Free Email Accounts - Are they what you need?
Are you looking for a free email account? There are many companies offering
free email accounts on the Internet; two of the most popular ones being Yahoo
and msn Hotmail.
But is a free email account suitable for your needs ? and if it is which
one do you choose? .
Accessing Email Accounts
There a two very distinct methods
used for accessing email accounts/mailboxes and they have a great influence on
whether the email service is right for you. Some free email providers let you
use both, but most restrict you to one or they may charge you for the other. The
methods used to access email are:
Web based email (HTTP mail)
Almost all email providers (free or otherwise) provide access to your email
via a browser (Internet explorer). This makes it very easy to check your email
from any computer anywhere, with zero configuration.
The disadvantage of this method is that the mail is stored on the server and
you need to always be connected to the internet to read it. Therefore if you
require access to the mail when on the move and also require access when not
connected you need to choose a email provider that lets you retrieve mail via
webmail and POP3.
As with all things there are exceptions Msn hotmail even though it is web
based does let you retrieve email using Outlook Express and Incredimail and save
it to your local computer.
POP3 Access
This was until recently (pre 2003) the most popular method for accessing
email. It probably still is but since the success of hotmail, all other email
providers have started to offer web based email and POP3 has become a premium
service for some (Yahoo email).
If you want access to you email when not connected to the internet then POP3
is the best way to go. When you connect to you email provider using POP3 email
the email is normally moved form the server on the Internet to you local
computer.
It is however possible to configure POP3 such that you leave a copy of the
email on the server as well. From the point of view of the email provider this
is not encouraged as you are using disk space on the server an they have to pay
for it.
From a users perspective the main disadvantages of POP3 are that it needs you
to have a POP3 client (e.g. Outlook Express or IncrediMail) on the machine you
are using and that client needs to be setup and configured for the email
provider. If you travel and use a laptop then this is no problem, however if you
want to pick up you email in a cyber cafe then this is not the way to do it.
IMAP4
This is basically a replacement for POP3 but not very often offered by free
email providers. The same considerations apply as for POP3.
Email Addresses of Free Email Accounts.
All email addresses have the form name@domain-name.
Where name is your name and the domain name is usually the domain name of the
email provider e.g. Yahoo.com. So if your name is John Doe and you have an email
account with Yahoo, then your email address would be:johndoe@yahoo.com. See email
addresses for more details.
The problem with free email providers is that they are popular- after all
they're free! and so what you normally get is an email like: johndoe1234@yahoo.com. Not an
easy one to remember! These types of addresses make them totally unsuitable for
a business!
Because of the fact that getting the name you want can be difficult and also
owing to the fact that many people have more than one free email account I would
recommend that you adopt some kind of system for choosing them.
Do you Already Have a Free Email Account?
If you connect to the Internet the you connect using an ISP (Internet service provider). Most
ISPs not only provide you with an Internet connect they also usually provide you
with basic Internet services such as email accounts and web space.
So before you go looking for free email providers and in fact free web space
look at what your current ISP has to offer! You may already have what you
need.