Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Mail or GMX.com which?

[drew]

I like Gmail but not that they chose ads
based on content of my emails.

But Hotmail/Outlook and Yahoo maybe is as good at
keeping track on my personal behavior as Gmail?

What about Mail.com or GMX.com which is now same owner

they get a lot of criticism over the quality of their forum
and the service answers? I have not dared to look again
but used to visit the GMX forum some years ago. Hmm

Okay maybe it is a very individual and personal preference
choice and not something one can agree upon?

I do need Gmail for my Android smart phone so maybe
I have to put up with them so nosy? Yahoo I need for their
usergroups that care about odd buddhist schools that is
not active anywhere else. okay on FaceBook maybe they are.

Any suggestions?

[Dutchie007]

Did you try out the new outlook.com from Microsoft??

I must say I was pleasantly surprised:-) Quick...clean...and good service I say and also with many many options.
A real progress compared to the old Hotmail imho.

Dutchie.

[William9]

... And in line with Drew's preferences, Outlook.com displays ads that are unrelated to your interests

[B4its2L8]

I've used the Webmail Adblocker add-on for FF for a few years now. It's been so long since I've seen an ad in GM or Hotmail that I even forgot they exist for other users. Don't know why they don't have a similar add-on for Chrome & Opera. (Or maybe they do ?)

(Btw, the add-on above even expands the viewing area in conjunction with the adblocking. Nice to have some screen real estate back. )

[FredOnline]

Indeed, the majority of us with properly configured ad blockers forget they even exist.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Dutchie007

Did you try out the new outlook.com from Microsoft??

I must say I was pleasantly surprised:-) Quick...clean...and good service I say and also with many many options.
A real progress compared to the old Hotmail imho.

Dutchie.

Yes I did but me not good at software saw not much difference
to what Gmail have? But I did not look for such either
I am mostly blind to such.

My gut feeling tells me that the big three
Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo for to survive have
to sell what they know about us to interesting
companies that want to target the ads to us.

Would them not see that one use adblockers?

I use Firefox 20 now and have activated NoScript
and that one does take care of a lot of ads.

But sometimes one need to open up or else
nothing happens.

Mail.com had an add that was obligatory
I had to accept it for to get to the inbox
so I do trust them see that one try to avoid ads

I use yahoo now always but don't really like it
so maybe I go back to Gmail due to I do need it
for smartphone and yahoo I only need for the
religious groups me active in at yahoogroups.

I feel unsure of why I need hotmail at all
unless it is the only way to reach someone
on hotmail due to some filter for Gmail on Outlook?

Such rumors do surface at times. But maybe just ill willed
such.

Another reason why Gmail is the best.
Some owners of Forum do tell me that
both Hotmail and Yahoo often filter
their emails so Gmail is more forgiving.

[drew]

Originally Posted by B4its2L8

I've used the Webmail Adblocker add-on for FF for a few years now. It's been so long since I've seen an ad in GM or Hotmail that I even forgot they exist for other users. Don't know why they don't have a similar add-on for Chrome & Opera. (Or maybe they do ?)

(Btw, the add-on above even expands the viewing area in conjunction with the adblocking. Nice to have some screen real estate back. )

Most likely I used that one too some years ago
and then I decided that I could understand and use
NoScript better so only kept that one.

[B4its2L8]

Originally Posted by drew

Most likely I used that one too some years ago
and then I decided that I could understand and use
NoScript better so only kept that one.

Hi, Drew

Well, they're not really for the same purposes.

FWIW, here's a screenshot of the add-on's Gmail preferences page. It may look confusing, but it's fairly self-explanatory. Plus, most of the options are pre-selected and very adequate. I don't think I changed the default settings on it, so it's very efficient out of the box. But you can UNcheck any of the items you don't want to see on your Gmail page.

And here's the preferences page for Hotmail. Just leave the two boxes unchecked. Couldn't be simpler.

[xmailer]

I've heard quite a bit of "raving" about the new outlook.com web interface. While I certainly do have preferences in web interfaces, reliability is of greater importance to me, and I seem to recall that Hotmail/Microsoft once had a notorious reputation for false positives/silent discards, which, to me, a "nice" interface wouldn't be adequate to compensate for. Since I've heard nothing about this issue lately in all the recent talk about Outlook.com, does anyone know if they ever fixed their inferior spam filtering issues?

[nbarr]

Originally Posted by xmailer

... Since I've heard nothing about this issue lately in all the recent talk about Outlook.com, does anyone know if they ever fixed their inferior spam filtering issues?

Although I don't use an outlook.com email address as a primary address I have forwarded all my mail to an outlook.com address just for the sake of testing their spam filtering. I started this July 31, 2012.

I have in the past and for many years been extremely critical of Microsoft's Hotmail service. For years it was nothing more than a Garbage dump for spam and, in my personal experience, rampant with false positives and silent discards happened very frequently.

So I am surprised to admit that the spam filtering is now what I would begrudgingly admit to being very good, false positives are a not common and silent discards have not happened at all. Training, or marking as spam made no difference at Hotmail in my experience, now training actually does make a difference.

The interface is cleaner than it was with the Hotmail interface. Ultimately the aesthetics are of course a personal preference. I prefer the Outlook.com interface over the Hotmail interface.

There is of course, no IMAP available, thus making it less than universally accessible and making Gmail / Google Apps preferable. Even IMAP aside Gmail / Google Apps is superior based on available features and extremely good spam filtering.

But Microsoft's Outlook.com service is an enormous improvement over it's previous incarnation as Hotmail.

One person's Opinion.

[William9]

I use both Gmail and Outlook.com with several accounts. My opinion of the services is very much like nbarr's. I would add that Gmail's mobile mail apps are highly developed and great.

[bbauri]

I like outlook.com.

1. They let me block an email id and email sent from those ids never make it to mailbox, not even to spam folder. They also let me whitelist email ids and mailing lists.
2. They let me have aliases.
3. They display ads only when you open a grey mail/bacon and not in ham mail.
4. Their spam filter is even better than gmail. Spam goes to spam, ham goes to inbox. Not the other way around.
5. Their ads are not related to my emails so I guess they don't scan my mails.

I know there are many other sophisticated features but I like them for the basic things a common email user will appreciate.

[drew]

Thanks for all the comments.
I trust that I keep Outlook com then.

B4its2L8 maybe it is easy but I seems to be unbearably dense.

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by drew

......Any suggestions?

Read this thread or follow this link.

[drew]

or this link? Looking for free non US email providers.
http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=65840

This thread with Which one to keep maybe can help me too
http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=65978

the link you gave seems not to be the best one of these
And I have read it and that is why I tested my old mail.com
account again.