How Does Gmail Stack Up In The Webmail World?

Wrecks writes "Flexbeta compares several email services that promise 1 GB of storage to see how they measure up to Google's Gmail. The review mentions how one service, ShireMail, offers far less features than SpyMac yet cost 10 times as much. The article also mentions how well Gmail is able to filter spam messages." Among the webmail options not mentioned in this review (the authors compare a total of five offerings) is another gig-of-mail offering from the Indian rediffmail.

Comments

Shiremail

[CrackedButter]

Shiremail won't be offering anything if Warner Brothers manage to claim proof of ownership to the word "shire". The Register had an article where they are now taking the owner of shiremail to court because if might confuse their customers who might think that it is related to LoTR.

Spymac is nice, but unstable

[arkanes]

I had a spymac account and used it briefly until I had a chance to get gmail.

It's a great deal - you get your gig of email, web hosting, POP access to the email, blog, forums, etc, etc. However, the Spymac servers are almost painfully slow and it's webmail interface has nothing on Googles. POP access was barely adequate, with the POP servers being unavailable probably 50% of the time.

Also, I trust Google to stay around as a viable company and keep providing me with my email service for a lot longer than Spymac (no offense to Spymac, of course).

I've not noticed much spam to begin with...

[morganjharvey]

The article also mentions how well Gmail is able to filter spam messages.

<tongue-in-cheek>

I don't know. I haven't noticed any spam -- not even a single piece, to be exact -- going to my gmail account.
I'm making it my new experiment. I figure if I don't give my address to anybody, including school, online stuff, etc., but only give it to friends and people I know from face-to-face world, I shouldn't be getting any spam. This is only theory, of course, becuase eventually, somehow, the spammers always get my email addresses. So my experiment is to see just how long it takes them, and then I can question my friends -- and my enemies -- and see who gave my email on something that wound me up on a mailing list.

If you want to contact me and discuss my theory, you can reach me at m0gart3304haha@gmail.com.


</tongue-in-cheek>

Will google start unifying its services?

[wrinkledshirt]

This is probably offtopic, but what the hell...

Google currently handles a good USENET service, a good news service, the internet's best web search service, a blogging service, and now an email service.

What's keeping them from taking a unifying approach to everything they have? I'd love to have a home page that I could customize the content (sort of like what my.yahoo has). Latest threads in subscribed-to newsgroups, headlines from news.google.com with my favorite filters, quick summaries of who's sent new emails, etc.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that this sort of portal service should be mandatory and the only way to get at the individual services. I understand that google's simplicity is part of its elegance. But, at the same time, one of the things that spymac is doing right is that all of their services are available from a central location. If google is going to keep branching out into all these new areas, why not try to create a singular portal to get at all of them?

Yahoo email

[claes]

Since about a month, my Yahoo mail Plus account offers me ad-free email with 2 GB of space. Integrated with an address book which I can export and import in a number of formats, and a calendar. They also have a feature where I can create disposable addresses as often as I want, for example when I am web shopping. I also pay for their Personal Address feature, so that they basically host email for a domain I own. I also get POP access, forwarding, (but I don't use it) and great spam filtering.

This costs some money of course, but I think it is worth it. I haven't tried gmail (no one has invited me), many people here think it has many unique features, but yahoo mail has features that gmail does not have. Until gmail offers personal address, there is no chance I will switch.

How to solve:

[poohsuntzu]

When you notice spam, click the box beside it and then the button "Report as Spam".

Google will eventually be able to build up quite the comprehensive list of email/servers to block, but for now, like the software itself, that spam detector is in beta.

Note, this isn't a troll to just state the obvious feature of spam reporting, but to remind people that their database of spam to block may still be small until we continue doing our job of reporting it in.

Re:It's google..

[OneDeeTenTee]

Then you'll love mailinator.com. Send mail to an arbitrary address (Make it up on the fly!) and they hold it there for a couple of hours. Retrieve the mail without passwords or any other pain.

It's great for registering for NYT articles, forum accounts, or anything that will quickly send you a response.

Re:And you cant download it

[terrab0t]

Someone already wrote an app to do that. It's called Pop Goes the Gmail. You can use use it regularily to view your Gmail in a mail app (although the web interface is better), or use it for one-time batch downloads.

You can get it here.