6 Best Free Email Services in 2011
If you think that keeping in touch is one of the best things in life, then one of the best things in life can indeed be free, as there's a number of free email services out there. Basically, they're webmail systems, meaning you log onto a website to read and compose messages using your browser.
The messages reside in the cloud rather than on your machine, which might make the email process a little clumsier, but it also means that you can access your email using any machine with a browser (and you won't have to wrestle with email server configurations.
Austrian blogger Heinz Tschabitscher has come up with a list of the highest-rated services. Amidst a shifting kaleidoscope of features, they have one thing in common: they're free. However, they typically coexist with a sister fee-based service with premium features aimed at the business market. Don't click the wrong icon and get billed.
No. 1: Google's Gmail — At last count, Gmail was available in 44 languages for the interface. (As for the messages, the service can translate automatically.) Tschabitscher liked its interface, which lets you organize your email easily and find messages by content. Each user gets nearly 8 gigabytes of free message storage.
No. 2: Zoho Mail — A business-oriented service with integrated office applications such as customer support, sales management and accounting, Zoho's interface comes in 16 languages and offers unlimited message storage.
No. 3: AOL — The free email service stands out for its ease of use and its better-than-average spam protection, and it also proves easy to interface to a standard email server (the type that downloads your mail to your machine.) There is no storage limit per se with AOL. The company lets users save as many as 5,000 messages in a folder, and you can create as many as 252 folders.
No. 4: GMX Mail —Tschabitscher likes the Germany-based GMX Mail for its rich interface. Users have five gigabytes of storage, and file attachments can be as large as 50 megabytes. (GMX, incidentally, stands for Global Mail Exchange.)
No. 5: Yahoo! Mail — Yahoo! includes an interface to cellphone texting, instant messaging and social networks. Message storage is unlimited.
No. 6: Gawab — This service is little-known outside the Middle East. (Gawab is Arabic for letter, as in message, not alphabetic symbol.) Users get 10 gigabytes storage, and Tschabitscher liked the site's speed and usability.
So if you’re tired of only being able to check email from your own personal computer, consider one of these web-based email services which let you stay connected no matter where you are, or what device you’re using.
