On Test: Webmail services

On Test: Webmail services
With the impending release of the free Gmail service, we ask whether it's worth paying for webmail services
Paul Grant, Computeractive 25 Nov 2004

You are probably familiar with the concept of webmail, the (mostly) free services that allow you to send and receive email from any computer in the world, providing you have your email address and password to hand.

It's a handy service, particularly if you travel a lot and don't carry a notebook or handheld computer, but there are some drawbacks. Some accounts expire if not accessed for a set period of time. All have limited storage for emails and attachments and many won't let you send or receive large file attachments, a problem in today's world of broadband connections, when large video or audio files are becoming commonplace.

But on April Fool's Day the market was revolutionised by a new upstart. Although still in the testing phase, Gmail, from the makers of the world's most popular search engine, Google, offers an enormous 1Gb of storage for emails and attachments, much more than other services.

This prompted its competitors to up their games by increasing the range of services and features on offer. So let's look at the benefits you can gain and see if they are worth paying extra for.

A free lunch?
Most 'free' services are actually paid for by advertisers, and many companies now base the advertising shown to each user on the subject headings of emails sent to them or terms they have entered into a search engine, matching them with products or services offered by their advertising partners.

Under UK law it's perfectly legal providing the company explains this in its terms and conditions and gives you the chance to decline the service. Gmail took this a stage further, saying it would scan emails to find potential advertising matches. This raised eyebrows, as users became concerned that Gmail staff would be reading private emails.

The company said that its automated tools would simply scan for key words, so people who mention the word 'summer' in an email might see adverts for holiday companies. Not all the services here use this technique and some remove adverts altogether for premium members.

FastMail
www.fastmail.co.uk
FastMail is an Australia-based service, although strangely it displays the time as if you were on the west coast of the US. It claims to be the fastest email service on the planet and prides itself on its reliability.

It offers a range of standard features free of charge, including the ability to access other email accounts, such as those on IMAP and other webmail services, from FastMail. It also integrates well with other email software such as Microsoft Outlook and Eudora, making it much easier to access your communications on the go.

There are a range of different paid-for services available through FastMail, with more facilities and greater storage space as the price goes up. For just over £20 a year you can get up to 2Gb of storage. However, instead of a maximum file size, like most other similar services, it instead has a bandwidth limit, in this case 750Mb per month, much like the usage limits on some of the cheaper broadband services currently on offer.

It is only when you start paying that a good virus scanner and advanced spam filter are offered, otherwise you are not as well protected from hackers and junk mailers as you might like to be. Advertising also then disappears and you can receive up to five different email aliases on the same account and the ability to host your own website.

Gmail
gmail.google.com
Although it hasn't yet been officially launched, it has already made quite a splash. Initially people have been staggered by its size, with 1Gb of storage space available.

It also employ's the technology used by the Google search engine to search through your own email account, helping you find things much more easily in what they expect to be a sizeable account. It is this feature that sets Gmail apart from other services and users of Google should be able to get to grips with the way it works quickly.

The service also has a few other neat touches. As well as the standard contact books and spam filters, Gmail can group messages together into conversations to help you keep in better touch with contacts. It also has a star system which allows you to highlight those messages you wish to have a special status. You can then quickly view all starred items on their own page, a good way of keeping track of email receipts for online purchases, for example.

As mentioned earlier, there were concerns over privacy issues with Gmail, as the contents of your emails are examined in order to deliver specifically targeted advertising when you are using the account.

However, the company has promised that no human will read any of your emails and that personal information will not be sold or passed on to third parties without the express permission of the account holder.

Gmail is due for full release soon, but many people now have a beta account. You can register your interest in a Gmail account here.

Hotmail
www.hotmail.com
Most internet users will have come across Hotmail, Microsoft's free webmail service, before. It is one of the most recognised email addresses you will come across. Given that it is owned by Microsoft, you can expect that it integrates well with many of the other Microsoft products that you will find on your Desktop.

It shares its address book with MSN Messenger, Microsoft's instant messaging software, allowing you to choose whether to email or instant message a contact at any point. It also offers MSN Calendar, to help you schedule appointments and interacts well with its own Outlook software. It has free virus-scanning and cleaning software and an integrated spam filter.

Most of this you can get with your free account. If you're looking to upgrade, for just under £15 a year, you get extra storage. Hotmail Plus, the paid-for service, gives you 2Gb of storage space, a massive jump from the current 250Mb limit on the free account, and you can send or receive files of up to 20Mb in size.

The premium service also gives you 30Mb of extra space at MSN Groups, which you can use for sharing photos, documents and other files. If you are an infrequent email user but find having a webmail account vital, your money will also prevent your account, and your messages, from disappearing after 30 days of inactivity, one of the major drawbacks of free Hotmail accounts. For those of you who hate advertising banners, the upgraded account is also advert-free.

Hushmail
www.hushmail.com
Hushmail, as the name might suggest, has privacy and security at its heart. It is aimed at those who are worried about other email services being potentially vulnerable to attack from hackers or those looking to steal personal information. With Hushmail your mind will instantly be put at rest.

All messages and attachments sent from a Hushmail account are encrypted, so it is practically impossible for others to intercept and view the information. Hushmail also works with other systems that use PGP.

It offers an advanced spam filter, which includes a system that requires a sender to verify themselves interactively before allowing the mail to go through. This ensures that no mails sent out to every address under the sun get through. It also allows you to create a list of those you want to receive mails from and those you don't.

Hushmail offers a range of services at different prices above its free provision, depending on how much space you want. At the top end you can get up to 128Mb of secure storage for you messages and files for about £50 a year. The paid-for service also allows you to create an unlimited number of fake email addresses, which enables you to maintain your anonymity over the internet when filling out forms on the internet or posting to newsgroups.

All users can receive files of up to 25Mb. For an additional cost, Hushmail also gives you access to IMAP mail servers, so you can read messages in other accounts from your Hushmail account. If you want to send emails and be almost entirely sure they can't be read by anyone else, try Hushmail.

Lycos
www.lycos.co.uk
Lycos is another big name in webmail. While most users will only have experienced the free service, the provider actually has three different offerings available. The free service will allow you a maximum storage space of 15Mb, while you can send or receive emails with attachments of up to 5Mb in size.

The basic service also comes with an address book and calendar tool and allows you to access IMAP servers and other external email accounts. Spam filters and virus protection is provided but the tools are fairly basic.

The next level of service comes at a cost of £2 a month. This increases your storage limit to 100Mb while attachments can be up to 15Mb in size. You also have access to POP3 accounts and the ability to send 30 text messages via your email account. Helpdesk support is also available with the paid service, spam filters and virus software are improved, while banner advertising is banished.

The highest level of service, which starts at £3.50 a month, sees storage space increase to 1Gb while attachment sizes can reach an enormous 50Mb. You can also choose your own email domain name and have up to 50 email accounts on it. Spam filters and virus protection are also enhanced to their maximum.

Yahoo
uk.yahoo.com
A look at webmail would not be complete without Yahoo. Along with Hotmail, Yahoo is one of the top free email services in the world, and as such offers you a good range of features.

Following competition from the soon to be released Gmail, Yahoo has bumped up is storage size from 6Mb to 100Mb, increased the maximum individual mail size from 3Mb to 10Mb and improved the look and feel of your mailbox.

It offers the obligatory spam filters and antivirus protection, enables you to set up an address book and add your own personal touches to the look of your mailbox, but you are subjected to page adverts.

Another handy feature is the option to receive alerts of new messages to your Yahoo! Messenger service or direct to your mobile phone. You can also send text messages via the service, but you'll pay your phone company the usual fee for each.

With so much available free of charge, its hard to see how what could be added. For £12 a year, your storage space increases to 2Gb and the adverts fall away, but attachment sizes remain at 10Mb. Like Hotmail, your account will no longer disappear if you don't use it for a certain period of time. As a bonus you can currently receive a £20 wine voucher for Virgin Wines, effectively cancelling out your fees for nearly two years.

Security
One concern you may have about using webmail is the security of the contents of your email as they fly about the internet. Unfortunately most email systems, including the ones provided by your internet service provider, are inherently insecure. The emails you send are transmitted in clear text across the internet and anyone who is determined to get access to them and is technically gifted enough could probably do so.

What you have to remember is that it is highly unlikely that anyone will want to intercept your conversations with friends. If you're transmitting anything more sensitive than that, an encrypted service like Hushmail is probably for you.

If you are accessing your email account on a shared computer or in an internet cafe, ensure that you have logged out of your account properly before leaving it and don't tick the 'remember my login details' button found on most. Following these simple steps should ensure your email account remains open to just you.

Signed, sealed, delivered
Even if you only access email from home, free and premium webmail services offer benefits over your home ISP account, particularly in terms of online storage and attachment sizes. But if you want no more than the ability to send and receive messages and the occasional attachment from any PC, then we see no point in paying for premium services.

For those wanting a little more oomph, a paid-for service gives you much more storage space, you'll be able to send and receive large files in one go and you won't have to worry about your account disappearing if you don't use it for a while. It will be interesting to see how these premium services fare after the full release of Gmail.