Best Electronic Mail Services

[slowmassacrelabz24]

Just wondering what other people though about the issue of e-mail services. I recently dumped Gmail and had to find (what I thought) the best free e-mail service would be, and who would be the best company(ies) to provide this.

Of consideration:
01. Security: How secure are the networks? You don't want a bunch of crooks looking through your e-mail do you? Stealing your ideas and card numbers.

Using this one consideration, I had a hard time thinking that a search engine could possible offer such security. Sure, it is possible, but I'd think an Anti-Virus provider would be more suitable to such tasks (since our government/post office hasn't gotten into this business yet ).

As such, I went with Hotmail. It's very late 1990s, but I felt that Microsoft could at least provide the type of security that electronic mail deserves.

Obviously, when I make some real money. I'd like to shell out around $10,000 a year for electronic mail services. Of course, this probably includes its own computer and some type of non-line courier service. Shoot, hopefully I can get a job doing that someday too! I'm Johnny Moronic in Half Life.

[fj.whittle79]

Security? Microsoft?

...

What?

[vv.bbcc19]

Yes.
Hot mail gives a good security.
But Google mail-gmail is the best in the filed today.
People can trace where from the last login happend.
Gmail people are to be associated with a mobile number ==> tracing out naughty guys is easy.
What say.

[slowmassacrelabz24]

Well, like I mentioned, I don't think Microsoft is the "be all end all" of electronic mail security, I'm just saying that you're more likely to get good security from a company like Microsoft than from group you've never heard of with absolutely NO ties to security or expertise in the field.

As for GMail, yeah, I can see your point, but let's look at the facts:
01. Google is a search engine, they make search engines.
02. Your e-mail is on a Google mainframe.
03. It might be easy to run a search engine on everyone's e-mail.

Allright, so maybe that's just a bit of paranoia and/or MIStrust. But, if you've ever had a GoogleSites (as I did a few months back), you might notice that they encapsulate all your HTML code in GIGANTIC CSS forms. It's pretty nasty.

Then, you have their "Android" Operating System and phones. What's an "android" but a cyborg...a human that has had additional artificial implants and appendages added to them.

So, can you trust it with such important things as electronic mail security? I guess you'd have trust everything first.

But they do have that one nifty theme...

[slowmassacrelabz24]

You know, (sadly), probably the best services for REAL security for electronic mail would come from the Feds (aka government).

You know, like why didn't the U.S. Postal Service get into the electronic mail business?
Free e-mail accounts, virtual post office boxes, expanded paid services like increased
cryptology and large file sending. They could have made a bunch of money off it
AND provided the WAN (what I call the "Internet" these dayz) a stable, secure, electronic
mail system.

But, that's all just stuff that should have been done by 1997. You add such "necCessay" things as "Electronic Money" (not offered by ANY government on Earth) and it's really
amazing that "the Internet" is where it is today. As a side note, "Electronic Money"
would be just a way of having a type of "paper money" users could spend on the Internet.
Today, you have to have a credit card which is linked to your bank account, which makes
you HIGHLY susceptable to fraud and theft. With "Electronic Money" you could, say, go
into a bank and plop down $10 and then get it converted into "Electronic Money", which
you could then spend on the WAN at something like amazon.com (or on someone's site
selling audio commentary on tapes about some stupid movie from the 1980s). You get
the idea?

Well then, there's also the UPS, FEDEX, McAfee, Norton, and many more LOGICAL business
and government entities that are WAY more suited to providing electronic mail services
than say Google (or even Microsoft).

I just go with Microsoft/Hotmail because they build the OS I use, they've been around pretty long, their electronic mail services are pretty fair, the UI ain't eye tearingly bad, and the name ain't that bad. Yahoo!
was cool in the late 1990s but their increase ads and STUPID news feeds fed to your inbox make them unacceptable. Google's been
around since the late 1990s (around 99) and their minimalistic search engine page really made them take off, but their other services
are wack. You know, it's like having a friend who likes the same band you like, but ALL the other bands he likes stinks. Do you really
want to hang out with that guy?

[Gonrah]

I am happy with Gmail because with only one account I can use all web application created by Google (GDocs, Calendar, iGoogle, etc.). The mail service is good and the Chat box works pretty well.

[hai_misba72]

I like G-Mail, The easiest mode of Electronic Mail than others in the market today.

[Sharky]

You know, (sadly), probably the best services for REAL security for electronic mail would come from the Feds (aka government).

You know, like why didn't the U.S. Postal Service get into the electronic mail business?
Free e-mail accounts, virtual post office boxes, expanded paid services like increased
cryptology and large file sending. They could have made a bunch of money off it
AND provided the WAN (what I call the "Internet" these dayz) a stable, secure, electronic
mail system.

But, that's all just stuff that should have been done by 1997. You add such "necCessay" things as "Electronic Money" (not offered by ANY government on Earth) and it's really
amazing that "the Internet" is where it is today. As a side note, "Electronic Money"
would be just a way of having a type of "paper money" users could spend on the Internet.
Today, you have to have a credit card which is linked to your bank account, which makes
you HIGHLY susceptable to fraud and theft. With "Electronic Money" you could, say, go
into a bank and plop down $10 and then get it converted into "Electronic Money", which
you could then spend on the WAN at something like amazon.com (or on someone's site
selling audio commentary on tapes about some stupid movie from the 1980s). You get
the idea?

Well then, there's also the UPS, FEDEX, McAfee, Norton, and many more LOGICAL business
and government entities that are WAY more suited to providing electronic mail services
than say Google (or even Microsoft).

I just go with Microsoft/Hotmail because they build the OS I use, they've been around pretty long, their electronic mail services are pretty fair, the UI ain't eye tearingly bad, and the name ain't that bad. Yahoo!
was cool in the late 1990s but their increase ads and STUPID news feeds fed to your inbox make them unacceptable. Google's been
around since the late 1990s (around 99) and their minimalistic search engine page really made them take off, but their other services
are wack. You know, it's like having a friend who likes the same band you like, but ALL the other bands he likes stinks. Do you really
want to hang out with that guy?

If the gov't did it they'd charge you for postage...

[slowmassacrelabz24]

I dunno about the government/US Postal Service charging fees. I suppose if they wanted to be morons they would, but such a business is well capable of handling the needs of secure message delivery, and the residuals from upsale (increased cryptology, fees for sending of vast amounts of e-mail, large file sends) would mean increased revenues for them.

Why they did NOT get into that business at the outset is the real question. There's a real "quality" issue with government run businesses that still needs to be addressed by our society (at least here in the US). Besides, it would (would have been) an investment in emerging technologies and markets, and that's good for a nation.

As for G-Mail, I almost forgot an "experience" I had while I had a G-Mail account but remembered today after reading about their e-mail scanning technology that scans user's e-mails and then uses the data to "serve up" advertising to them.

I subscribed to a NORML e-mail newsletter a few months ago and decided to send them some of my ideas about "getting the herb legalized". I received a reply back to my e-mail from one of the chapters and noticed that Google had served all these ads for attorneys/lawyers into my e-mail.

I guess they were trying to tell me something...

[kinley3]

Security? Microsoft?

...

What?

Ha! That's the first thing that popped into my head as well.

I really think you're reading too much into Google being a search engine and trying to make it lead to not being able to supply users with secure email. Seems like a real leap to try and connect the two.