Email on the Web: The bottom line

Here's the bottom line on Email on the Web QuickTopic: Most users who responded to our Web email question said that they preferred even the slimmest email client application to email via a Web interface. However, road warriors usually found email via a Web browser rather useful. The service that received the most praise was Yahoo! Mail, which was preferred by about one third of the respondents. Most Yahoo! Mail users reported average to excellent performance. Yahoo! Mail seemed to be the most feature-rich as well, with options for both Web and POP access. Winston Smith wrote, "The good thing about Yahoo is that I can change the reply-to address. That way I can reply to an email through Yahoo and when somebody replies to my reply their message goes to my main account." Although several users preferred Hotmail, it was also the most strongly condemned: everything from mountains of spam and poor performance to below-average storage space and poor customer service. One user noted of Hotmail, "I never used the address for outgoing, not even once. In spite of this, I received between 80 and 90 spams a month." One suggestion did not necessarily rely on a Web based email service, but is noteworthy nonetheless. Jon wrote "I think the best thing for Mac users to do is to get a mac.com address through iTools and then sign up with a service that can check other POP accounts. You'll have access to mac.com e-mail just about everywhere -- at home with your chosen e-mail client and on the road with Web-based e-mail." Several other services picked up brief comments: Visto (works with Macs, although the site says Windows only), OperaMail (integrates with the Opera browser, generous storage, but does not have POP access), mailandnews.com (which uses the same interface as OperaMail and has POP access), and Excite (which, like Yahoo!, allows a custom replyto: header).