Best free email?

[BillyTheAdult]

I am looking to open a new email account. I already have one main account with hotmail. I had a secondary account with gmail but it apparently was hacked recently as someone tried to (unsuccessfully) send out spam to my contacts from it. So I cancelled that and went to mail.com, which I thought was just a straightforward email service but it has all kinds of ads including pop-ups that get activated after you type your login name but before you type your password, highly irritating.

I would like something that is free with no ads. Looking for suggestions.

[mikethedrummer44]

I love Gmail. Just started using the labels to really make my email much easier to handle. I've never had any problems with it whatsoever.

[desertrat]

I get my mail from yahoo , I dont know if it is the best , but it is free. desert rat

[SatvikBeri]

I don't think gmail has many security problems, it's much more likely that there's some malware on your computer.

I vastly prefer gmail over any other mail. It really gets everything right.

[Sandstone]

Gmail!

[Curtis2011]

I agree with Gmail as well. I've never had problems with it, and it has the best spam filter I've seen, better than Yahoo Mail and my university email.

[LostMyMap]

GMail is fine, but I don't see what the big deal is about it. Their user interface is not that impressive. But it sends and receives emails.

[High Priest]

No doubt, it's Gmail!

[cacheborn]

Gmail! I don't feel like using anything else.

[VinceG]

People tell me a lot that their Gmail was hacked, but they can never offer a coherent narrative, usually they're being paranoid or just don't understand what happened, and seize upon the mail provider to cover up their own ignorance. If you have Gmail configured on a local email client, like Thunderbird, and your own computer gets hacked, then lots of malware will try sending spam out using that account. But that's not a problem with GMail, that's a problem with your piss-poor security practices! It can happen with any provider, not just Google.

[cacheborn]

Originally Posted by LostMyMap

GMail is fine, but I don't see what the big deal is about it. Their user interface is not that impressive. But it sends and receives emails.

I liked the idea of storing messages as conversations. That way it's much easier to keep track.

[Kali]

Originally Posted by cacheborn

I liked the idea of storing messages as conversations. That way it's much easier to keep track.

I also like the gchat feature

[cacheborn]

Originally Posted by Kali

I also like the gchat feature

Yes it's nice. And following that other sites like FR also offer chat.

[arpee]

Definitely Inbox. Gmail is overrated.

[BillyTheAdult]

Originally Posted by arpee

Definitely Inbox. Gmail is overrated.

Thank you somehow people read that I'm looking for a service other than gmail and interpret that as "tell me why you love gmail." I think it's great that they all have a service they love so much, but I don't like it and want something different.

As for incoherent narrative I don't think thats what I offered, and it is my gmail that was compromised not anything thing else anywhere else on my computer. I don't use an external email program to view my email, my gmail account was hardly ever used as it was just a secondary account, and tbh I don't really do anything on my computer that would put it at elevated risk. Visiting SP forums, facebook, basic informational surfing.

[VinceG]

Originally Posted by BillyTheAdult

As for incoherent narrative I don't think thats what I offered, and it is my gmail that was compromised not anything thing else anywhere else on my computer. I don't use an external email program to view my email, my gmail account was hardly ever used as it was just a secondary account, and tbh I don't really do anything on my computer that would put it at elevated risk. Visiting SP forums, facebook, basic informational surfing.

A coherent narrative would include details about the security incident itself. When did the emails start, when did they stop, what is the list of people who would have received them, what are the emails in question, how they were stopped, that sort of stuff. By looking at all this, especially the emails themselves, I could figure out what happened. But knowing what I know about email, I can't accept your assertion that your email was hacked without wanting further information.

[BillyTheAdult]

Hey! This thread is about ME! Okay.

[moonrambler]

My Gmail account recently sent out spam too. It sent spam to everyone in my 'contacts' list. I'm not 100 percent sure who they all were, because I just use Gmail as back-up. I think it's everyone I ever sent e-mail to from there. I deleted all the contacts after it happened.

I looked on Google to find out what to do about it, and it apparently isn't all that uncommon for Gmail accounts to get hijacked. It's unnerving because I can't figure out how they do it.

[cacheborn]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

My Gmail account recently sent out spam too. It sent spam to everyone in my 'contacts' list. I'm not 100 percent sure who they all were, because I just use Gmail as back-up. I think it's everyone I ever sent e-mail to from there. I deleted all the contacts after it happened.

I looked on Google to find out what to do about it, and it apparently isn't all that uncommon for Gmail accounts to get hijacked. It's unnerving because I can't figure out how they do it.

You should observe certain precautions.
I never use gmail account to login into another service. For instance, Facebook asks you to login into your email account to find your friends. That's risky. You never know if your password is being stored or who is getting the info.

[SatvikBeri]

Originally Posted by LostMyMap

GMail is fine, but I don't see what the big deal is about it. Their user interface is not that impressive. But it sends and receives emails.

(In no particular order):
1. Gchat
2. Conversations stored in email
3. SPEED. Both load time and search time in gmail are orders of magnitude above, say, Yahoo and Hotmail.
4. Extensions-for example, Boomerang is an extremely useful tool you can use to automatically re-receive emails that you didn't get a reply to within X days. This is the most convenient follow-up system I've seen so far.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by cacheborn

You should observe certain precautions.
I never use gmail account to login into another service. For instance, Facebook asks you to login into your email account to find your friends. That's risky. You never know if your password is being stored or who is getting the info.

I don't do any of the Facebook stuff like that, although Gmail is the e-mail account I have set up for Facebook because I don't want all those notices coming to my regular e-mail. The only time I can think of where I have to log in sometimes is when I access Google Documents. I can't even remember the last time I sent an e-mail from Gmail. But that is kind of a junk e-mail for me, so I've entered the e-mail address (not the password) when a site makes you create an account, for instance. But I have an even further back-up Yahoo e-mail that I typically use for that sort of thing.

[sorter]

I can forward email with gmail for free, yahoo makes you pay.
Don't even consider hotmail.

The last time I set up a gmail account I had to use the login and password
from another account so they could get my contacts. Hate that shite but
so many people are doing it these days. I'm looking at you facebook.
So I temporarily changed the password on an existing account that had
no contacts.
.

[cacheborn]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

I don't do any of the Facebook stuff like that, although Gmail is the e-mail account I have set up for Facebook because I don't want all those notices coming to my regular e-mail. The only time I can think of where I have to log in sometimes is when I access Google Documents. I can't even remember the last time I sent an e-mail from Gmail. But that is kind of a junk e-mail for me, so I've entered the e-mail address (not the password) when a site makes you create an account, for instance. But I have an even further back-up Yahoo e-mail that I typically use for that sort of thing.

Okay, that should be all right then.

btw, while registering for sites, you can also enter the email address with + sign. For example moon@gmail.com and moon+pdsp@gmail.com will both work and you will get mails sent to both addresses at moon@gmail.com
I sometimes use this to keep track of site registrations.

[Samfx]

I agree with gmail... The spam, labels and filtering features work really well to manage newsletters and other subscriptions.

The new Priority Inbox is also nice to help you find the most relevant emails faster.

[Mynder]

I think gmail may also just be a big target for password crackers who run dictionaries against a wide number of user accounts...and get lucky with some of them.

Choose a secure password, preferably significantly longer than 8 characters, because even while brute force attacks become reasonably unviable at that point, dictionary attacks can surprise you.

Use special characters where possible. use letters and numbers, and throw one or two capital letters in for good measure.

Get educated and read up on good password practices, for example using this: Duke University | IT Security Office | Password Security

[VinceG]

My GMail password is a string like "R7Gdkiv46fFfJIxsEV6Jc3" I keep it in a file on my laptop for the few times Google asks for it. It's not often. Change your password recovery string too to something secure like the above. Then don't forget your passwords!

[LostMyMap]

Originally Posted by SatvikBeri

(In no particular order):
1. Gchat
2. Conversations stored in email
3. SPEED. Both load time and search time in gmail are orders of magnitude above, say, Yahoo and Hotmail.
4. Extensions-for example, Boomerang is an extremely useful tool you can use to automatically re-receive emails that you didn't get a reply to within X days. This is the most convenient follow-up system I've seen so far.

eh. Now that I'm using the Trillian client for chat, that's all I need.

conversations are OK, probably the one plus in my mind. But yet they don't even have searchable columns on the table?

I'm willing to give a little on load time for a better interface and with the new browser versions it isn't a big deal. Client software is still better than web based anyways.

I'm not saying it's bad system, but it's just a free email.

[LostMyMap]

Oh, and I'm not a big email admin expert, but it is possible still for spammers to spoof emails so they look like they came from an account but they really didn't. If you ever read into the email Internet protocols, they're pretty shockingly bad in many ways.

[WonderofTech]

Billy, I just got my Yahoo email hacked last night, after having the account for well over 15 years. I have both Yahoo Mail and Gmail accounts and what I think happened is that I logged into my Yahoo email account over an unsecured Wi-Fi network. I had just changed my Yahoo email password earlier in the week (ironically to be safe from hacking), so I had to enter my login information on my mobile phone when I was out and about yesterday. My phone had connected to an open Wi-Fi network, so I think that's how I got hacked. Not the fault of Yahoo at all.

Perhaps you shouldn't blame Gmail for getting hacked. Just a thought.

[mikethedrummer44]

Originally Posted by BillyTheAdult

Thank you somehow people read that I'm looking for a service other than gmail and interpret that as "tell me why you love gmail." I think it's great that they all have a service they love so much, but I don't like it and want something different.

As for incoherent narrative I don't think thats what I offered, and it is my gmail that was compromised not anything thing else anywhere else on my computer. I don't use an external email program to view my email, my gmail account was hardly ever used as it was just a secondary account, and tbh I don't really do anything on my computer that would put it at elevated risk. Visiting SP forums, facebook, basic informational surfing.

LOL. Sorry. I skimmed over the OP and didn't notice the fact that you weren't looking for Gmail.