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Gmail Takes Largest Webmail Service Crown

Posted by Unknown on from the nsa-scheme-proceeding-as-planned dept.

redletterdave writes "After several years of dominance, Microsoft's Web-based email service, Hotmail, has been unseated by Google's significantly younger webmail service, Gmail. Google announced it had about 350 million monthly active users in January; since then, that number has ballooned to 425 million." Remember when people ran their own mail servers?

4 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I dunno, maybe the fact of requiring a gmail account to setup an android phone has something to do with it maybe?

    1. Re:android by Lincolnshire+Poacher · · Score: 4, Interesting

      do you actually need a Gmail account to setup an Android phone?

      A basic Google Account can be used to configure the phone but will fail if the user then tries to use the Android Market functionality; the Market requires a Gmail account.

      There is a long, long thread on Google's "support" forum about this dating back to somewhere in 2009, but still no fix!

      On a basic level the phone will work fine without any form of Google account, you just won't be able to use features such as sync or the Market. I do find the latter to be quite limiting, particularly when some vendors ( such as Amazon ) don't even provide a download of their own app from their own site but insist on directing the user to the Market. I had to ask a friend to send me a copy of the Kindle APK!

  2. Re:Maybe selection bias by stephanruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm surprised Hotmail just lost its crown. It has millions of spam accounts on there.

    Either their spam detection just got better, or the spammers themselves are leaving Hotmail because no one takes Hotmail seriously anymore.

  3. Re:How many are 'bots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's interesting that bulk Gmail accounts are 18X as expensive as bulk Hotmail or Yahoo accounts.