Comparison of webmail providers
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The following tables and gallery compare general and technical information for a number of webmail providers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.
General information
Name | Owner | First public release date | Cost (US$) | Storage | Attachment limit | Languages supported | Browser(s) supported | IMAP or POP3 support7 | Account deactivated if not logged in | Filters out emails with executable attachments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AOL Mail | AOL, USA | 23 August 2004 | Free (text ads added to the signature of every outgoing email, ads in interface. paying members can disable ads in signature) | Unlimited | 25 MB | 26 | All | Both | 3 months (without fee) | No |
BlueMail | The BlueKloud Company, USA | 2009 | $7/month (corporate accounts only) | 25 GB | 25 MB | English | All | Both | ||
BlueTie | BlueTie, Inc. | 1999 | $4.99 per user/month (ad free) | 10GB | 25MB | English | IE 6,7 and 8, Mozilla 2.0+, Safari 3.0+ | Both | No | Yes |
ContactOffice | ContactOffice Group sa | 2000 | free and paying accounts | 100MB to 10GB | 25MB | English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portugeese, German, Danish, Swedish | All | Both | No, except for free accounts after 90 days | |
Excite | IAC Search & Media, USA | 1994 | Free | 1 GB | 25 MB | English | No | |||
FastMail.FM | Opera Software Australia Pty Ltd. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
1999 | Free (tiny ads in emails and interface) $4.95 yearly (Ad Free) $14.95 yearly (Full) $34.95 yearly (Enhanced) (Also various other service levels in 'Business' and 'Family' group accounts) |
25 MB - 15 GB (depending on service level) | 10 MB - 50 MB (depending on service level). 2 | English Interface. All languages supported in message display/composition. Right to left directionality supported. | All | IMAP for all accounts, POP3 (and SMTP) for all paid accounts | 45 days (free) None (all paid accounts) |
No (unless discarded by virus scanner, if enabled) |
Gawab | EgyptHome IT, Egypt | Officially in November 2000 | Free (ads in emails and interface) | 10 GB | 50 MB | 18 languages | All | Both | 2 months | |
Gmail | Google, USA | 1 April 2004 | Free (Optional text ads seen when viewing mail, not in messages) | 7.48 GB and counting | 25 MB[1] | 52 | All | IMAP, POP, POP+TLS, Microsoft Exchange | ? months[2] | Yes, including .exe files in zip files |
GMX Mail | United Internet AG, Germany | 1997 | Free (ads at the end of messages, sometimes in inbox), ProMail 2.99€/m, TopMail 4.99€/m | 1 GB free, 5 GB in ProMail, unlimited in TopMail | 20 MB FreeMail, 50 MB ProMail[3] | English, German, Spanish, French | IE, Firefox, Safari 3 | Both (IMAP paid only) | 6 months | |
Hushmail | Hush Communications Ltd Vancouver, Canada |
May 1999 | Free (no ads) $34.99 year (Premium) |
2 MB (free), 2 GB + (premium) | 2MB (free) 1GB (Premium) |
English | IMAP ($14.99) | 3 weeks | ||
Lavabit | Lavabit LLC, USA | June 2004 | 2 Free options and 2 Paid | 128MB ($free,no adds) 1GB ($free, ads) | 32-128MB Message size varies according to option |
English | All | Both (SSL optional) | 4 months | No |
LuxSci | Lux Scientiae, Inc., USA | Dec 1, 1999 | $9.99 monthly | 2 GB+ | 100 MB | Any/Unicode | All | IMAP, IMAP+SSL, IMAP+TLS, POP, POP+SSL, POP+TLS, Alternate Ports | No | Yes, with Premium Filtering |
Lycos | Daum, Korea | 1995 | $19.95 yearly | 5 GB of storage | Unlimited | Any | ||||
Mail.com | MMC, USA | N/A | Free (text ads added to the signature of every outgoing email, ads in interface) or $3.99/month or $19.99/year | Unlimited | 16 MB10 | English | Free: None
Pay:Both |
120 days (free) | ||
Mail.ru
|
Mail.ru, Russia | [4] | 1998Free (ads in interface) $5 monthly (without ads) |
Unlimited | 30 MB6 | Russian | Both | 3 month | ||
Mail2World | Mail2World, Inc., USA | 2000 | Free & $19.95 (Premium) | Unlimited | 40 MB | 13 languages | Both | 30 days | ||
MobileMe | Apple Inc, USA | July 2008 | $99 / £59 per year (60-day free trial) | 20 GB/Unlimited MB shared between file storage and email (user customizable ratio). | 4 | Safari 3+ / Firefox 2+ / IE 7 8 | IMAP (POP3 optional) 9 | Never | ||
MyWay | IAC Search & Media, USA | Unknown | Free | 1 GB | 25 MB | English | No | |||
O2 Webmail | Telefónica O2 UK | N/A | Free | 20MB | English | POP only | 6 months | |||
Ovi Mail | Nokia, Finland | December 2008 | Free (text ads added to the end of outgoing email) | 1 GB | 20 MB | 15 languages | Internet Explorer, Firefox, Ovi Suite | |||
Rackspace Email | Rackspace, USA | 1999 | $1 per mailbox/month - (10 user minimum) | 10GB | 50 MB | 8 | All | Both | Never | Yes, unless packaged in a .zip file |
Runbox | Runbox AS Oslo, Norway |
1999 | $49.95 per year for email, email hosting, and web hosting (30-day free trial) | 10 GB + 1 GB file storage[5] | 100 MB | English, Norwegian | All | IMAP4 and POP3 with SSL support | Never | If discarded by virus scanner |
Seznam.cz | Seznam.cz | 1998 | Free | Unlimited | 13 MB | Czech | All | POP3 | 6 months | |
ThinkPost.net | Thinkpost | 19 February 2006 | $5/month (Unique program for Wireless BlackBerry Sync with Outlook (PC) - Contacts/Calendar/Notes/Tasks) | 10GB | 50 MB | All | All | Both | No | |
Windows Live Hotmail (replaced MSN Hotmail) |
Microsoft | 4 July 1996 | Free (basic with ads in: interface, msn IM services. These are removed for paying members) $19.95 yearly1 |
5 GB(initial, with "ever-growing storage") | 10 MB[6] (basic) 20 MB1 |
35 | IE, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera (Some issues with Safari) | POP3 | 270 days | |
WWW.COM Email |
www.com | unknown | $28.99 yearly | 7 GB(initial) | 25 MB | English | All | Both (w/ SSL Option) | 1 year | Yes |
Yahoo! Mail | Yahoo! | 8 October 1997 | Free (basic with banner ads and text ads in interface. text ads are no longer added to the signature of outgoing emails) $19.99 yearly (Plus version) |
Unlimited5 | 25 MB (basic with ads in interface and e-mails) 25 MB (Plus version) |
27[citation needed] | IE, Firefox, Google Chrome | POP3 (In most countries, or with Plus); or with YPOPs! | 4 months (basic) |
Note 1: Hotmail Plus, Outlook Live, MSN Premium, and Windows Live Hotmail
Note 2: Additionally there are monthly total transfer ("bandwidth") limits.[7] E.g. 80 MB/month for the free account (as of September 2009).
Note 3: Help information in Russian only.
Note 4: Subscription-based upgrade is in development
Note 5: Yahoo! Mail had announced free, unlimited storage space for all its members, starting May 2007 [8].
Note 6: Mail.ru mailboxes start out at 10 GB; if the user needs more space, they can increase storage 2 GB at a time by solving a captcha [9]
Note 7: In addition to the POP3 support listed here, almost all webmail providers can be accessed with POP3 using the third-party tool FreePOPs.
Note 8: "You may also use Internet Explorer 7 or later with Windows XP or Vista, but some features may not be available." [10]
Note 9: Only IMAP is enabled by default, but POP access will be enabled upon request [11]
Note 10: Help in Mail tour.[12]
Features
Service name | Automatic forwarding | E-mail client access14 | client E-mail for other server | Integration with IM service | Domain Name customization | Interface script technique | Virus scanning | Custom "From:" Address | Address modifiers (subaddressing) | Server hosted public keyring (for encryption) | Shared key encryption |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AOL Mail | No | Yes (POP3, IMAP, SMTP) |
Yes0 | AOL Instant Messenger | Yes1 | JavaScript/Ajax | Yes (McAfee) |
? | No | No | |
BlueMail | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP, SMTP) |
Yes (POP3 only) |
XMPP | Yes | HTML/JavaScript/CSS/Ajax | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No |
Fastmail.FM | Yes | Yes (IMAP)7 |
Yes (POP3, hotmail) |
XMPP | Enhanced accounts only | HTML/JavaScript/CSS/Ajax (Optional user supplied custom css+Javascript) | Paid accounts (ClamAV) |
Yes Editable while composing + saved personalities |
Yes userid followed by "+" followed by tag available on all accounts; subdomain addressing (eg. <tag>@<userid>.fastmail.fm) available on paid accounts |
No | No |
Gmail | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP) SSL/TLS supported SMTP restricted18 |
Yes (POP3 only) |
Google Talkbeta (XMPP), AOL Instant Messenger | Yes (Google Apps) |
HTML/JavaScript/Ajax2 | Yes |
Yes, limited. Feature restricted to preconfigured addresses. Addresses not registered in advance with Gmail are blocked. |
Yes userid followed by "+" followed by tag |
No | No |
GMX Mail | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP17, SMTP) SSL/TLS supported |
Yes (POP3 only) |
No | Yes | HTML/JavaScript/Ajax | Yes (McAfee and Symantec) |
Yes | ? | No | No |
Hushmail | No | Extra cost8 | ? | Hush Messenger | $1.99/$3.99 monthly through Hushmail Business | Java or HTML | No but the text based email stops most viruses, PGP encryption | Yes, unlimited email aliases for Premium members | ? | Yes | Yes |
Lavabit | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP, SMTP) SSL supported |
No | No | Only for premium accounts | Yes (ClamAV) |
No | ? | No | No | |
LuxSci | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP, SMTP, LDAP) SSL/TLS supported Alternate ports supported |
Yes (POP3 or POP3+SSL) Free bulk email migration via IMAP or IMAP+SSL |
No | Yes | JavaScript/Ajax or Simple HTML16 | Yes, Basic ClamAV or Premium Multi-Vendor Filters | Yes | ? | Yes | No |
Mail.ru | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP) |
Yes (POP3 only) |
Mail.ru Agent | ? | HTML/Ajax (Beta) | Yes (Kaspersky) |
Yes | ? | No | No |
Mail2World | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP) |
Yes (POP3 only) |
No | Yes | HTML/JavaScript/Ajax | Yes | Yes, using aliases. | ? | No | No |
O2 Webmail | Yes | Yes (POP3 only) |
? | No | No | HTML/JavaScript | Yes (McAfee) |
? | ? | No | No |
rediff | No | Plus members only | ? | Rediff Bol | Yes | JavaScript/Ajax2 | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No |
Rackspace Email | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP, SMTP) |
Yes (POP3 only) |
No | Yes | Yes | Yes Editable while composing + saved personalities |
? | No | No | |
Runbox | Yes | Yes (IMAP, POP, SMTP) SSL/TLS supported |
Yes (POP3, hotmail, Gmail) SSL/TLS supported |
XMPP, Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, ICQ, IRC[13] | Yes | HTML/JavaScript/CSS/Ajax | Yes (ClamAV) |
Yes Selectable while composing; saved identities |
Yes userid followed by "+" or "-" followed by tag |
No | No |
Seznam.cz | Yes | Yes (POP3) |
Yes (POP3 only) |
No | ? | HTML/JavaScript | Yes (ESET-NOD32) |
Yes | ? | No | No |
Thinkpost.net | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP, SMTP) |
Yes (POP3 only) |
No | Yes | Yes Unique app for Wireless BlackBerry sync with Outlook | Yes |
? | No | No | |
Windows Live Hotmail | Partial13 | Partial (POP3)3 |
Yes (POP3 only) |
Windows Live Messenger | Yes4 | HTML/JavaScript/ CSS/Ajax | Yes (Windows Live OneCare) |
Yes | ? | No | No |
Mail.com | Yes | Yes (POP3, IMAP, SMTP) SSL/TLS supported |
Yes (POP3 only) |
Google Talk (XMPP) | No | HTML/JavaScript/Ajax2 | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No |
Yahoo! Mail | Plus members only10 | Plus members only In some countries free accounts (POP3 only)10 |
Yes (POP3 only) |
Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger | $35 yearly | HTML/JavaScript/ CSS/Ajax | Yes (Norton AntiVirus) |
only Plus members15 & only 10 addresses | Plus members only userid followed by "-" followed by tag |
No | No |
Service name | Automatic forwarding | E-mail client access14 | client E-mail for other server | Integration with IM service | Domain Name customization | Interface script technique | Virus scanning | Custom "From:" Address | Address modifiers | Server hosted public keyring (for encryption) | Shared key encryption |
Note 0: Through AOL Easy Transfer
Note 1: Through AOL My eAddress
Note 2: HTML interface available for legacy browsers or users with Javascript disabled
Note 3: Since March 12, 2009, POP3 technology rolled out to Hotmail customers worldwide. Additionally, the proprietary DeltaSync-protocol is available.
Note 4: Through Windows Live Custom Domains
Note 7: IMAP only for free and Member accounts, IMAP and POP for Full and Enhanced
Note 8: IMAP access available for $14.99 for the first year and $29.99 yearly thereafter
Note 9: Forwarding and POP3 access with "Platinum" ($34.95 yearly) and above
Note 10: Through Yahoo! Mail Plus ($19.99 yearly) [1]; or through YPOPs!
Note 12: Free of charge, but web-mail only.
Note 13: Forwarding to other Windows Live Hotmail accounts is free for all users. Premium/paid accounts can forward to any other third party email accounts.
Note 14: Most mail services that do not support POP3 access can be accessed through the FreePOPs mail proxy software.
Note 15: Yahoo! Mail Plus ($19.99 yearly) features [14]
Note 16: Mobile-compatible, simplified HTML interface available for legacy browsers, users with Javascript disabled, and users with mobile devices.
Note 17: IMAP only available for paid accounts.
Note 18: Gmail restricts the FROM field to registered addresses. E.g. Disposable addresses forbidden.
References
- ^ "Gmail: Maximum attachment size". Google.com.
- ^ Gmail Dormant addresses
- ^ GMX Mail description
- ^ Почтовая служба Mail.Ru Template:Language icon
- ^ Runbox: Feature list. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- ^ http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/05/17/re-inventing-windows-live-hotmail-the-next-generation-of-personal-email.aspx
- ^ Why FastMail.FM tracks bandwidth
- ^ "Yahoo! Mail goes to infinity and beyond"
- ^ ОБЩАЯ ИНФОРМАЦИЯ О ПОЧТОВОМ ЯЩИКЕ И ЕГО СОДЕРЖИМОМ Template:Language icon
- ^ http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=MobileMe/Mail/en/ml17096.html
- ^ http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3300
- ^ http://o.aolcdn.com/cdn.webmail.aol.com/mailtour/affinity/en-us/?d=mail.com&ncid=txtlnkusonbo00000001
- ^ Runbox: IM documentation. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- ^ "How does Yahoo! Mail Plus compare to free Yahoo! Mail?"