client for your mobile, and as I now have it the primary inbox for my life. In the 3 years I've been with them I'm at 440mb of storage space out of a near 3gb.

Attachment handling is good, done via Ajax, so if you attach first, then type, you can find that it's already stored the files on their servers waiting for you to hit send.

Not sure about a login frequency, as I'm in my Gmail account around 30% of the day.

Francesca E S Montemaggi said...

Yahoo is really good! Lots of memory, new beta format, great spam blocking facility. Stay away from hotmail!

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