AOL Launches Free Webmail Service

kmilani2134 writes "America Online is moving into the Web-based e-mail market on Wednesday by tying e-mail into its popular AOL Instant Messenger service. Called AIM Mail, the service marks AOL's latest attempt to reposition itself as a broad portal rather than a subscriber-based service. It also will compete more directly against Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN division and Google Inc., all of which have battled over Webmail storage and features over the past year. This was covered by both eWeek and InternetNews.com. Of note, they seem to have incorporated the Mailblocks spam filtering and tracker addresses into their service. It will be interesting to see how long before these new 2 GB accounts are inundated with spam."

Comments

Open Mind

[Blakey Rat]

It will be interesting to see how long before these new 2 GB accounts are inundated with spam.

It's good to see you're approaching this with an open mind. Criminy.

Re:Open Mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Much better than approaching this with an open mail relay!

Re:Open Mind

[juberti]

Seriously. I mean, at least try the product first.

The AOL spam filters have gotten quite good over the past couple years, better than Yahoo/Hotmail and way better than that of your typical cable operator. The web interface is really nice (Mailblocks). There's free IMAP access. And if you use AIM, there's good integration between AIM and AIM Mail. Clearly I'm biased, but I think it's a great product.

If you have an AIM account, you can try it out at http://mail.aol.com/ . If not, you can create an AIM account at https://my.screenname.aol.com/_cqr/registration/in itRegistration.psp.

Some more info at my blog: http://journals.aol.com/juberti/runningman

Re:Open Mind

[DrEldarion]

Well, once you get latched onto, spam can fill even some of the largest mailboxes. One of my Yahoo addresses gets approximately 300-400 spams per DAY.

Re:Open Mind

[X0563511]

It also reported that the server wouldn't accept attachments over ~20,000kb. It was actually a bit over 20,000kb. The attachment I was sending was only 18,000kb. Yet it said it was above 20,000k. WTF.

Re:Open Mind

[ThJ]

This'd get +1 Informative if I had mod points.

Re:Open Mind

[tylernt]

MIME encoding. Your binary attachment is made up of 8-bit bytes. The mail server will only accept 7-bit bytes, so your client must use 7-bit MIME encoding. Theoretically, this would make your attachment 1/8th larger but due to other various inefficiencies, it can become over 20% larger.

Also, 20MB is actually 20,971,520 bytes (20 * 1024 * 1024) so that makes things confusing too.

Re:Open Mind

[cr4p]

Maybe that is due to the overhead of base64 encoding of the attachment in the email, which causes the resulting attachment to be about 6 megs larger due to base64's 33% overhead (according to wikipedia).

Re:Open Mind

[StonedYoda47]

Actually, I'd agree with him. The spam filters have gotten significantly better. Not that I use my AOL address much anymore, but it's no longer inundated with spam - more like a couple here and there if at all.

Re:Open Mind

[Aero Leviathan]

Hmm.. what are the IMAP settings? I can't seem to find them on the site, and the help system's search function isn't working...

Re:Open Mind

[qnetter]

Will AIM Mail be subjected to the same arbitrary, unexplained and untested filtering that AOL mail currently is?

As administrator for a mailing list service that has had cooperative whitelisted status with AOL for the better part of a decade, I must report that recent changes to AOL mail have made it impossible for us to offer consistent delivery to AOL customers -- even despite our whitelisted status.

AOL will now block mail due to "malformed URLs" and "URLS with complaints" -- but they won't explain which URL in the message they're blocking, won't exempt whitelisted services, and won't test the validity of complaints before blocking mail.

When you combine this with the fact that many users today can't be bothered to unsubscribe, so they just report mail from a list they're bored with as spam, we end up with cases like these two that occurred this past week alone.

- On one list, the list-owner's events page was rejected as a "complaint URL"
- On another list, a list-owner's off-site searchable archive of their own list was rejected as a "complaint URL"

And the only way we know those were the URLs in question was by sending test messages, one URL at a time of the 5 to 10 appearing in the messages, to our own AOL account and seeing what din't get through.

For the first time in the over 14 years I have managed this service, I am actively suggesting subscribers not receive their list messages at AOL or Compuserve, because we can't guarantee they'll get through no matter how well we behave and how much time and energy we put into it.

So I ask you: any reason not to warn hem away from AIM Mail too?

Re:Open Mind

[Reziac]

I like AIM, it's a nice well-mannered lightweight little app, that has never once misbehaved for me. (Admittedly I'm using an ancient version, but it still works fine, which makes me happy.) As with other standalone utils, whatever one's opinion of AOL the company, the tools made by AOL's engineers are often very useful. (Notably the modem test utils!) And I remember when one particular security hole fixed at the server, so all users were protected whether they updated the client or not; this struck me as a good way to handle it.

So... I went to your mail.aol.com link, and was amused by this: I have two working** AIM screen names. AIM was not running at the time, but I had left it set to the 2nd screen name. The mail login automagically selected the same screen name as AIM last used. I did notice it querying 127.0.0.1, which presumably was to ask AIM what login name to use. (The things one can see at 26k slow... the mail page does load awfully slow for dialup.)

Anyway, I thought that was kinda clever, and will check it against the other screen name next. It did pick up on when I logged on with my other AIM name.

I did already find a rather nasty display bug when using Mozilla; the default greeting message displays partially out of sight leftward of the scrollbox it's supposed to be inside of. It really needs a screenshot to document it, but there's no way to do that at the bug reporting site..?

** I also have an AIM screen name that the system seems to have lost the password for -- the screen name is recognised but login will neither take the password nor send me the "lost password" thing -- it claims to do so, but nothing arrives). ???

[goes off, finds another bug, reports it]

Hmm. Once the main window finally loads, after that it's reasonably fast.

[does a test mailing in and out] So far so good. My setting for plaintext worked, too. I'm glad to see that here, especially since I gather AOL's own mail client no longer does plaintext??

Anyway, enough rambling, but so far it looks very promising. BTW thanks for the link to your AIM stuff, good assortment of tips.

Re:Open Mind

[Lord Faust]

I'm currently stuck using AOL, since I don't have to pay the internet bill. I only used their software for a bit. I got tired of running their huge app in the background, and just set the router to dial the connection, eliminating the need for any software. I'm not a fan of AOL's ISP bundle, but the mail filtering was excellent. I've seen the progression of their spam filtering over the last 3 years, and it's actually been rather impressive. I disagree with their approach to presenting the internet; and how they hide their users from it with their ISP bundle, but I can't deny they do some good work. This actually looks like a very useable product, despite the fact it's from an "evil" company.

Re:Open Mind

[Jesus IS the Devil]

HELL NO!

Aol blocks so much mail that they end up blocking lots of legitimate emails. And the worst part is they don't even inform the blocked host why. It's a POS service.

Re:Open Mind

[petermgreen]

whilst it may be technically possible to use all 128 bit patterns this hits issues of its own (like old sofware not handling null correctly etc)

so mail normally uses base64 which encodes 6 bits into an ascii printable charactor this means that 3 bytes of input become 4 bytes of output a growth of 1/3 over the original.

it should be noted that with the correct software 8 bit data transmission over mail is possible. There is a smtp extention to declare that you support it iirc.

Re:Open Mind

[X0563511]

Well, that makes sense of the problem.

The server reported the size limit in bytes, so I checked filesize in bytes (file was lower).

AOL?

[mboverload]

I don't know about you, but anyone that gives me an AOL address is immediatly put below me in my mind.

Re:AOL?

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

The real question is: Does the CEO of AOL use an AOL address and if so, how big is his car in order to compensate for this?

Re:AOL?

[WesG]

Guess you don't use AIM or GAIM then?

Re:AOL?

[DigiShaman]

I use AIM, but only because we have too in our call center. And no, we don't use stupid 3l337 haxorz handles ether. Our AIM accounts are of a formal convention (such as the first letter followed by our lastname and corporate devision).

Because we are always on the phone, we cannot just get up from our cubical to ask a question. Rather, we just AIM a co-worker or manager. If someone has a question in regards to something I might know about, they too will ask me a question.

Re:AOL?

[profet]

Hrm... So you use AIM for corporate IM?

Sounds like a standup company... Please let me know which one it is so that I know not to give them any of my personal details...

JBlowCorpDivX: Hey John, what is Jane Doe's current balance? Account number XXXXXX, SSN: XXX-XX-XXXX
JDoeCorpDivY: No idea Joe, so how about them yankees?

Fantastic. Tell the people in charge to invest in an internal purpose built IM solution. One that doesn't involve using a third party's servers.

Re:AOL?

[longdead]

In my short stint at Adelphia Cable Company, yes the bankrupt one, the legal department used aim to talk to each other. Yes over the public aim servers. Their inbound call center people all used it also. I worked in their internal desktop support section, and no one in the company that knew about this cared. I was amazed. They ran me out of the company after four months.

Re:AOL?

[MooseGuy529]

>aol<Me too!>/aol<

Seriously though, I have less respect for people with AOL addresses, especially adults (other students with AOL usually are forced to use it because it's what their parents use, but adults have free will to choose a better ISP), and almost no respect for businesses that have AOL addresses. Getting a better ISP usually costs less than AOL does, and for businesses, getting a domain name with email usually costs less than a dial up account per month.

Re:AOL?

[andreyw]

How about setting up a Jabber server instead? GAIM supports Jabber too.

Re:AOL?

[Aeiri]

other students with AOL usually are forced to use it because it's what their parents use, but adults have free will to choose a better ISP

Believe it or not, ISPs aren't the only way to get an email address. Fancy that.

Re:AOL?

[DigiShaman]

Try...Time Warner Cable. And we send all sorts of information over AIM, and e-mail...and phone....and......fax machines..

Lay off it man, you have NO security regarding information. No one does. Hell, my medical records are flying across the Internet as we speak I'm sure.

Re:AOL?

[wtd]

The real danger isn't security. It's employees getting hit with tons of extraneous messages because their instant messaging client is exposed to the rest of the world.

If I'm working in a call center, some guy at home shouldn't be able to directly message me. That should be strictly for in-company discussions.

Re:AOL?

[generic-man]

On my work AIM account, I have the option to "allow messages only from people on my contact list" enabled. I don't get any unwanted messages. The only downside is that I have to specifically add my co-workers before we can converse, but that's easy. Gaim and Adium also support encrypted messaging to remove the risks of intercepting conversations mid-flight.

Any more "real danger" to warn me about?

Re:AOL?

[nacturation]

That was supposed to be <aol>... argh.

I found it much funnier the wrong way. An AOL user wouldn't know the right way to do HTML tags anyway!

Re:AOL?

[dn15]

Tell the people in charge to invest in an internal purpose built IM solution. One that doesn't involve using a third party's servers.

The great thing is, an "investment" isn't even be necessary! If they were to use Jabber they could use a number of free server daemons in combination with free clients such as Gaim (Windows/Linux/BSD), Kopete (Linux/BSD), or Adium, iChat or Fire (Mac OS X.) Obviously nothing is 100% secure, but running this over the internal network along with SSL would be far better than using one of the public instant messaging services. The software is all built-in with most Linux distributions, as well as Mac OS X 10.4.

Re:AOL?

[generic-man]

AIM encryption looks good according to Google. Thanks!

Re:AOL?

[happyemoticon]

At least at my university, AIM is the way chatting is done. I've never even been given an MSN/Yahoo handle by an acquaintance.

Re:AOL?

[generic-man]

Nah, that's too hard. Why use a Jabber server that you have to hire a UNIX guy to administer when you can use AOL's highly-reliable AIM servers with GAIM's highly-reliable encryption-ready clients instead?

Seriously, though, I've tried setting up a Jabber server before. The closest thing I've seen to a drop-in solution is "Jabber Quickstart," and that lacks most of the features (like the much-desired AIM transport) that people want to use Jabber for. Jabber is only free if your time is worthless.

Re:AOL?

[netsharc]

To quote the holy jwz (the Netscape hacker) about Netscape's takeover by AOL: "My friends keep saying ``jwz@aol.com'' and then laughing uncontrollably.".

Ah the good old days, where everybody was wondering if Mozilla 1.0 was going to suffer the same fate like Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:AOL?

[Lord_Dweomer]

If you judge people by the domain of their email address, then I think you have some personal issues you need to deal with.

Re:AOL?

[mboverload]

Being able to sort people by the domain of their email is very handy. Like looking for businesses to do work for me. If they have an AOL address I skip right over them. If they are that inept I don't want them with my money.

Lots and lots of spam

[TildeMan]

It has been a long time since I used AOL. I seem to recall they had problems such as employees stealing entire databases of info and selling it to spammers. How are their spam filters now, and how likely are you to receive spam just for being a member?

It's also a bit amusing that all these large portal companies like AOL are trying to compete with services like Gmail that don't even provide anything other than email. Google is still not an ISP as far as I know...

Re:Lots and lots of spam

[CrankyFool]

They had _one_ employee who did this, who they found and helped prosecute. They've got thousands of employees. It happens.

And while Google's not an ISP, if you think the only personal information about you that could be stolen from Google is your email, you're ... deluded.

Will this cost them subscribers?

[SteelV]

If you can get that @aol.com email for free, why the need to pay $10-$20 per month? I wonder if many subscribers will leave (not sure if it lets them cancel an account, then make an aim with the same name) or, at the very least, will they not gain many new ones?

Re:Will this cost them subscribers?

[Rifferooni]

Thats the reason I still pay $3/month. You can't quit and keep your same aim name/email address.

Re:Will this cost them subscribers?

[compm375]

It is an @aim.com.

Re:Will this cost them subscribers?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

The only reason I used to maintain an AOL account was because when I was in (just about any) tiny little shit hole in some foreign country half way around the world, I could get a dial-up connection. Many people subscribe for this spacific reason.

Re:Will this cost them subscribers?

[skaeight]

Of course you can keep your aim name. Just make sure you register it as an aim name before you cancel aol. I did this as at one point I did have aol, but haven't for years and my aim name has continued to work.

Mail is another matter though. You won't still have access to that. But the easy solution is to just use 'aolname'@gmail.com or whatever else and let people know you've changed email addresses.

Re:Will this cost them subscribers?

[Rifferooni]

According to AOL's reps, your screen name/aim name is kept on hold for 6 months after you cancel in case you decide to renew. I've talked to several different reps and they surprisingly all came up with the same answer - you will not retain your aim name if you cancel. It could be a new policy to keep people from leaving or perhaps AOL is misinforming their reps.

subscription based accounts transferable to free o

[dubiousmike]

can a subscriber cancel their account and keep the email address as a free one? Likely not as the email address is what is keeping 75% of all subscribers. Why else would you pay for dialup when you can spend $10 more and get broadband???

@aim.com vs @netscape.net

[nstrom]

Couldn't you already get e-mail at your AOL screen name @netscape.net?

Re:@aim.com vs @netscape.net

[Anonymous Coward]

What, and type five more characters? Not me. Never. No Way. Uh-uh.

Re:@aim.com vs @netscape.net

[Reziac]

[goes off, performs tests] I've never set up netscape mail, but I have two AIM and AIMmail accounts. So! Let's see if it works.

Mail sent to myscreenname@netscape.net (and .com) bounced.

I then went to mail.netscape.com and discovered that it thinks I *do* have an account there, using this very screen name (and it even knows my home email address, which it likely got from AIM). I logged in and found no messages.

I sent the netscape account another message; it bounced again. I then sent my ELN account a message FROM the netscape account, and replied directly to that message, and THAT finally worked. ???

Meanwhile, mail to and from both my AIM screen names work just fine at the AIM mail interface (which is largely identical, but the display is faster and seems less buggy). No bounces, no nonsense.

Re:@aim.com vs @netscape.net

[HG2]

Thats like asking @more-spam.com vs @spam.com

more of the same

[cryptoz]

The idea of a capitalist world is that there are to be numerous products in the same category that compete and try to be the best. That way, the consumer is provided with a choice of what they wish to have, and often they end up with a better product as a result of the competition.

The problem is, all these new web mail services are offering basically the same thing for the same price (that is, no money, but people pay through the price of ads and such.)

As one can see, I use a gmail account, because it offers the keyboard shortcuts. In all honesty, that's all that's kept me there because it's the only unique feature. I don't mean to be bashing the new services; it just seems as though there's nothing new in each one that pops up, except for the name.

"Unsend"

[Faust7]

What's more, an "unsend" feature lets users cancel a message after it's been sent to another AOL or AIM Mail user -- if the message is unread.

Not bad, though hardly innovative - you can already do something close to that with Exchange and other mail systems. What I'd really like is the ability, within a certain time interval, to yank an IM off someone's window if I suddenly changed my mind about wanting them to see it. Anyone that's accidentally sent an IM to the wrong person knows what I'm talking about. :)

Re:"Unsend"

[YrWrstNtmr]

If there's a time delay after you send it and before the recipient sees it, it's not 'instant' messaging anymore.

Re:"Unsend"

[YrWrstNtmr]

If it arrives instantly, what is the point of 'taking it back'? The recipient has already seen it.

Re:"Unsend"

[skiman1979]

Well, the IM message can instantly show up on the recipient's screen, but if the recipient is busy with other activities, he or she may not immediately see the new message. Maybe by the time the recipient bothers to read the IM, the sender can "unsend" it and then simply send "sorry, wrong IM window."

AIM Mail?

[pepsee]

So now it's America Online Instant Messenger Mail? What's next? AM $FOO?

new aim so bloated

[bdigit]

AIM really hasnt improved for a few versions now. All they keep doing is adding more junk like weatherbug, a popupblocker, aim today crap, spyware scanner. It's a freaking IM program, leave it at that.

I don't like using gaim in windows because it still doesn't work all the time with file transfers and image transfers. Once gaim improves a little more I may just switch over to gaim in windows.

Re:new aim so bloated

[DigiShaman]

MSN Messenger has gotten real bloated with version 7.

When will industry (in general) realize that LESS = MORE.

Re:new aim so bloated

[templest]

Then install the AIM Ad Hack. and knock yourself out.

Re:new aim so bloated

[chachob]

I've stuck with AIM version 5.2.3292 (check oldversion.com) and DeadAIM 4.5. No junk, works for me until Miranda can get their act together with OSCAR support.

Re:new aim so bloated

[westlake]

When will industry (in general) realize that LESS = MORE

2.5 billion IMs a day in 26 languages. No one who uses the MSN client gives a damn about bloat.

Re:new aim so bloated

[Spodlink05]

AIM really hasnt improved for a few versions now. All they keep doing is adding more junk like weatherbug, a popupblocker, aim today crap, spyware scanner. It's a freaking IM program, leave it at that.

I use Trillain myself. The latest version is a bit bloaty itself, but it beats loading up 5 bloaty messengers.

I agree with the feature creep stuff though, I hate how software companies try to cram so much irrelevant crap into, what was once a decent, program.

Some people seem to like integration, but personally I prefer my apps seperated.

Take a look at MS Word, who uses all the features on that? Most of them are just bloody annoying, especially the autoformat features and other useless guff that you don't need but all 7344365646 of them are turned on by default so it takes 5 years to turn them all off (by which time a new version has come out with another 464868359689568965 features, most of which annoy me even more).

Time for GMail to bump it up

[Guspaz]

Google bumped GMail up to 2GB when other companies started offering 1GB. What do you want to bet that Google will now bump it up to 3GB?

Re:Time for GMail to bump it up

[hairykrishna]

It just continually increases your storage size now - there's a counter on the login page (it's at about 2.2gb).

Re:Time for GMail to bump it up

[Bagels]

Nope. Google's got theirs set to slowly increase with time - it's currently closing in on 2.2GB. Every day or so they add a few more MB (about 150 since April 1, I believe)... so Google's probably not worried about AOL overtaking them in some silly storage space war. Not much of it is getting used, anyhow - I've still only filled mine with about 14MB of stuff, it's growing far faster than I can fill it.

Re:Time for GMail to bump it up

[rborek]

Gmail is already above 2GB now - they're steadily increasing the space as time goes on, to allow for natural growth of people's e-mail archives (you can see the ticker steadily moving upwards on the Gmail login page)

Re:Time for GMail to bump it up

[cryptoz]

Eh? Google doesn't offer about 2.2 GB right now, it offers about 2.1.

I'm not trying to be a troll here, but if you're going to be specific that you include the decimal point of how much space google offers, get it right.

2193/1024 = 2.14, not 2.2.

Geeeeze.

Re:Time for GMail to bump it up

[downsize]

they've already been taking over by http://shinyfeet.com/ their the first to offer unlimited email space, but the killer is, unlimited online file storage as well. it is free, and there are some ads (as with all the others) but they are not intrusive and certianly I can put up with them for unlimited space. Shinyfeet Storage Usage: 0.0000000012% of Unlimited Disk space used: 12.2GB

Re:Time for GMail to bump it up

[SpaghettiPattern]

I've still only filled mine with about 14MB of stuff, it's growing far faster than I can fill it.
A bit OT but anyway. IMHO gmail's way of organizing email is the key in keeping my account clean.

Re:Time for GMail to bump it up

[skiman1979]

Interesting service. Although I'd personally rather have a (more professional looking) @gmail.com address than @shinyfeet.com. I'd rather not direct potential employers or other business associates to a @shinyfeet.com address when I can give them @gmail.com. That's just my personal opinion.

Won't be too bad

[iosmart]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I hear GMail uses something where if two users have the same message, it'll only save one copy of it on the servers. If AOL is using this kind of system, it won't hurt them at all to sell the email addresses of people...because their servers will only keep one copy of the message! :)

Re:Won't be too bad

[stewby18]

If AOL is using this kind of system, it won't hurt them at all to sell the email addresses of people...because their servers will only keep one copy of the message!

Plus, think of all the storage space they would save by only keeping one copy of the:
LOL!!!! Me too!!!!! OMG ROTFL!!!!!!
email...

Re:Won't be too bad

[JPriest]

If they could store virus infected mail attachments too they could laterally cut several terabytes of data down to 20 meg or so. I think I am on to something with this.

Re:Won't be too bad

[dmd]

You're wrong, sorry. Disk is cheap - very, very, very cheap - , whereas the complex programming that would allow for this sort of thing to occur seamlessly (even while different users perform different operations on those emails) would be very expensive in terms of programmer time, bugs, and processing complexity.

Also, I asked a gmail developer.

Re:subscription based accounts transferable to fre

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought so too until I realized it's not all that difficult to move your email address. Then I met a guy who pays for a cable connection and pays AOL on top of that for their UI and extras. I've begged him to stop but he feels comfortable in that little AOL frame. I've even showed him how easy it is to just open a damn browser and go wherever you want but he won't budge.

And addys left at AOL?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Are there even any reasonable email names left @aol.com? Will all the new free accounts use random strings for the UID?

Re:And addys left at AOL?

[spideyct]

It uses your existing AOL or AIM screen name @aim.com - so no conflict with @aol.com

Re:And addys left at AOL?

[filterchild]

No, they'll be perfectly plausible strings like "lilcutie4432837113."

Re:And addys left at AOL?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

It uses your existing AOL or AIM screen name @aim.com - so no conflict with @aol.com

Yes, of course. BUT, for NEW users, the issue will be the same as with AIM/AOL screen names: Not a lot of human readable ones left, and seems like AOL does not like to free up inactive ones.

Re:And addys left at AOL?

[JPriest]

makes you wonder what kind of database iron they need to support their mail platform when it is easier to find an available domain name than a decent email address @ aol, hotmail or yahoo.

Free?

[rathehun]

Is there a link to the page where you sign up for free account? I can't seem to find it.

Or is this another case of great editing?

R.

Re:Free?

[generic-man]

You might have to do a little searching, like http://aim.aol.com/aimnew/Aim/register.adp?promo=7 3010&pageset=Aim&client=no">clicking the link marked "Register."

Re:Free?

[dfn_deux]

RTFA, "on Wednesday AOL will release".....

Re:Free?

[Slayback]

Try this:
http://aim.aol.com/aimnew/Aim/register.adp?promo=1 06723&pageset=Aim&client=no

Re:Free?

[rathehun]

Well - a 50 day free trial is not free in my opinion. Or perphaps it becomes completely free on Wednesday?

R.

Sorry, AOL

[jhylkema]

But free web-based email services were cool about, oh, about seven years ago.

Re:Sorry, AOL

[jhylkema]

Because (1) it offered a gig or so of storage space, (2) wasn't Microsoft, (3) it was Google, and (4) it invades your privacy by targeting ads based on emails you send/receive.

I was just trying to illustrate just how far behind AOL is and remains. People will get their free AOL mail account because they're stupid sheep and will flock to the AOL brand. Incidentally, that's what made AOL so popular in the first place: It allowed idiots who had no business on the Internet to get there.

No thanks!

[Jesus IS the Devil]

With the ridiculous way Aol is blocking mail from third parties, one would need to be a moron to want to sign up for an Aol email address.

Besides, do you really want to be associated with Ao-NOOB-l?

Getting a bit out of hand

[bananahead]

Maybe it is just me, but it seems like we might be hitting the limits of free email. Exactly how many free email systems does the world need anyways? I have a Hotmail account which I don't use anymore. The 2Gb of storage is slowly filling up with crap. I log in occasionally to find out if there might be anything useful, there rarely is. I have a Google email account which I use for internet transactions. I forward that email to my Exchange account, which is then forwarded to my Blackberry. Exchange has dramatically improved their junk filtering, so very little gets to my Blackberry that I don't actually want there.

I suppose the ability to get a really cool email name creates demand for a new system. Is there really any other reason?

Re:Getting a bit out of hand

[Jugalator]

I agree, or rather that Gmail lack nothing the others have yet. Maybe it's as you say, that we're reaching the limits, but that's what I could've said before Gmail came too. For most purposes free unlimited mail space was earlier unthinkable for me. And that was just one of powerful features they offered. Maybe someone will revolutionize the webmail again? But as it is now, webmail innovation seem to be dead once again. Just random companies trying to ride the Gigabyte wave, and "do it like Gmail", but less innovative and usually just going for easily sold features in the same spirit of the Gigahertz and Gigapixel hype, this time using Gigabytes. *sigh*

What about innovative features? What about trying to beat Gmail so badly that there's not even a question about which service is better? Aim for the stars, not for "hmm, maybe we could give these features many others have by now", like AOL and their Gigabytes. Sure, it's nice of AOL, but why on earth would I switch from another service? Or do they not aim for these users? In that case, why not?

An example of making webmail better would be for more to support DomainKeys. Only Gmail and Yahoo! (that were the pioneers) use it today. Yahoo! showed the right spirit in trying to make a decent OPEN standard against spam, Google showed the right spirit by tagging along, but now what...? It's useful stuff like this they *could* support if they wished to tag along, but nooo... "But we *do* give 1-2 GB space!!12@@ Can't you just SMELL the uniqueness and power of our service!!!11" ... *shakes head*

I suppose the ability to get a really cool email name creates demand for a new system.

Well, @aol.com sure isn't one to me. Rather a fine example of a company that ran their trademark into the ground and now tries to improve their reputation...

Re:Getting a bit out of hand

[bananahead]

I would like to see one of them (Google, AOL) go after a more complete solution. Exchange and Outlook are the enterprise winner because they have incorporated email with calandering and support scheduling between exchange users. I want Google and AOL (although I have very little faith in AOL's abilities) to go after the ubiquitous email/desktop organization markets. Email alone is not enough.

Re:Getting a bit out of hand

[Jugalator]

Yes, that's another good idea on how they could take things further. Having no special software requirements to check your calendar and more would be great, and possibly expanding a "Gmail Notifier" kind of program to alert on scheduled events. There are already online web-based collaboration systems, but it seems they're commonly not free. But it doesn't seem too far fetched Google could with their market share and AdWords value sustain a free service though.

I think we might see more of these web-based online apps in general in the future and it's only a matter of time when we might even get a subscription-based "online Office", and later on as the next breakthrough, as competition gets tougher, maybe even a free one with as unobstrusive ads as possible to proft enough on it.

There are privacy concerns for it, but I think there's still no doubt a lot of people would use such applications, probably enough to make it a possible service, and usable for not too private or sensitive information.

If you have AIM, you already have AIM Mail

[spideyct]

What is interesting is that you already have an account if you have an AIM Screen Name. I went to the website, logged in with my AIM credentials, and it brought me right into the inbox. No accepting any terms & conditions, etc. It never even told me what my email address is (though I assume it is screenname@aol.com).

Re:If you have AIM, you already have AIM Mail

[Night Goat]

Your AIM e-mail address is screenname@aim.com.

Re:If you have AIM, you already have AIM Mail

[Reziac]

The first time I went there, it was clever enough to query my system and pick up the screen name I'd last used with AIM. (That evidently was the req to 127.nnnnn)

I then went back with AIM set to my other screen name, but it didn't pick up on that. Oh well, it's not like typing my login (or letting Moz do it for me) is all that onerous.

Anyway... while not as feature-rich as GMail, it's somewhat easier to use.

It did recognise both my AIM IDs when I logged in and out with AIM itself (AIM mail can check online/offline status).

Not that I need more webmail, or even more mailboxes, but I like AIM well enough to be interested in AIM mail for its own sake.

And I found and reported two bugs while I was there :)

Re:AOL acquired mailblocks last year

[theskeptic]

and it has gotten the step motherly treatment since then. Before Goldman expired, Mailblocks was updated regularly every 4-5 months.

AIM mail is based on mailblocks. Around the beginning of 2004, Mailblocks was gaining a lot of customers. Once AOL acquired it, mailblocks went into a time wrap. Even now the mail quota is a paltry 15MB. I sent 2-3 mails to mailblocks support asking whether they plan to allow mail quotas higher than 100MB. They gave no definite answer.

So I abandoned mailblocks, moved all my mail to a hosting server, soon after that I tried gmail but webmail and pop3 just doesn't cut it once you're used to IMAP. So the only alternative was fastmail and I'm happy with it now.

Many mailblocks customers have abandoned their accounts but if mailblocks does get 2GB quotas, I'm sure many former users might give it a try again. AIM mail may provide a lot of space but it is not compelling compared to gmail. Eweek says that IMAP support will be provided but will it be free? If it is, then it might be interesting.

Capitalism isn't really applicable

[dereference]

I would suggest that the concept of capitalism doesn't extend very well, if at all, to any free-as-in-beer services (to include search engines, slashdot, and of course countless others). It is an indirect relationship at best, because users of the service actually don't pay for the price of ads (as they pay nothing at all to the provider).

The companies that sell things (for money) pay these service providers to have their message presented to potential customers of theirs. Note that it's not necessarily the fact that more potential customers means better; it's getting the ads out to the right potential customers that matters. Advertisers pay for the ads, then eventually some of the users pay the advertisers for their products/services. These are the markets in which capitalism lives.

In contrast, users of the free service are not customers at all; they're simply another commodity asset of the provider. The provider uses the demographics of its asset to help it sell advertising. This is a capitalist market for advertising, where service providers compete for advertising dollars by demonstrating that theirs is the best mix of users for their advertisers. Note also that these providers are advertisers themselves, including when they induce users to upgrade to "premium" services for a fee.

Indeed, because users are a valuable commodity in this respect, the service providers do compete to assemble what they perceive to be the optimum audience. However, I submit that there is no capitalism where there is no money changing hands. Users are a commodity asset "owned" by the free service provider. I would further suggest this helps explain the lack of "customer service" that many of these providers offer to users.

Re:Capitalism isn't really applicable

[shawb]

they're simply another commodity asset of the provider.

I'd go as far as to say that it isn't so much that the user is the product.

In traditional capitalism, the end user paid money to get a product or service. Now that we are entering more of an information age, the end user basically has to endure advertising instead of paying money. The "contract" is that the information given is good/entertaining enough. The hope is, of course, that the end user ends up purchasing products advertised. But this would basically require that most of the economy is run in a traditional model, otherwise none of those advertising dollars would be offered up.

This is no different than the economic model that television broadcasting has run on for the last half century or so. Ironically, this means that it does not make sense for a network TV station to put out quality programming. If the viewers are the product, then the TV stations want the product to be as high quality as possible. In this case, highest quality means easist to influence by advertising. So, TV stations must then put out mostly lowest common denominator programming in order to attract the customers which will make them the most money.

the hell...

[rhesuspieces00]

[quote]...all of which have battled over Webmail storage and features over the past year.[/quote]

battled? whatev. Google pwned. people were ready to sell their children for gmail accounts there for a while. ms and yahoo are still crying in the corner.

Yoda says

[Che Guevarra]

lost they are. Attempting to regain market share they are. Hmmm, desperate they are.

Here you go...

[templest]

Then install the MSN Ad Remover and knock yourself out.
Funny how I've had to do this twice already in this thread. Anyone else got an IM that they want mo to find an Ad-Remover for?

Re:AOL acquired mailblocks last year

[shawb]

Curious... why doesn't Gmail/pop3 cut it? If you just leave messages on server, then you basically have a backup of all the mail you've gotten, handilly Google searchable.

Although I suppose this could start being a pain if you check mail from multiple computers.

Re:subscription based accounts transferable to fre

[LnxAddct]

Well for a little more then $10 you can upgrade to AOL Broadband, not all AOL services are dialup, and there was a rumor a while ago saying that they were canceling their broadband service across the nation but it was just a rumor and not true. AOL also offers many more things then just a typical ISP. AOL gives you free access to all kinds of music, video, and other media sources. Things that most people would have to pay monthly per source for, AOL subscribers get as part of their subscription. On top of that, they have kick ass spam filters, AOL scans for spyware, has a virus blocker and even though they use IE as a backend to their browser, they've included additional features such as a privacy protector and a pop-up blocker (long before SP2). All of this is contained in one window on your screen where you can easily talk to anyone else online, while accessing these many other features. I personally don't use AOL but I've recommended it to many people. Its actually a really nice service now a days, it just has a bad rep. This most likely stems from the fact that just about everyone compares them directly to other ISPs and other ISP prices. You get a hell of alot more bang for your buck then you do with something like NetZero. Let me put it this way... I've had to cleanup a lot more computers that have had Comcast or Verizon broadband then I've had to that have had AOL Broadband or Dialup services.
Regards,
Steve

Re:subscription based accounts transferable to fre

[shawb]

Or cable/DSL can often be found for $5-$10 more a month.

Netscape?

[darkain]

Anyone with an AIM accounts could already log into AIM_Name@Netscape.com for web based email. how is this any different?

Re:Netscape?

[Reziac]

See my post above where I just tested both, about 5 minutes ago. While they're largely identical, the AIM mail worked perfectly on the first try, while the NS mail took a couple thumpings and bounces before it decided to work.

It's just email.

[TheSpoom]

Shhh... I realized something that few people seem to have got so far.

IT'S JUST EMAIL!

I store my email on my laptop thank you very much, and I have storage limited only by my free HDD space (of which, I might add, it hasn't approached yet, because I'm sane and use email like normal people do, to send messages and small attachments).

Not that I'm saying that lots of storage is a bad thing or anything, I'm all for it. But I imagine that this is more marketing hype than anything -- I'd estimate 97% of people won't even approach the space limits set for them, and these companies know this.

IMAP Settings

[Uneasysilence]

Anyone know the IMAP settings?

Re:IMAP Settings

[bdipert]

See here:
http://members.aol.com/adamkb/aol/mailfaq/imap/
Although I can't seem to get it to work. I don't think IMAP/SMTP support is (yet) enabled. Let me know if/when you succeed, please

Re:AOL acquired mailblocks last year

[MHobbit]

I'm a former Mailblocks user. I moved to Mailblocks after using Yahoo Mail (this was last year) and was extremely impressed with Mailblocks. One of the trademark features that Mailblocks sports is the Trackers feature, which allows you to use "disposable" email addresses. You get 5 of them with a free account. After I found GMail, I pretty much left Mailblocks, only checking my Mailblocks inbox once every other week. Why did I switch? GMail, IMHO, sported a better UI, and had a lot of storage. Even if Mailblocks/AIM Mail decided to get a 2GB quota (still less than GMail), I still probably won't switch unless there are some more improvements; like free POP3/IMAP and SMTP with the free account. Also, it'd be nice if AIM Mail had a web-based service; I haven't found a link for it yet.

Re:Hrm...

[jacksonj04]

Is that a -1 "Piss-Poor Attempt" moderation I see on the horizon?

Re:Damn, already in use

[jacksonj04]

Makes you wonder where rapists 0 to 17 are, and if it's really wise to put them on a network with OMGZLOLLER teenage girls.

Re:AOL acquired mailblocks last year

[Spetiam]

AIM mail may provide a lot of space but it is not compelling compared to gmail.

I strongly suspect that it will be compelling for all those AIM users. How many non-techies know what POP and IMAP are? In my experience, all they care about is being able to check their email, and webmail access usually does that for them just fine.

I think this was a very smart move by AOL. Although, I do think they're idiots for not doing this long ago. Not that I've been following it closely, but it seems AOL has been lacking in the innovation department for some time. Case in point: why the heck haven't they started offering broadband?

Re:subscription based accounts transferable to fre

[triznitch]

The e-mail is not @aol.com it's @aim.com so the AOL screen name wouldn't give you the same e-mail address anyway.

Sadly, subscription is permanent

[Elyscape]

can a subscriber cancel their account and keep the email address as a free one?

Unfortunately, you can't do that. I know this from experience. I was subscribed (via my parents) to AOL, which I used mostly for AIM access. Then we got broadband and got it from another company. We switched to AOL's "Bring Your Own Access" plan for a few months and then eventually canceled.
It was then that I noticed that I could not log on to my screen name anymore. It had been Suspended. What a great surprise to wake up to.

Apparently, AOL's policy on free services is as follows: "You can use our free services as much as you like. If, however, you ever give us money, you have to continue doing so to keep using the free things. If you don't, suck it up and make another account."
Really. I called tech support and spent roughly 2 hours talking to various people, trying to get them to convert my account to a free AIM account. According to the people I talked to, their database supports conversion of AIM accounts into AOL subscriber accounts, but going the other way is not supported for some reason. They actually suggested that I make a new screen name "like your old one with a number after it". No! I want my screen name, not a new one!

I ultimately got a new AIM account for IMing, but it was terribly annoying. I had lost my entire buddy list, profile, and other account data. That sucked. They said that if I waited 6 months or so, my account would be purged and I could possible make it again, but I didn't feel like waiting that long.

In conclusion, once you become a subscriber, you're stuck that way forever. Unless, of course, you don't mind the hassle of making a new account.

Re:Sadly, subscription is permanent

[stellertony]

I managed to get around this by using .Mac. AOL for a while said that teen accounts couldn't use the AIM client for IM. However, I set up a free .Mac trial account with the same user name, and was then able to use AIM. It also preserved all of my buddy lists etc.

kind of annoying....

[zxnos]

...big obtrusive ads and it appends a little advert at the bottom of every email. other than the ads, it looks decent.

i used aol dial-up for free for 6 months until broadband (cable) was available in the area. i popped in a one month, unlimited hours disk. everytime i went to cancel they said, keep trying it for another month - for free. that lasted until broadband finally arrived.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Hey AOL, you already have Netscape mail

[IrishMASMS]

Hey AOL, you already have Netscape mail - how about fixing it up with tweaking the crappy interface, adding spam blocking, etc? Nothing has been done with Netscape Mail since you purchased them - unless you count using the Netscape mail client to access Netscape mail.

come on AOL, don't be a Newb!

What happened

[Omkar]

Google: Let's start our own free email service to compete with Yahoo and MSN. We'll give people 2GB of storage to get their attention, and hopefully, we'll become a larger part of their internet experience. Oh, and being Google, let's make our system work far, far, better than most college email systems.

AOL: ME TOO!!!11!!1!

Must enter with an open mind

[chrisblore]

I'll certainly be getting one of their accounts, in addition to my Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail accounts. So far, I have a Yahoo account forwarding to my Gmail account so that I get the combined effectiveness of both the Yahoo and Gmail spamfilters. There can be no harm in trying a new service and having so many email accounts like this, because they are all free services so you have no initial outlay on them!

Re:Hrm...

[generic-man]

"Anticlockwise On Lift," a concept so wryly explained in their adverts on ITV.

Free Web Mail?!?!?

[Necrobruiser]

Free Web Mail?!?!? What a brilliant idea!

In a related story, Yahoo and Hotmail called AOL to welcome them to 1997.

Increased Spam

[certel]

I'll keep an eye on how quick the internet traffic rates and the rates to my mail servers go up...

Not too hard

[kiore]

Normally this is true and the savings are minimal, but every so often there's one of those funny binary files that everyone you know seens to send to everyone on their address lists, when this happens you have the potential to save a reasonable amount of storage. For an individual it isn't going to be much in total but, when you're storing the amount of information Google does, it can add up fairly fast.

Have a think about what's in an email message. Parts of the message will differ between users. The headers are the most obvious candidate here. For anyone thinking that the would all be the same for the same sent mail, consider what I do. I have my own personal domain & host a small web site on a dynamic ip, but for obvious reaasons I don't have my domain's email sent there, it all gets redirected to my gmail account.

Parts of the message can be manipulated by the users. The obvious ones are read and replied flag, folder or gmail labels, but there's probably more. If you've written your own email software which parts that applies to should be well known, otherwise you'll need to read the source.

If you then divide the message into variable and fixed parts it's trivial to hash the fixed part to get a key that can be used to determine if you already have that message in storage and only keep one copy of the fixed information.

You could extend this even further and split the message further giving large attachments their own storage. Once you've done this you can do some interesting things. Improved detection of image based spam is just one that comes to mind.

Re:Not too hard

[dmd]

True. And there are, indeed, email systems that do this - I believe Lotus Notes does, for instance.

Gmail, however, isn't one of them - at least, not according to one of the programmers who works on it.

Re:AOL acquired mailblocks last year

[lidocaineus]

POP3 with leaving mail on the server is a barely usable kludge. It sucks especially when you have to check from all sorts of places. IMAP is so much more flexible - you can use it LIKE a local client, but you're not forced to. You can also use it remotely, through a web mail gateway (squirrelmail is excellent if you host your own), you can use a terminal client (ie mutt), you can use a nice client like the mac Mail.app. Everything you do across any client is reflected on all the other clients. Gmail has nice search capabilities, but so does mutt, grep, and the Mail.app 2.0 spotlight feature. This doesn't even take into account the awesomeness of having shell access to your mail server to be able to use everything from procmail to clamav to amavis.

For most people, webmail is alright. For email jockeys, it really isn't. I'd venture to say that POP3 is even worse than just using straight webmail.

Free IMAP access?

[WD]

Are you sure about that? The help says that you can't use a regular email client, such as outlook. It's web-only.

If there is IMAP access, what are the server names?

Re:Free IMAP access?

[juberti]

I think the open IMAP access is not be switched on yet. But as far as I know, that is the plan... from the eWeek article:
"AOL already is planning additional features for the full launch of AIM Mail. The service will support the IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) standard so that users can access their AIM Mail accounts from other e-mail clients, Ben-Yoseph said."

I will update my blog when I have more info.

Unimpressed

[cheyne.omatic]

I am not impressed. Did anyone else get an error at mail.aol.com?

Re:Unimpressed

[johnt519]

Also not impressed. Tried to log in, got a blank screen. Hit refresh, then got an error page. Clicked to "try again" and started all over again. Feh.

That's great news

[Anita Coney]

Now anyone can be an internet (l)user without paying a dime to AOL!

AIM Security for Corporations

[lullabud]

If you think that a corporation is limited to standard free AIM accounts then you're seriously mistaken. A quick glance through AIM@Work shows that corporations have the ability to restrict logins based on IP#, authenticate against the corporation's LDAP server, provide users with person@corporation.com chat names to match corporate e-mail addresses, encryption via certificates, and other features that cater to corporate IM needs. This is perfect when you want to deal with other corporations while giving your company a presence in an incredibly populated IM service. This is great because you don't want to go giving ALL of your client's accounts on your corporate Jabber server... A perfect example of this all are those mac.com chat addresses that Apple gives out with their mac.com subscription. You know who those people are affiliated with as soon as they IM you. AIM@Work is good business. It's much more flexible and secure than regular AIM and it's MUCH more widely used than private Jabber (or whatever else) servers.

On top of all that, even a standard AIM account is capable of securing IM's by using things like OTR so it doesn't matter how many 3rd party servers the messages go through. Besides, saying that people shouldn't communicate through 3rd party servers is like saying "call them on a purely POTS telephone line." It's pretty much impossible. Every online communication standard goes through 3rd party servers, and this even includes things that aren't considered online, such as your long distance, your cell phone, and probably your local land line.

You mean like this?

[lullabud]

4848
<ohm> damn
<ohm> FUCK
<ohm> DAMN
<ohm> i was just in an AIM convo with a chick, and my grandmother's window pops up
<ohm> FUCK
<ohm> i go like this to her
<ohm> "i want to suck on your clit"
<ohm> FUCK

Adium for Mac

[lullabud]

I know most people out there don't use Mac, but I tell ya, Adium is the best chat software I've ever used. Better than Gaim (no disrespect), better than trillian, and even better than the other Mac multi-service chat clients. It's got web-based CSS compliant visual themes that you can customize, animated icons, custom soundsets, etc. etc.. Gaim definitely comes in second though, and is clearly the best for linux. I love that app. But really, I'd use anything except the standard chat clients of ANY of these services, except when video is necessary... *sigh*

Re:ads

[dn15]

Note that there are a number of free multi-service IM clients (that include AIM support) available such as Gaim.

Re:AOL Mail access?

[lullabud]

Set up an IMAP client to log in and forward all the mail to her GMAIL. Or, even better, just configure her Mail application to log in with both Gmail (via pop3) and AOL Mail (via IMAP) and move all of the AOL mail into one inbox.

Re:real email?

[Reziac]

Cripes, what a modernist. I'm still using AIM v1.6, I shit you not. Works fine, and its memory and resource footprint is just about zilch. I love it, and see no reason to upgrade.

I think I have v4.something on another machine, tho :)

One Word, One File

[lullabud]

usercontents.css

Er...

[lullabud]

make that userContent.css.

Re:Er...

[zxnos]

groovy, graci.

Please!!!!

[xipper]

Just look at the users they are advertising to...someone who doesn't know what virus scanning is or spam filtering....worse yet probably doesn't even own or use virus protection. Not to mention their recent "we own everything you slide across our network" policy. All I am going to say about this one

gmail

[nanojath]

I've got about six hundred gmail accounts to give away if anyone is even considering using this service.

Re:gmail

[skiman1979]

I have 50...

Mailblocks challenge/response *not* included

[NeilO]

It took me a while to remember my old AIM login and password, but once I was logged in I found no evidence of the Mailblocks challenge/response system. Looks like they adopted only the Mailblocks webmail interface.

Catching up?

[Tsuminaoshi]

So does this mean my grandmother might now realize that AOL isn't the only way to access the innanet? You think maybe I can convince her that paying 25 dollars a month for something AOL now offers for free is idiotic? You think maybe AOL will stop shoving itself down the publics throat? No, wait, this is just another way to get more morons to pay extra for their services... American public hears the words free and they will pay anything for it...

Re: why the heck haven't AOL started offering

[limegreen]

In the UK, AOL do offer broadband, either over DSL or over cable. http://www.aol.co.uk/broadband

Re:Hrm...

[Emetophobe]

Anticlockwise

Is that like a person that hates all things that are clockwise? Or wait, maybe they meant counter clockwise?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: why the heck haven't AOL started offering

[Spetiam]

Hmmm. Not in the United States: http://www.aol.com/broadband/

"AOL Over [existing] Broadband." I think such a product is profoundly pointless. Heck, I get "unlimited" dial-up internet access with Juno for half the price of this "AOL Over [existing] Broadband." Why on earth would anyone pay for this?

Sorry, I just wanted to rant.

Re:real email?

[skiman1979]

if you send email to another @aim or @aol.com address you can unsend it if the person hasnt (sic) read the email yet

It should be noted that this is hardly innovative. AOL has had this feature in their email service since (probably before) 1996. They just extended the feature to these new @aim.com accounts. (does @netscape.net have this too?)

I do agree with the whole feature creep problem with these IM clients. It's an IM client. Why do we need an IM client packed full with a web browser, popup blocker, spyware scanner, email client, aim today crap....? Maybe AIM 6.0 will provide a media player to play your DVD movies.

Re:real email?

[Reziac]

Ah. I've only used it for chat/chatroom myself, but direct connect does seem like a good feature; is this an add-on??

I'd never heard anything about 5.x one way or the other. I do have random old versions on different machines and they've all been nothing but well-mannered, so no motivation to upgrade! :D

Re: why the heck haven't AOL started offering

[limegreen]

Why on earth would anyone pay for this?

For all that excellent AOL content, the parental controls, and that warm fuzzy feeling, of course.

It is surprisingly popular.

Re: why the heck haven't AOL started offering

[Spetiam]

Well, now that I think about it, I can understand parents liking the parental controls and anti-virus software if that's included.

I still think "AOL Over [existing] Broadband" is pointless. :)

Re:AOL acquired mailblocks last year

[Spetiam]

According to the FAQ, AIM Mail does not support IMAP.