Good-bye Hotmail, Hello GMail

[Ed Hansberry]

I have had my Hotmail account for years, going back at least to 1999 and possibly as early as 1998. I started using it a bit more than just as my Passport/Instant Messenger account when Outlook XP was released and it supported Hotmail accounts. I have never cared for the Hotmail web interface. Too slow and it used to insist on putting any link you click on in a frame. This summer I got a GMail invite and figured what the heck. You can never have too many email accounts, right? :wink: <br /><br />GMail gave me a gig of storage, which should last me a few decades for normal text emails versus Hotmail's 2MB, but Hotmail allowed access from Outlook, so it was an even trade. Hotmail 1, GMail 1.<br /><br />Last week, <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=34293">GMail began offering SSL POP3 access</a> and they turned it on for my account a few days ago. It works quite nicely. The only issue is emails in your "Sent" folder on the GMail service appear in your Inbox when you download via POP3. The service is still in beta but even if they don't change that "feature" I can live with it. Hotmail 1, GMail 2.<br /><br />Recently, <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN">;878462"]Microsoft began turning off Outlook/Outlook Express access</a> to new Hotmail accounts and are starting to do so for existing accounts. It appears mine got turned off yesterday. Hotmail 0, GMail 2. GMail's SSL POP3 access also works on Windows Mobile 2003 and higher inboxes, which is a bonus. Make that Hotmail 0, GMail 3. :mrgreen:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2004/20041118-goodbyehotmail.gif" /><br /><br /><i><b>If</b></i> GMail were to start charging $20 per year, the price Hotmail wants for <i>premium</i> access, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The POP3 access is great and their web interface is the best web mail UI I've ever seen. I wouldn't pay $20 for lifetime access to Hotmail's service that is only available on desktops with Microsoft only software and their busy web interface.

[Deus]

I should have grabbed an invite when they were available :\

[Jacob]

I agree - this is just irritating.

They just shut down POP access to one of my hotmail accounts - the one I've had since around 1995 - before hotmail was bought by Microsoft.

I'm starting the process of moving away from it completely. It's a shame since it was a very convenient email address to give out.

[doc]

I sent an invite to waynem at your domain

Have you figured out how to get the labels to persist to folders on PPC Messaging? I have many lists I subscribe to with my GMail account. Unfortunately with PPC they ALL come to my Inbox.

[Jonathan1]

Actually MS upped their free mailboxes to 250MB.

Since Hotmail's filters suck and custom filters are limited for free accounts I figure 250MB would last me all of 20 days before its filled with spam. So at this point hotmail is my placeholder for registering at sites or signing up for whatever.

[24va]

how do you get an invite?

[doc]

I'm sure there are many people here that have gmail invites. From past experience though the whole "gmail invite" thing may be best left to a dedicated thread.

[keirmeister]

So that may be why I couldn't get my Hotmail from Outlook 2003 lastnight....

If this is true, then I may definitely take my friend up on his Gmail offer (I said "no thanks" 'cause I felt 1GB was overkill for a beta that I wasn't sure would fulfill my needs). If I can't access Hotmail form Outlook, then woe to the republic! I may have to change my default email address after all.

Cheers,

Keirmeister

[Sven Johannsen]

I have a slightly different viewpoint. I use my Hotmail address for many things, a small part of which is e-mail. I do find the web interface klunky as well and appreciate the ability to manage the mail from Outlook. Now they want to charge me $20 to do that. Oh well, not a big deal to me.

Would be really nice if they extended that capability to the PPC Inbox as well as on Outlook/OE. Yes I know that MSN Mobile provides that and it currently is free, but I hope that they don't plan to hit you for $20 for Hotmail Plus and $25 for MSN Mobile as well.

Anyone using HTTPMail? Has their new system affected that?

[Deslock]

Got a gmail account almost 6 months ago. After using it for 5 minutes, I knew I was done with hotmail (which I'd been using since they started in 1996). The 1GB of space is nice, but what really separates gmail from the rest is its superb interface. What they've done with Javascript is truly inpressive.

I've been getting emails from Hotmail reminding me to sign in every 30 days to keep my accounts active (I only know this because it still works in OE for me). And I just got notified today that my storage limit's being raised to 250MB.

Too little, too late Microsoft.

If anyone wants a gmail invite, PM me (first come, first serve). I have more than I know what to do with. Edit: Invites are all gone.

[Ed Hansberry]

Actually MS upped their free mailboxes to 250MB.
Actually mine shows 2MB as of 2 hrs ago.

[DinarSoft]

I should have grabbed an invite when they were available :\

Here you go
6 invites for whoever wants them

1 - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-c02c02b94-9ce4592557-329376f5be
2 - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-c02c02b94-1c0d9e7978-c9f3179506
3 - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-c02c02b94-0191a7ae06-ee8d741dbb
4 - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-c02c02b94-5dcc345717-593e639838
5 - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-c02c02b94-ed7d251cec-423d28118b
6 - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-c02c02b94-1599960a88-80d38056c1

[DinarSoft]

I sent an invite to waynem at your domain

Have you figured out how to get the labels to persist to folders on PPC Messaging? I have many lists I subscribe to with my GMail account. Unfortunately with PPC they ALL come to my Inbox.
Labeling will just add a label to the message
you need to "Archive" the message to move it from your inbox

[doc]

Yup, it's archiving them. But I'm still getting some of the labled, and archived, email in my inbox on PPC. I would expect the PPC inbox to behave the same way that the web inbox does.

[Deslock]

If anyone wants a gmail invite, PM me (first come, first serve). I have more than I know what to do with.
Forgot to mention that you need to send me your email address. I just gave away a couple and have 10 more left. Edit: Invites are all gone.

DinarSoft: how did you create those links? I only know how to invite people via email.

[DinarSoft]

If anyone wants a gmail invite, PM me (first come, first serve). I have more than I know what to do with.
Forgot to mention that you need to send me your email address. I just gave away a couple and have 10 more left.

DinarSoft: how did you create those links? I only know how to invite people via email.

You can send the invite to your self or to a wrong eMail
and when you get the invite (or the recept error) you'll find the link there

[Deslock]

None of PPC's browsers work (including NetFront or setting PIE to identify itself as IE6). As Ed's post mentioned, there is a POP3 service. Another choice if you have access to a PHP server is gmail-lite:

http://gmail-lite.sourceforge.net/
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=116304

[Deslock]

You can send the invite to your self or to a wrong eMail
and when you get the invite (or the recept error) you'll find the link there
Good thinking. Thanks!

[Jeff Rutledge]

As someone mentioned above, please discuss GMail invites here:
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33717&highlight=

Thanks.

[FredBrown]

Would Microsoft do nothing in this regards? or is it just behind intentionally to get as many paying users as possible before everyone is aware you can get the service for free elsewhere?

[Janak Parekh]

Actually MS upped their free mailboxes to 250MB.
Actually mine shows 2MB as of 2 hrs ago.
They're still in the process of converting them. :|

--janak

[Jason Lee]

My hotmail still works through outlook. and has been upped to 250Mb with in the last week.

I would be using gmail as my primary personal email address if I had not just registered my own domain name. So i've already quit using my hotmail account. It sux. :lol:

[Marcel_Proust]

If anyone wants a gmail invite, PM me (first come, first serve). I have more than I know what to do with.
Forgot to mention that you need to send me your email address. I just gave away a couple and have 10 more left.

DinarSoft: how did you create those links? I only know how to invite people via email.

Received and registered!
Now time to explore and play.
Thank you very much Deslock!

[alabij]

I think the disruption with the Outlook feature is due to their upgrade. I doubt MS will be that dumb. MS knows hotmail isn't as HOT as it used to be. Anyway, I'm already migrating to Yahoo which also works with Outlook by downloading a POP plugin

[ignar]

I think the disruption with the Outlook feature is due to their upgrade. I doubt MS will be that dumb. MS knows hotmail isn't as HOT as it used to be. Anyway, I'm already migrating to Yahoo which also works with Outlook by downloading a POP plugin

Actually MS announced that they would start to charge for Outlook access to prevent SPAM.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3697286.stm

A bit off topic, but I signed up for MSN Premium last year just to get an access to MLB streaming. MLB All access alone cost $19.99/month while MSN Premium cost $9.99, and I got 90 days free trial. 85 days and lots of baseball games later, I called MS and cancelled the service. (It was not as easy as it sounds: sales pitch, long waiting, etc. Just say it was almost as hard as cancelling AOL :evil: ) In any case, even after I cancelled the service, somehow I still had a MSN premium, and recently my Hotmail quota was increased to 2GB. So, I will continue to use Hotmail until they finally turn off the premium service. After that, I will probably go for Yahoo mail. Gmail is nice, but currently its POP is broken, and I prefer more traditional email service of Yahoo.

[silver99]

It's a pretty competitive world out there and users are demanding more and more from web pages, software, hardware and email. When you're on top (like Hotmail was) - you cannot be complacent. You have to continually be looking at ways to improve and provide features that users will appreciate.

That being said - Microsoft is more than capable of providing a good clean user interface - and if they lose too much market share they'll either pick up their socks and do a bang up job with hotmail or fold it.

It's funny how Google quitely gained so much power in the search area and now in the email area. Combine that with the ever so popular blogging and now photo sharing and their momentum is hard to beat. The reason Google is successful is because they spend more time listening to what users want and less time trying to jam stuff down our throats.

[dean_shan]

I have had my Hotmail account for years, going back at least to 1999 and possibly as early as 1998. I started using it a bit more than just as my Passport/Instant Messenger account when Outlook XP was released and it supported Hotmail accounts.

The only thing I use my hotmail for is PPCT topic replys and Messenger.

[JoC]

It's funny that this should come up now, as I'm in the middle of moving most of my subscriptions away from Hotmail to either Gmail or FastMail (http://www.fastmail.com.au). I was especially annoyed when I found out that Hotmail were removing access from Outlook Express and they've been increasingly annoying me since. I should point out that I've had a Hotmail account since about 1996. I'll have to keep it for a few things, like for use to activate MS Reader, but it is no longer my main account. I bought HTTPMail just before learning all this, too, and I presume it will stop working when the OE access does. Bummer, but it's all their own fault.

[Jonathon Watkins]

I was especially annoyed when I found out that Hotmail were removing access from Outlook Express and they've been increasingly annoying me since. I should point out that I've had a Hotmail account since about 1996. I'll have to keep it for a few things, like for use to activate MS Reader, but it is no longer my main account. I bought HTTPMail just before learning all this, too, and I presume it will stop working when the OE access does. Bummer, but it's all their own fault.

Same here. I want POP access and find Gmail to be superior to Hotmail. I've been using Hotmail actively since 1998. Time to move on. :?

I keep thinking of moving over to my own domain etc. Maybe this is a good time to do so. LOL

By the way, MS switched off the Outlook access to Hotmail for me twice already. Each time I emailed them and pointed out that they were not meant to do this until next spring. So if you have an older account, email them and ask them to restore the service. You can still use it for a while if you want.

[spinedoc]

Ihave had Hotmail for years and years, but lately am getting a lot of "server busy" errors when trying to log on. This is simply unacceptable. Cannot wait for a Gmail invite, or for them to be out of beta.

[guinness]

I guess I would care about Hotmail or GMail if I didn't already have too many email addresses. My primary account is Netscape, hardly any spam, it works anywhere as long as your on the web (wish they offered access through Outlook) and 250 MB. I mainly just use Hotmail for my Passport account, GMail is just another account to have to deal for me.

[ctmagnus]

Slightly OT:

Anyone else have the issue of not being able to sign into messenger? I noticed yesterday that I have my 250MB and as of a few days earlier, I have been unable to sign into my messenger account. webmessenger.msn.com (http://webmessenger.msn.com) still works, though.

:confused totally:

[ctmagnus]

One more thing: does anyone have Gmail working with WebIS Mail 2? I was unale to get that combination to go, but Inbox worked fine with Gmail.

[telengard]

I have a few gmail invites left...

Reply with your first and last name and your email address and I'll send you one...

Thanks,
Telengard

[hchavarria]

I have 3 invites left and I have no use for them. PM me your infor for an invite.

[Darius Wey]

While we've been discussing a comparative storage check between Gmail and Hotmail, it's also worth noting that Yahoo will be rolling their current 100MB to 250MB very soon. So if you swear oath to the Yahoo clan, now you have the opportunity to rejoice!

[bnycastro]

I haven't experience the POP lock out from hotmail yet maybe in a week or two.
IMO Gmail is way faster/better than Hotmail. I only use hotmail for the passport to sign up my MS Reader/MSN Messenger. I am keeping all my emails (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, ISP) though just in case.

[Jason Lee]

One more thing: does anyone have Gmail working with WebIS Mail 2? I was unale to get that combination to go, but Inbox worked fine with Gmail.

Oh, don't even get me started on that... :evil:
I bought webis mail to use for ssl imap and my pop accounts when my work switched over. It does not work. Just go read through their webis mail forums. :D
ssl doesn't work under any circumstance. Not at all. Even though they claim ssl support. imap doesn't sync folders correctly. it never removes mail if you delete it or move it. Although it does mark the message where it will not show up in any other imap program but exchange client (outlook) can still see it. Plus a load of other problems. argh... just go read the forums before you even dare think about buying that program. It has never made it out of beta... :!:

[mhowie]

Gmail is nice, but currently its POP is broken, and I prefer more traditional email service of Yahoo.

POP via OL2003 is working fine for me and my four gmail accounts... I believe they are phasing in the POP service and perhaps you do not have that option available yet?

[wiley]

I got the same error message, looked it up on the knowledge base where MS basically said pay the $20 or get used to using the web interface.

I've been using gmail almost exclusively for the past month, and have been loving it. I won't be missing my hotmail account.

The knowledgebase article said the move was a response to spammers using Outlook / Outlook Express to send spam through hotmail. I don't know if I buy the line of reasoning, but even if it is the truth, it's too bad Microsoft didn't decide to focus on ways to prevent account abuse and improving their service instead of just degrading the experience of honest users.

Once Gmail is open to the public there's going to be a mass exodus to Gmail and Yahoo.

[ignar]

Gmail is nice, but currently its POP is broken, and I prefer more traditional email service of Yahoo.

POP via OL2003 is working fine for me and my four gmail accounts... I believe they are phasing in the POP service and perhaps you do not have that option available yet?

Actually, I meant following problem (copied from PopPeeper forum). This problem is generally observed in most of POP clients. Not a deal breaker, but annoying for me.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a bug on GMail's end that will cause a problem. Once PP retrieves the messages, GMail will essentially clear those messages and the next time PP checks, GMail will return saying there are no messages and PP will clear all the messages from its list. This is even if you have selected "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)". If you reselect this option and save changes, then the messages will become available to PP again, but only the one time.

[alex_kac]

One more thing: does anyone have Gmail working with WebIS Mail 2? I was unale to get that combination to go, but Inbox worked fine with Gmail.

Oh, don't even get me started on that... :evil:
I bought webis mail to use for ssl imap and my pop accounts when my work switched over. It does not work. Just go read through their webis mail forums. :D
ssl doesn't work under any circumstance. Not at all. Even though they claim ssl support. imap doesn't sync folders correctly. it never removes mail if you delete it or move it. Although it does mark the message where it will not show up in any other imap program but exchange client (outlook) can still see it. Plus a load of other problems. argh... just go read the forums before you even dare think about buying that program. It has never made it out of beta... :!:

You are right that Mail 2.0 does not work with GMail's SSL POP3. However to say it doesn't work under any circumstance is plain flat wrong. It works for MOST people on standard mail servers with IMAP or POP3. Almost all the SSL issues were fixed in 2.04, 2.05, and 2.06. GMail is a new one and we're working on seeing what's different about that one. Frankly, 90% of our SSL use has been in IMAP environments so my guess is that its a fairly simple fix once we get access to the POP3 feature in our own GMail accounts.

I use Mail 2.0 daily - and so do MANY people. With only a couple exceptions, most people have IMAP synching working perfectly, removing mail, etc...

I do agree that it has had lots of issues, but as I have always said on our forums due to the nature of the app having to connect to hundreds of different servers which implement things just a tad differently, not including the fact that each one is configured differently, we've had to fix bugs based on reports and we've been doing that. Each release increases the amount of users who find it working flawlessly for them.

The fact is that we've always asked people to trial the app first to make sure it works on their accounts before purchasing. If it doesn't work, let us know with log files and usually within a build or two we get it working. Almost every bug report I've seen comes down to a strange quirk of a server that implements things a bit differently and we're just being a bit too rigid.

My only point of this post is to acknowledge that yes, Mail 2.0 has had issues, but its also had many improvements and successes (not as quickly as I'd like, but its getting there) and it continues to improve. That's my two cents. I prefer to answer these kind of things in my own forums as I can then track it better as I don't track these forums.

[Bajan Cherry]

I stumbled across this link:

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

Use your gmail account 1GB as a mapped drive. Now all the more reason for getting that gmail account.

PM me, I have five odd invites left.
All Gone Now!

[Stephen Beesley]

Now if gmail will just introduce IMAP support and the ability to collect mail from othe POP servers I would be in mobile email heavan!

In fact I would quite happily pay for those services.

[ignar]

Now if gmail will just introduce IMAP support and the ability to collect mail from othe POP servers I would be in mobile email heavan!

Ditto. I would pay for IMAP as well. With the lack of folder structures, IMAP implementation for Gmail would be hard though.

[davea0511]

Anyone tried Bigfoot?

http://webmail.bigfoot.com/RUN?FN=Features&locale=newWebEmail_en

I use them for free forwarding (create a free email address, and they'll forward all the email to whatever other email address you specify, for free, for life), but their webmail looks pretty impressive too. They have both IMAP and POP. Not a whole lot of storage space though - but if you do POP you shouldn't need alot. Plans start at $10/year.

[KimVette]

I'm sure there are many people here that have gmail invites. From past experience though the whole "gmail invite" thing may be best left to a dedicated thread.

Agreed! Let's have a thread for it and make it a sticky. BTW I have six invites. [email protected] if you need one. If you already have a gmail account already please don't be greedy by asking for an invite.

[KimVette]

[quote="Jonathan1"]Actually MS upped their free mailboxes to 250MB.
[quote]

Oh goody! Now I can get 250MB of spam each day rather than just 2MB. Thanks, Microsoft!

regarding the web interface


gmail interoperability
Why is it when I am on Linux or a Mac, I cannot use gmail? Even Hotmail works with browsers on those interfaces, and Google's GUI is far more simplified.

IMHO Google is setting themselves up for failure. Here's why:


The Google search engine sucks now because they don't police cloaking and linkfarming enough (TrafficPower, now First Place, still succeeds in spamming Google with irrelevant garbage). To find what I need I need to either search for exact phrases, guessing what will be in the content, or resort to boolean queries -- or simply use Yahoo.
Yahoo and MSN Search have both leapfrogged Google (Microsoft's refusal to include competitors' sites in their index notwithstanding). Yahoo and MSN seem to be better in policing cloakers and linkfarmers than Google is. Right now Google search is almost as useless as AltaVista's was in 1999/2000. Clean up your index and kick the cloakers and linkfarmers and doorway pages out!
Like it or not, Hotmail's interface is simply more advanced than Google's. It's more similar to Outlook Web Access (the web client for Exchange) than to typical web mail. If they solve the spam problem, they'll give Gmail a run for the money.
Microsoft would kill Linux and Apple if they could, and yet their email client works on most Linux and OS/X browsers where Google's simple gmail interface does not. Google, if you're such a big Linux supporter, how about enabling your interface on those browsers? I'm going to edit Konqueror's and Firefox's user agents to report as being MSIE on Windows to see if it works then.


Update: All the invites are gone (my, you guys were quick to pounce!). If I get any more invites I will post again. :)

[Ed Hansberry]

Agreed! Let's have a thread for it and make it a sticky
You mean where Jeff mentioned it 3 pages ago? http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33717

[Deslock]

gmail interoperability
Why is it when I am on Linux or a Mac, I cannot use gmail? Even Hotmail works with browsers on those interfaces, and Google's GUI is far more simplified.
It works on the Mac (both with Safari and FireFox) for me and every Mac user I know. My only complaint with gmail on the Mac is that it doesn't save my password like it does with Windows.

[pacemkr]

This is awesome!
Now I can check my email while I'm in college.

I'm dumping my ISP email and all my free accounts for gmail alternatives. Why? SSL!!!

Checking email via servers that do not support SSL over wireless allows everybody and their mother to see my pass and login as simple text.

[T-Will]

I've recently been thinking about changing from Yahoo to Gmail since I get about 100 spams/day on my Yahoo (luckily they're filtered out automatically).

Plus my Yahoo mail address isn't the easiest to give out to people (it's a little cryptic). The main problem with switching email is getting all my software, forum, and friends updated with my new email address. That's the only thing that's keeping me from switching to Gmail for my primary account.

I guess what I could do is use my Yahoo account as the spam/software registration account and use my Gmail just for friends and family.

Anyone have any good tips when switching to another email address?

[pacemkr]

I've recently been thinking about changing from Yahoo to Gmail since I get about 100 spams/day on my Yahoo (luckily they're filtered out automatically).

Plus my Yahoo mail address isn't the easiest to give out to people (it's a little cryptic). The main problem with switching email is getting all my software, forum, and friends updated with my new email address. That's the only thing that's keeping me from switching to Gmail for my primary account.

I guess what I could do is use my Yahoo account as the spam/software registration account and use my Gmail just for friends and family.

Anyone have any good tips when switching to another email address?

You might want to set up yahoo to forward to your new gmail account and thats it. If yahoo supports email forwarding. (which gmail does :wink: )

[ignar]

You might want to set up yahoo to forward to your new gmail account and thats it. If yahoo supports email forwarding. (which gmail does :wink: )

Yahoo doesn't offer forwarding to free accounts. You have to sign up for mail plus for the service.

[KimVette]

gmail interoperability
Why is it when I am on Linux or a Mac, I cannot use gmail? Even Hotmail works with browsers on those interfaces, and Google's GUI is far more simplified.
It works on the Mac (both with Safari and FireFox) for me and every Mac user I know. My only complaint with gmail on the Mac is that it doesn't save my password like it does with Windows.

I've tried on Jaguar, Panther, and OS X Server 10.2.8

Oh, I found a problem with hotmail last night: If you send a BCC to yourself, it gets sent to your junkmail folder.

[flyashi]

Hi...
After using gmail-lite for a while, i've become partial to using outlook on the PPC 2003 because of its integration into the OS. But... I can't seem to get to the page (if it exists) on outlook where you can configure the ports (gmail uses non-standard SMTP and POP3 port numbers.) Aparently this is possible because others have done it... any help? :?:

thx....

P.S. I have invites. I also have spam on gmail (!), but so far (i have 5 msgs over the past 1 day) it's filtered np, so flyashi and u know the mail server :wink: .

[Ed Hansberry]

Hi...
After using gmail-lite for a while, i've become partial to using outlook on the PPC 2003 because of its integration into the OS. But... I can't seem to get to the page (if it exists) on outlook where you can configure the ports (gmail uses non-standard SMTP and POP3 port numbers.) Aparently this is possible because others have done it... any help? :?:

thx....
No, they are standard ports. Just enable SSL and Outlook will use the appropriate ports.

[flyashi]

So to make sure, I re-did my configuration step-by-step... typed it into here so some benevolent g-mailer could help me out... and then it works. I swear it didn't work before... and I'm a programmer, so I know when people say that, it's them, not the software.... but now I know how they were feeling.

Thanks for all your help!

- Flyashi

[lcatt236]

I have 6 email me at lcatt236 at gmail dot com