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By Andrew Goodman - updated to include AOL info, January 10, 2000
E-mail is the story of
the decade. As a medium of communication, who might have guessed
that typing written notes would become a popular substitute for phone
messages and "snail mail"?
E-mail radically transformed
workplaces. Even where employees have access to a sophisticated
messaging system or intranet, they e-mail one another all the
time. Neighbors who could easily phone one another have
taken to forwarding jokes via e-mail. E-mail has created a 1990's
version of telephone tag. It's now an integral part of e-commerce,
too. We send inquiries to companies, and receive product catalogs,
greeting cards, and confirmation forms, to say nothing of computer viruses, via
e-mail. E-mail has changed the way we work, play, and bond. Now,
e-mail itself is changing. One major change is that many people are now
using e-mail in an entirely web-based environment.
Many now use web-based e-mail
accounts such as Hotmail as secondary
e-mail accounts, and some now use these as their primary form of
e-mail. If you are new to web-based e-mail, the following FAQ may help you
get started.
1. What is web-based e-mail?
It's an application that functions entirely on
the Internet. It is, therefore, accessible from any
Internet-connected terminal in the world. Your web-based e-mail
account physically resides on some web server somewhere, and responsibility for
it lies with the company (such as Excite, Yahoo, Microsoft, or Netscape) who is
providing the web-based e-mail account.
With standard (POP) e-mail, by contrast, you are
using the "mail server" of your Internet Service Provider or workplace. To
manage your POP-based mail accounts, users typically use a "mail client"
or e-mail software such as Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Mail, or Eudora
Pro.
The concept of doing more of our computing (not
just surfing around, but actually doing everyday tasks) in an entirely web-based
environment is starting to gain popularity.
2. How do I sign up?
You don't need any special software to use
web-based e-mail. You'll be accessing your mail through a web
browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator and
managing your mail on the website of the web-based mail provider, which will
have an Internet address like http://mail.excite.com. You'll have to
sign up with a user ID and password of your choosing. Like most
registration processes on the Internet, you'll be asked to input some personal
information.
3. Why not just use my regular e-mail?
With web-based e-mail, you can access
your e-mail from any Internet-connected terminal anywhere in the world.
The beauty of the web is that it's a universal standard, and anything is
accessible from anywhere.
Moreover, if you have regular (non-web-based)
e-mail accounts for work, at home, school, or wherever, most of the major
web-based e-mail programs allow you to check these from anywhere in the world,
too. This is called "POP mail retrieval".
Some users are under the misconception that one needs to use a
"special" service dedicated to retrieving POP mail via the Internet. Not so. Nowadays, this is an unremarkable
feature that you can set up easily at all of the major web-based e-mail
providers: Yahoo, Excite, Hotmail, Lycos, Mail.com, AltaVista, etc.
It does require you to set it up with the correct mail server names,
account names, and passwords for your regular e-mail accounts so that mail can
be retrieved from them.
The terminology can be confusing. Instead of
"POP Mail," some web-based e-mail providers call this "Check External
Mail". Yahoo Mail calls it "Check Other Mail".
Some major additional benefits:
- Some people e-mail ideas, reminders, and even
file attachments to their own web-based e-mail account as a way of
backing up important information, or as a second backup. It may
help you to avoid toting around diskettes, or just to prevent things from
being lost. Not a bad idea. In the future, more elegant solutions,
like web-based office software, may become popular for a certain percentage of
users.
- Many people like to sign up for e-mail
newsletters, enter contests, or join sites they like as "members".
Increasingly, to register for anything interesting or free on the web, you are
required to fill out a registration form and include a working e-mail
address. The problem is, this compromises your privacy, and could lead to
unwanted piles of e-mail, spam or just frequent mailings that you asked for,
cluttering your mailbox and competing for your time. Set up some
web-based accounts that you have specifically designated in your mind as your
"spam boxes" - then you can read what's in there once a week, or whenever you
want. If the amount of junk you are receiving gets out of
hand, you can abandon the free account, and open a fresh one.
Give out your main e-mail address only to those whom you trust.
These applications are now very
full-featured. They don't do everything the major e-mail programs, such as
Microsoft Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, or Eudora Pro, do, but they have many
useful features.
Features include:
- Forwarding
- Setting the "sender address" so that return e-mail
comes to, for example, your regular work account
- Mail filters to keep out spam or to direct mail to
various folders in your account
- Vacation reply setting
- Folder management
- Address books
- Clever add-ons like voicemail and free fax
receiving
- Integration with other web portal services like
calendars
- Ability to synchronize with personal
organizers
- Spell check
- Signatures
- Notification of new mail, through the use of a
"browser companion"
4. What is the best web-based e-mail?
This is a subjective question. Most are
very good, and you shouldn't go too far wrong whichever one you
choose. Many aren't aware of the proliferation of web-based e-mail address
providers. There are hundreds to choose from. We suggest,
however, that most users will find it most convenient to use the web-based
e-mail offered by larger companies like Microsoft, Excite, Lycos, AltaVista,
etc., because they may use other web-based services provided by these companies,
and because of their high quality.
For those who wish to explore beyond the major
companies in order to get a unique e-mail address or one with some slightly
different features, there are helpful listings available at sites such as Free Email Address
Directory .
5. Are accounts free? What's the catch?
They're free, and the usual explanation for this is
that they are advertising-supported. More than this, they have acted as a
marketing tool for the companies that offer them. Hotmail, an early entry
into this field, grew so rapidly because the tagline at the bottom of every
e-mail sent, "Get your free, web-based e-mail today at http://www.hotmail.com," multiplied like the
flu bug around the world, giving Hotmail great early success. The term
"viral marketing" was thus born. In addition to advertising, addictive
applications like free e-mail can help the companies which own them retain users
and encourage them to use other services. For example, Hotmail and
Excite Inbox users get forwarded to the MSN or Excite start page after
exiting the e-mail application. Users may also give permission
to receive periodic e-mail publications or product pitches. If you
don't care to receive these, ensure that you un-check the appropriate check
boxes when signing up for the first time. Some people want to receive
mailings on topics which interest them.
Some of the web-based e-mail programs offer free
upgrades for additional services or larger mailbox
capacity. Generally speaking, users should ignore these offers.
They don't offer good value to consumers. Sign up for multiple accounts,
or look for a service which offers a larger capacity for free.
6. Can I do POP mail retrieval to get my AOL mail?
No. You'll be unable to use standard POP mail retrieval to access AOL mail. Various other e-mail accounts will be inaccessible through this method, as well - generally, anything that resides behind a firewall. (You also cannot, generally speaking, retrieve other web-based e-mail from your web-based accounts using POP mail retrieval.) AOL users can, however, access their mail from the web. They just have to use a special AOL web-based utility designed for this purpose: AOL Mail (in some countries this is called AOL Netmail).
7. I'm having trouble. What should I do?
The major portal companies are, by and large, eager
to help you, though some offer more responsive customer service than
others. The best web-based e-mail should come with extensive help
files. These things are changing constantly, but we've noticed that
AltaVista Mail's help file is quite comprehensive.
Admittedly, there are screwups that are simply the
fault of the provider. Excite's authentication system has been
unreliable, and has caused service outages. A company called Critical
Path, which provides the computing infrastructure which underlies many free
web-based e-mail inboxes, has had growing pains, causing headaches for customers
who have had difficulty getting access to their e-mail addresses at major
destination portals like Canada.com.
In practice, most users experience few problems, but web congestion and complex
systems add up to periodic glitches for even the best providers.
8. Should I be concerned about privacy and security?
Internet security concerns shouldn't be
exaggerated, but neither should they be underestimated. You
shouldn't expect anything you send or receive by any kind of e-mail transmission
as totally secure, but that also goes for your regular POP-based e-mail
account. Security breaches at Hotmail were well-publicized, perhaps due to
Microsoft's size and status as a target for criticism. But in truth, most
of these systems have vulnerabilities. It likely depends on where a hacker will
decide to make the most concerted efforts.
Some people get new addresses and passwords every
few months, and delete everything often, just to be sure no one is
peeking.
For power users, there are advanced forms of
encryption, anonymization, and privacy protection aimed at users of e-mail or
users of the Internet generally. Some of these include: Hushmail, PrivacyX, and Anonymizer. The state-of-the-art service
for anonymity and privacy protection is Freedom from Zero Knowledge
Systems. Only a security expert can truly evaluate these products, but
it's generally acknowledged that Zero Knowledge is on the cutting
edge.
9. Can I make myself anonymous using web-based e-mail?
You may be somewhat anonymous, especially if you use a
pseudonym for your account, but you can't count on total anonymity unless you
take extraordinary steps. Your unique IP (Internet Protocol) address is
logged by the sites you visit. An IP address is a unique Internet
address. Your account through your Internet Service Provider acts like a
footprint telling every site you visit where you came from, and that includes
the Yahoo or Hotmail site you use to sign up for, and send, "anonymous" e-mail.
Court orders can be used to attempt to trace users' activities in certain
cases. In a few cases, logged Internet sessions have helped to
convict individuals on criminal charges of libel, securities fraud, etc.,
even though these users were under the impression that they were posting
anonymously to Internet discussion boards.
10. Can I have more than one free account?
You can have as many as you want. If your
goal is to simplify your life, however, consider restricting yourself to one or
two.
11. All the good names are taken! Will I be forced to settle for
a long, hard-to-remember e-mail address?
You can get creative with variations, but even
here, the major providers, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, etc., have had so many millions
of signups, that everything good seems to be gone.
This is a doubly important issue for those who
plan to use a major web portal like Yahoo, Altavista, MSN, or Excite for
multiple services or features. In this case, you'll be using the same user
ID and password for all of these features. That's why you need to choose a
user ID and password you can live with. This is also why, in our view, it
makes sense to choose one portal you like, and perform a variety of tasks, and
read your favorite content, in that environment. After all, it takes a
long time to set up customized news display, e-mail, stock portfolios, instant
messaging, and all the various features the major portals have to offer.
You don't want to go through the whole process more than you need to, and it's
unlikely that e-mail is the only web-based feature you'll want to
use.
For people who don't want an ugly name, you may
want to try one of the less-well-travelled services. Major provider Mail.com has a variety of topical e-mail
domain names like @consultant.com that may appeal to people wanting something
with personality. Or try using one from a country that doesn't have heavy
Internet use. 4anything.com offers free e-mail with names related to their
hundreds of sites (all beginning with the number 4). We've just set up an
address called traffick@4email.com,
just for the heck of it. Drop us a line there if you want to talk more
about e-mail. If you wanted, you could set up your own account with a name
like fatfingers@4RockClimbing.com, or
indianatownandmydad@4gary.com. Get
creative.
12. Doesn't a Hotmail account look unprofessional?
Maybe. Think of it as a useful tool, but consider your
audience when sending e-mail or giving out your address. You don't
necessarily want to have a Hotmail account on your business card or
resume.
On the other hand, there is less to worry about now that these
services have become so well known. Most recipients won't be too taken
aback, unless you work in a conservative profession.
Some services offer a "tagline blocker" and other premium
services intended to give your web-based mail a more professional look. Think
twice before shelling out for such services.
13. The e-mail may be free, but Internet service costs
money! What can I do if I want completely free service?
You can try wandering into a public library and hoping
they allow free use of the terminals. In North America, there are now
several advertising-supported services which offer completely free 56K dialup
Internet access. The leaders are Netzero and AltaVista
Free, and now, the newly-announced My Free ISP from Excite.
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