'Yahoo' still rules!. Review on YahooMail

‘Yahoo Mail’ is one of the oldest and most widely used email services on the Internet. Yahoo is a portal providing many services like instant messaging, e-groups, e-cards, news etc. but

‘ mail.yahoo.com ‘ is popular because many people use the Internet mainly for e-mailing.

Indians took an instant liking for yahoo most probably due to that song from junglee! By the way, YAHOO means Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.

I have been using yahoo mail for a long time. It’s not perfect but it remains my most frequently used e-mail address.

The Pros-

1)It’s a reliable email service with 6 MB storage space. The word ‘reliable’ matters a lot. Whether its sending emails, downloading attachments or storage, yahoo is hassle-free.

2)It has almost all the required features like automatic replies, a neat address book, ’sent’ folder, bulk folder, etc.

3)Sending and downloading attachments is very simple. You can scan the attachments before downloading.

4)The ‘compose’ section is cool. Writing emails is a lot of fun.

5)Message alerts are received on yahoo messenger.

6)Signing up for yahoo mail makes one eligible for other services of yahoo like yahoo games, groups, etc.

7)You can customize a lot of features. You can choose the number of mails on each page, color settings, and many other features.

8)There are other supplementary services like reminders, calendar, briefcase etc.

But, yahoo has been promoting its ‘paid’ version these days, leaving the free users with just a few facilities. This is the major drawback with yahoo.

Lets see the cons-

1)No POP3- The Post Office Protocol (POP3) access was earlier available for free. Now, yahoo charges for POP3, and hence, a free user cannot use Outlook Express or any other email service to check yahoo account. Also, the direct forwarding of all emails to another account is not free anymore. So, either one has to pay or accept the ‘limited ‘ number of facilities.

2)Spam- The protection against junk mail isn’t much effective. No matter how many addresses you block or report to yahoo customer support, junk mail continues. Of course, the situation is not as bad as ‘hotmail’, and there is a bulk folder for junk mail.

3)Medium Speed- The speed is not as good as some other ‘fast’ email services and sometimes it takes ages to log in. But, the downloading speed is good.

Overall, Yahoo is an excellent e-mail site, but it seems to me that it is trying to gradually convert into a ‘paid’ email. This is an aspect of the changing world of the Internet, and whether yahoo will turn into a ‘paid’ site, and whether people will pay, are the key questions.

As for Yahoo Mail – so far, so good.