This is getting very hot. Earlier you may not find enough storage to store your emails and would have to delete then and there the unwanted emails. But this is not true today. Now the storage barrier for Email Storage is virtually or truly unlimited. The attachment size can be as big as 10 MB. This was first started by Google and thanks to Google to start giving 1GB storage space initially while others where giving very less storage space. This was cached up by Yahoo and Hotmail. Now Yahoo and Hotmail are leading in giving out the storage space. Yahoo has broken the storage limit and give unlimited storage of emails while Hotmail now has upgraded the storage space to 5GB.
Here I will compare the three email services and their features. The comparison is made by scoring points for each feature and I compare 20 Feature sets totaling for 100 Points.
When I started to write this article, I got an announcement from Live Side Blog stating that the Hotmail is getting an update which boosts up the storage to 5 GB and adding some features that were missing or rather I found missing in Windows Live Hotmail (First Version). So I compare the old Hotmail noted as Hotmail (Windows Live) and new Hotmail as Hotmail (New Updated).
1. Storage :
As I discussed above the storage becomes the critical part of your Email system. The storage boom was started by GMail which gave 1GB of storage space while starting the service. Hotmail was offering just 25MB of space while yahoo was offering about 200MB of storage space. Today the space of GMail is daily incrementing, Hotmail offers 5GB, Yahoo offers unlimited storage. So by comparing the storage Yahoo is on TOP followed by Hotmail and then GMail.
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2. Security: Like Storage security became the main concern after Emails became very popular and many viruses, Trojans penetrated through Emails. Also the password theft, Phishing became concern for webmail users. One more problem was the session handling in webmails. In early days if you do not sign out of yahoo mail, you may open the browser and go the inbox of a person without even the password. Now the all the webmail system including yahoo, Hotmail and GMail clear the cookie when the browser is closed.
Now when you type the password and send it it is being encrypted and is sent through SSL (Secure Socket Layer - HTTPS) and the password cannot be re-produced or stored from the address line. This is implemented in yahoo, Gmail as well as in Hotmail. Yahoo goes one step forward to counteract with phishing. It provides us to upload a small image to the top so that when ever we launch the page the image can be seen and make sure that this is not a fake site replicating yahoo login.
But there are some concerns of private data being stolen from these web-mail providers. How ever these providers constantly update the system so that privacy is protected at all means.
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3. Speed: The speed of response of the system is more important these days and you cannot just spend time to read just emails. With the emergence of broadband the speed is not a big concern as it is generally faster than previous dial-up connections. But still in many parts of the world the broadband remains to be expensive or not fully established.
Of these three email providers, GMail seems to be the fastest. GMail has a very simple and plain interface and it loads well and faster. While Hotmail and Yahoo uses more complex interface and also provides customizations, right click support with AJAX implemented very highly. Earlier when windows live hotmail as well as yahoo mail beta (new interface) was launched it was very slow. you may not be able to load the page if you do not have a broadband connection or faster broadband connection. Now both yahoo and Hotmail (new updated) as improved the speed. It just loads very fast sometimes quicker than GMail. It is really brilliant and the power of UI and the speed of it is truly amazing. To be accurate the old hotmail was loading for about 5 to 8 seconds where as new the hotmail updated version loads in 3 to 5 seconds which is same as GMail which also takes around the same time to load the inbox. Yahoo is around 7 seconds in average. Yahoo still can improve speed of system but it is definitely good.
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4. Interface and Technology: As discussed earlier the Hotmail and Yahoo uses lot of AJAX and supports drag and drop, right clicking and gives the feel of using a desktop system on the web.
GMail interface is just very very simple and uses conversation window for emails of same subject. The Hotmail uses the interface just like Microsoft Outlook. Personally I use outlook and I like the interface very much. When I saw the similar interface it was really cool. In the first version of Windows Live hotmail it was bit slow and response was not so immediate. But after the update to new Hotmail the response is very quick and accurate. Yahoo uses some thing similar to outlook express with tabbed browsing support or something like that. That is really cool with yahoo. In Live Hotmail you may have to close the tab you are working to move to the other tab which is not the case in yahoo. Yahoo opens emails in separate tab which makes multitasking rather more easier. One downside is you cannot move the preview pane to right which has become most common view right now, fonts seems very small.
Easy Email composing, easy replying, auto fill of address now has been part of all email system. Yahoo and Hotmail is more visual and uses more bandwidth compare to GMail. GMail is simple and most people prefer because it just serves the purpose. Now being Hotmail and Yahoo faster as compared to GMail I would recommend you to Hotmail or Yahoo which makes life even simple.
Hotmail and Yahoo implement on the go spell checker where as in GMail you have to press the check spelling before it can do the spell check in composing of emails.
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5. Customization: This is the capability of webmail system to customize according to your wish.
Of the three Email providers GMail offers you with least customization. You may not even change the colors.
Yahoo has been giving color customization earlier but it does not. While Hotmail is giving a range of colors to customize the look and feel.
In Hotmail you may change the location of the reading pane while in Yahoo it is not possible. Further you may customize to go to inbox or Hotmail Today where as in yahoo it just goes to Today.
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6. SPAM GUARD: There is always bad things associated with good things. Email storage increase and popularity of email increase, increased SPAMS as well. SPAMS are unwanted emails or bulk emails from unknown sources or sometimes even known sources. SPAMS are meant for marketing purposes which is used in wrong sense.
Before even the Windows Live Mail (now Windows Live Hotmail) was launched the original Hotmail used to receive hell a lot of spam after which Microsoft received serious concerns over it and tightened the spam guard. Now in Windows Live Hotmail (updated) the number of spams i receive is almost zero. Also if it looks like a spam, the spam guard traps it and send it to junk email. For me if it goes to junk email, I am not worried as it does not clutter my inbox. Yahoo has improved spam guard as well with block senders etc. But still yahoo's spam guard is worst of the three. In GMail occasionally one or two emails come to inbox where as rest are filtered as spam. But there is no block sender but just report spam button. In Yahoo and Hotmail you have block senders and safe senders list. Yahoo has limited numbers of emails while Hotmail allows unlimited block senders list. Hotmail and Yahoo allows customization of junk filters where Hotmail stands the best. Though Yahoo has block senders, spam filters etc, there are at least 10 emails per day to me that is junk is thrown into my inbox.
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7. Integrated Address Book: Every Email system has its own address book. Address book is the most vital thing, because in these days it is very difficult to remember each and every contacts email and personal info. Thus a address book is provided to store those.
Out of the three address book providers, GMail gives the simplest contact book. When you compose email to a sender it just adds the email to the address book. you may import the contacts and export the contacts. It is just done by a single way, through CSV (comma separated values). You may view contact pictures in GMail. There is nothing more you can do. It has an integration with Google Talk Messenger as well.
Yahoo Address book is more sophisticated than GMail. When you compose to new email sender it checks whether it exist in address book and asks whether you want to add the contact, if you do not wish to do you may ignore it. The address book is more elaborate and has good sync option. Here also you may import contacts using CSV exported from other Address book system. Yahoo in addition provides, in collaboration with TRUESWITCH, provides a way to entirely move your data, address book and others to Yahoo. In addition to it Yahoo allows SYNC between your desktop client and Yahoo. This is considered as bonus because for a person like me, who use different email systems, I feel to have perfect sync between my Mobile Phone, Desktop Client and Web Client. Through Yahoo AutoSync it an be achieved but it seems very preliminary right now. Earlier there was intelisync for Yahoo which was quiet good which yahoo does not seem to support any more.
Hotmail address book is more like yahoo address book. The address book has good look and feel with the new UI. you can see contact groups easily. There are numerous ways to import contacts into here. There is a contact importer provided by Microsoft itself to import from your desktop client. Other ways to import are through CSV, Windows Contacts (for Windows Vista), Windows Live Mail, Yahoo Mail and also GMail (using CSV). Thus Hotmail goes very much leap forward to support almost all systems. Hotmail also adds new features to the updated version. Duplicate contact removal. This is definitely very useful because every time there are duplicate contacts created for the same user. You may choose the way you want to sort the contact. Add to the Contact Group. Also has tight integration with Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Mail (Desktop Client). The Hotmail also allows to add new contacts after sending a email to them.
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8. DESKTOP CLIENT SUPPORT : Although the web today is much faster and technologies are standard, there is always certain problems either with the bandwidth or some small script errors or ads being displayed in the web page etc etc.
I always prefer to read emails and compose emails in desktop client system for several reasons. You can compose a html designed pages, you can insert images at the page, set background etc etc. You can request for read response report (delivery report is not supported by webmail clients - even in GMail pop3).
If you are not able to be online always, you may work in offline mode, compose and then send. The bandwidth utilize to send is less compared to bandwidth utilized by web page to load and compose.
GMail supports desktop client via POP3 protocol. Thus it can be used with any desktop client email that supports POP3 (Almost all supports). Google allows to save a copy, archive copy or delete after you receive it in desktop client viz POP3. Thus it is very very useful to have emails both in web as well as in your desktop. You may use web while you are not with your PC.
Yahoo does not support POP3 for Free by default. Thus there is no much thing tell about Yahoo's support to POP3 for Free. It how ever supports for paid subscription. There is a alternative way to receive Yahoo Mails Via POP3 for Free. There are few third party tools available one of which is YPOPS. This is really good, very tiny utility which fetches the email from web and pushes to your desktop client. You chose to mark as read or delete the email after it has been pushed to your desktop client. YPOPS even supports new yahoo mail beta.
Hotmail does not support POP3. So it does not support all the desktop client email system. But it is supported by Windows Live Mail (Desktop or previously called as Windows Live Mail Desktop). You may get it for free from here( Direct Link : http://g.live.com/1rebeta/en-us/WLInstaller.exe). Windows Live Mail + Windows Live Hotmail is very very powerful and very convenient to use. Microsoft instead of using POP3 it uses its protocol called MAPI to link to Windows Live Hotmail. You may download the emails and also work offline to view them. It just supports everything normal desktop client will do. But in addition it supports more than what POP3 Does. When you organize, move or delete some emails from your desktop client, it syncs with the Hotmail during send and receive. Thus this gives a convenience over GMail in which we have only limited options. You may also download a tool called Outlook Connector (which you can download if you have a genuine office license) and can be used in Microsoft OUTLOOK. It is same as Windows Live Mail (Desktop) but in outlook. Calendar Synchronization alone is not possible and is possible if you have the premium account. To know more about Windows Live mail (Desktop) you may read my blog posting here. Another Plus point is that even the contacts from your web email is downloaded on to your desktop client either through Windows Live Mail (Desktop) or through Outlook connector.
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9. DESKTOP CLIENT SUPPORT IN MULTIPLE PLATFORMS: It is necessary to have desktop client support in other platforms including Mac OS or Linux. Since Windows Live Mail is meant only for windows platform or Outlook connector does not work with other clients that are supported in other platforms, it becomes only GMail supports the Desktop Client by default.
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10. SEARCH: The concept of GMail organization is Do not Sort , search. The search is through the keyword only. Now Yahoo, GMail and Hotmail all have included the search feature and quiet fast and fantastic in all email systems. But in GMail there is no folders, so it is just a simple search or search by keyword.Also in Hotmail the search is based on keywords. Only Yahoo provides more advanced search and customizable search, search mails containing pictures, mails containing attachments etc (Note: Only classic version of yahoo mail currently supports this search feature, it doesn't seem to appear on new Yahoo Mail Beta). In scoring I have give a point extra to customizable search of yahoo though is not included yet in yahoo mail beta.
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11. Organization: As I already mentioned GMail concept is just to search the email, Do not sort or put in folders. It uses tag for messages with which you can group them. You can use automatic filters for tag purposes. But the real fact after using GMail is if we want some emails in past with some same keywords say "Windows Vista", GMail fetches numerous results from which you got to again filter it out. You may mark them with STAR however lets say for a person like me I have too many starred messages and which star should I consider. If I have to use some tags then I should start putting so many tags. Thus the GMail organization is very bad of the other two.
Both Yahoo and Hotmail provide folders and automatic filters. You can set filters to make the email directly go that folder. If you have many important emails you may just move into a separate folder. And with advanced search of yahoo you may even search only with in that folder itself. The filters in yahoo is though limited where as in Hotmail you may set unlimited number of filters. With added support to desktop client when you move emails from desktop client (Windows Live Mail) it is automatically moved on the web as well.
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12. RSS/LIVE Content: GMail supports live content through snippets, Yahoo has RSS Feeds inside and Welcome Page, Hotmail has only welcome page. You may add custom snippets in GMail but the display is not just as good. Where as in yahoo mail (new) there is a good support of RSS platform.
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13. Calendar: Calendar is now supported in all the three Email systems. GMail Calendar is just added and seems very easy and good. Hotmail is also very nice in terms of look and feel. Yahoo is very mature and also very good. All the three support standard calendar imports, public calendars, publishing etc. So we can say they equally weigh.
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14. Virus Scanning: Virus scanning GMail is newly implemented and does scanning. In Yahoo and Hotmail it is done by Norton and McAfee respectively, which is more widely trusted.
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15. Attachments: Attaching a file in GMail is quiet simple. Also downloading is not very hard. You may also preview before you can download. In Yahoo there has always been many times where we get time out issues while doing the attachment. Second thing is while downloading it takes to different tab. Though it is not very hard, it can be still be improved. In Hotmail the attachment of file is very fast and preview or getting attachment is through the top message Which is also simple.
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16. Messenger Integration: All the three email clients have messenger support. GMail and Yahoo have added messenger to email while Hotmail has separate web messenger. There is a good integration of messenger support to all the three emails. While the GMail messenger is just a basic one where as other two have mature and good messenger integration.
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17. Free webmail for Custom Domains: Though this does not directly connect to the Email systems, it is a service provided by Microsoft or Google or Yahoo. With custom domains with just having a domain name you may host email with GMail or Hotmail. This is very much useful as you can have email on your own name. In GMail you can create up to 25 users for free. It gives a domain parking page, full web email support with POP3. It has Google Talk messenger support and offers a start page. Similarly Hotmail also offers Window Live custom domains which fully integrates Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger. In Hotmail you may also launch custom domains without email. This will be useful for small businesses who try to cut cost on email hosting and get benefited by storage and others offered. Yahoo doesn't offer a service which supports its email for custom domains.
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18. Mobile Mail: All the three email providers now offer Mobile Mail through different hand sets and services. I consider them to share equal points as all services have their own plus and minus.
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19. EMail Forwarding / Other Account Email Check: GMail offers Email forwarding as well as other email account check. Yahoo does not offer Email forwarding but offers for Other Account Email check. The new Yahoo mail beta does not contain even other account email check as it is still under construction. Windows Live Hotmail (version 1) does not offer these services but the new updated Hotmail offers email forwarding. Hotmail offers other account check through other account forwarding to Hotmail. It offers to add more send from address so that forwarded email will have a note of send from Hotmail on behalf of the other account Email.
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20. Vacation Response, Signatures and Extras: GMail supports vacation response, custom signature and Ad less (Ad line at the end of the email). I consider that as a great plus as it does not put un-necessary tag lines, ads etc.
Yahoo does offer vacation response, signature but has ad tag line behind emails. It does not offer anything more.
Hotmail also supports vacation response in new version while it supports for signature in current and old versions. There is a single line of ad-tag added to the Email when sent through Web Mail. When used with Outlook connector or with Windows Live Mail (Desktop) the tag line does not appear.
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Conclusion: After going through number of feature sets and I find this review I have written is quiet elaborate enough taking into consideration of almost all features available. The score table summary is as follows
Summary
From the above summary it is quiet clear that all the web email systems (which is discussed above) are equally good or better. This is good in consumer point of view as there is competition then there is more improvement. All the email systems (which is discussed above) offer only say 75% to the maximum level which implements that all can still improve. Thanks to GMail initiative of breaking the storage limit which lead the email system to offer more space. Today the winner is clearly the Windows Live Hotmail (updated version). Yahoo slips slightly when compared to GMail. GMail is simple and easy solution of email.
I would strongly recommend Windows Live Hotmail when used with Windows Live Mail goes distinctly ahead in terms of usability, speed, sync etc. Windows Live Hotmail (updated) has included lot of new features and that made it to carry on top. GMail is very new when comparing with Hotmail and Yahoo but it definitely offers good solution without doubt. I would expect further more improvement in all email systems and this just keeps changing.
Microsoft is now becoming aggressive with its live services. It just added live drive (skydrive), live photos etc. Yahoo is pushed back in competition of Google and Microsoft. But I am sure yahoo will be big player in terms of competition is concerned.
Ok.. Let's see how it goes on from here...
Barath
