Many email providers offer certain features on top of the standard email system, for example, both Yahoo! and Hotmail offer excellent Instant Messenger systems which can be used with your email ID and password, removing the need to signup separately for a messenger service.
Two other things that set email providers apart is the amount of space they allow for email storage, and the maximum size of email attachments, both of which are covered below.
Email storage space
An email provider will (in most cases) limit the amount of space you can use to store your emails and any attachments. The amount of space varies throughout the many providers, they will set the limit by how much space they themselves have available.In the early days of the Internet and the email system storage space was fairly limited, but due to technological developments, hard drive technology in particular, storage space has become a less expensive commodity in recent years, allowing email providers to offer much more space to their users than they used to do.
The space an email provider offers is usually stated in MB (MegaBytes) or GB (GigaBytes), with typical email providers offering between 100MB and 5GB.
To put storage space into perspective, an average email containing just plain text, is around 25KB (KiloByte), 1MB is equal to 1,024 KB. So, in theory, 100MB would allow you to store roughly 4,096 plain text emails. In reality however, the number would be much lower, as typical emails use formatting, such as bold letters or italic text, which all adds to the space needed to store them, not to mention any attachments that may accompany an email, such as photos or documents.
The amount of storage space you will require will be dictated by the amount of emails and attachments you intend to receive.
Some of the more popular free email providers, namely, Yahoo!, Hotmail, and GMail (GoogleMail), all offer a massive amount of storage space, see the provider's specifications below in the free email provider section for more detail.
Email attachment size
When you send an email, as you may already know, you can attach a file, or several files, to the email, which the recipient of the email can then download. Attachments can be virtually any type of file, but your email provider will usually set a limit on the size of the file, or files, that you can attach.This limit may apply to the size of a single attachment, or, if you can attach multiple files to a single email, to the total of all attachments per email.
As you can see, the size of the attachment limit that is set by an email provider will influence what you are able to send along with an email. To give you some idea of how the limit may affect certain scenarios, let's take exchanging photos via email as an example. A typical, good quality photo, would be around 1MB (MegaByte) in size, if your email provider's filesize limit was 5MB, then you would be able to attach up to 5 photos to any single email.
One final thing about attachment limits to keep in mind, the person you are sending the email to may have a lower attachment size limit than you, and subsequently the email would not arrive. Where possible, always confirm the recipient's limit is sufficient.
For more about email attachments, click here
Free email providers
There are numerous free email providers online, and as you would expect, some are better than others. Below are 3 popular free email providers, along with more information on the services they offer.
Yahoo!® MAILFull email service.Security by way of Password. Unlimited amount of storage for your mail. Instant message system with Yahoo Messenger™. Ability to search your emails. Access to your emails worldwide. View your emails on a mobile device External Mail system to get access to any other email accounts you may have. A SpamGuard™ system that redirects any spammail to a separate mail folder. Automatic virus scan of outgoing and incoming attachments. A File Viewer system which allows the user to take a look at any email attachment without downloading. Many other services which are not appropriate for this section. for further information or to sign up visit http://mail.yahoo.com |
Hotmail®Full email service.Security by way of password. 5GB of storage for your mail. (increases as you need more) SPAM Protection Instant message system with MSN Messenger™. Access to your emails worldwide. View your emails on a mobile device email to mobile phone service ( optional ). Many other services which are not appropriate for this section. for further information or to sign up visit http://www.hotmail.com |
Gmail™ (GoogleMail)
Full email service.Security by way of password.
7GB of storage for your mail. (storage increases every second, see the GMail website for the latest allowance)
SPAM Protection
Ability to search your emails using Google search technology.
Access to your emails worldwide.
View your emails on a mobile device
Many other services which are not appropriate for this section.
for further information or to sign up visit http://www.Gmail.com
Summary
In summary, your choice of email provider will be down to personal needs, but some of the following reasons may influence your decision:- ease of use.
- email storage space.
- attachment filesize limits.
- compatibility with friends/relatives/colleagues email and instant messenger.
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