Hotmail

The upgrade will increase Hotmail's free e-mail storage limits from 2 megabytes to 250MB and its paid e-mail service, which costs $19.95 a year, from 10MB to 2 gigabytes. The changes will begin in early July.

"With these new offers, storage will not be an issue for MSN Hotmail customers," Blake Irving, corporate vice president of communication services for MSN, said in a statement.

The storage follows similar announcements from Google and Yahoo. The storage boost started when Google announced in April that it plans to launch a new email service gmail that will give people 1GB of storage for free. The service has attracted some controversy, because it will serve advertisements based on keywords found in the text of peoples' e-mail messages.

Indeed, Google's initial steps into storage increases countered the industry's trend to charge extra for more memory. Over the past few years, Yahoo and Hotmail have both taken steps to decrease memory in hopes of convincing free users to become paying subscribers.

Started by two entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, HOTmail has come a long way since its inception in mid 1990's

One of the entrepreneur - Mr. Sabeer Bhatia - an NRI (Non Residential Indian) is enjoying his days after HOTmail in affluence and glory - brought upon him by the fortune he garned after selling his stake in the mail service.

HOTmail was started with the idea of allowing users to access mails - ''anytime, anywhere''

Earlier e-mailing systems were generally restricted to corporate or academic environments or

limited to your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

This kind of UnPortability was an anomaly to the concept of Internet.

Thus the seed of HOTmail ripened to become a big huge tree - a prosperous web service that now has

millions and millions of users across the globe.

Now owned by MICROSOFT Corp. (the creator of WINDOWS Operating Systems) - HOTmail - has gone on to enhance its features considerably since it was started.

When initially started, HOTmail - had very basic features of mail access - send/compose, receive textual content across the web (regardless of mailer id). Security was probably restricted to being ''username'' and ''password'' only.

Bought for a grand sum of more than 100 m $ from the two entrepreneurs, MICROSOFT - thus took the gamble of launching its first truly consumer driven web service.

Needless to say, Microsoft's gamble paid off big time and since then the mail service has been impregnated with many features that has enhanced its quality, reliability and robustness.

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Some of the common features of Hotmail:

1) 2 mb Storage Space: Slated to increase to 250 mb of data storage in a few months time...probably after Google starts its Gmail service.

2) Mail Management: Create seprate folders in HOTmail and segregate your mails according to user, date and other parameters. Also, all mails sent through HOTmail are stored in a ''sent items'' folder.

3) HOTmail mails access through Mail Clients (for free!): One of the most popular features - allowing access and management of your HOTmail mails using Outlook Express and other mail clients. This, I believe is a Killer Application of Microsoft. If you have net access @ home and want to store more than 2mb of mails - then simply use a Mail Client and download all your mails from HOTmail to your hard disk. Manage all your mails on the local computer through a mail client like Outlook Express. Send, Receive, Compose all your mails sitting at home. Archive mb's of data with only storage restriction being the space on your hard disk.

Note: Disadvantage of downloading and managing HOTmail mails through Mail clients is that you lose the ''anytime, anywhere'' advantage (unless ofcourse, you use a Laptop!)

3) Contacts List: Have all your common contacts listed in a directory. Every time a user (in your contact list) sends you mails - they get highlighted on priority basis by HOTmail.

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Other common features are - Attachment of Files, Newsletter subscriptions, Specialization

of HOTmail interface, etc.

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Value Added Features of HOTmail:

1) Virus Check: This feature has been compulsorily inculcated by almost all popular mail service providers. HOTmail uses Virus Check service of McAfee to scan every e-mail for potential viruses. Also, if you try sending any ''.exe'' attachment - HOTmail will simply throw the attachment to garbage. Same for trying to receive any ''.exe'' (executable) file.

2) Protection against Junk Mail: Very useful and very effective service. HOTmail has been quite successful in segregating useful mails and junk mails. It actively scans for spammers and

accordingly has prepared an exhaustive Black List which is referred every time a suspect mail arrives in your account. If a mail being received is from a black listed provider / person - the mail is destined to the JUNK Mail Folder.

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Some DISadvantages of HOTmail:

1) Very Low Storage Space: To my best recollection - almost all mail service providers give a minimum of 5-10 mb storage with some even taking the challenge of Google and giving upto 1000 mb of storage space! In this respect, HOTmail is an unchallenged MISER! 2 mb space is all it gives. Quite pathetic. The only reason could be - it's huge customer base and the excellent features it provides. Still, I don't understand why they couldn't provide more space. Commercial considerations of today's world will dictate atleast a minimum of 10 mb storage space.

Note: Though even now, HOTmail - with it's 2 mb storage space - is one of the leading mail service providers on the web.

2) Heavy Graphics: This is really something quite irritating to HOTmail users having very slow net connection. People living in Africa, Asia (except Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore) and other developing areas of the world still have to do with pathetic Net speed. If you have a graphics heavy popular mail service on top of that - you got trouble. It can take upto 5 - 10 minutes to load the entire HOTmail interface on a very slow net connection - a BIG headache.

Well...that's about it for Disadvantages

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A Holistic Report on Hotmail:

Coming from the stable of the biggest software provider of the world - HOTmail manages to live upto expectations of the common user in terms of mail management, security, value-added features and general usability issues.

Yahoo is probably the only serious threat to HOTmail in the current market.

Gmail.com is still quite elusive and thus not included as a serious competitor to Yahoo or HOTmail in the near future (till about 6 months from now).

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Likely Future of HOTmail:

With Microsoft ready to increase storage space from 2 mb to 250 mb - HOTmail can look forward to retaining it's customers loyalty for some time to come. It's current features are good enough to satisfy it's existing user base.

Future features like a powerful Search facility - will only enhance HOTmail. Some worrying issues will be - continued management of SPAM, security - as net evolves and novel ways of hacking and marketing are discovered.

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Well...no one in the end can ignore the tremendous contribution made by HOTmail in popularizing distant communication for zero cost. It's a powerful enabler and the FIRST in its field to do so.

I, thus, raise a toast to HOTmail for its service to the global community (and so should you) :)

Three Cheers to HOTmail!

Initially when I started on the internet, I had a hotmail account, like everyone did at that time. It was one of the mail accounts which provided relatively many features at that time...so it was the choice of many.

But, with the increasing number of users, it has become very slow (scalability issue not addressed very efficiently). Also with the increasing number of other email sites which are as good as hotmail in features or sometimes even better than that, it is advisable to switch to other mail accounts. For example, yahoo mail has rich set of features including increased storage space and also faster than hotmail in spite of having as many users as hotmail.

Junk mail/spam filtering is more effective in yahoo than in hotmail.

You can login to your messenger at the same time when you are also logged in to your mail account. This is a problem with hotmail...you cannot login to your messenger when you are already logged into your hotmail account.

Hotmail being one of the first free clients and being a lil user friendly gets such a great response....and I say...wat da hell, it deserves it! ...only that hotmail is slow in introducing fun stuff .....as far as the chat goes you need to download stuff like msg plus for activities which come pre installed in yahoo like audibles n better emoticons and above all chat :D...

msn is used coz people have their add in it since the beginning and its plainto inform ppl about change in add....I mean I have got 4-5 accounts but I get mail on.....the first one that is msn.! offering spaces is not a big deal....hotmail cannot do so bcoz it already has several users and it cannot create huge spaces for users on its server...I mean it will need tremendous space...while spaces are used as dumpsters by people if something is that important. People you have HARDDISKS to save it on..for fun purposes hotmail is just yahoo-fun :)

Hii,

I'm a hotmail freak since past hmmmm....... around ........ 7 years. That means since my 7th std. Well, even now I do use hotmail but only 4 chat. At first I was using only hotmail and nothing else. The one thing I liked 7 years back and now too is the clicks on the left hand side of the site i.e. ''hotclicks'' and ''hotmail spotlights'', etc.

Its a very much user friendly site but juss toooooo slow from beginning, though now its not even tolerable. Well today it givs just 2mb of free space, which is just horrible as comparable to Yahoo or Rediff which gives 100mb and 1GB free space respectively. Any damm fool would also shift from hotmail to Yahoo or Rediff, depending on his requirements.

But MSN Messenger is just a great success. its got everything in it. You can share games, music, software absolutely anythin on MSN with your friend. You can chat with him for long long hours. You can have a voice chat with him and even a video chat. You can even play games with him online. You are connected to each and every friend of urs thru MSN Messenger. You can go to https://mess.be and download sum real nice and useful plug-ins for MSN Messenger.

I think by the information I have given you'll understand that I like to use hotmail only for Chatting , but me like a fool still uses it and there are many other peope still using it just b'coz I receive all my e-mails still on hotmail. So I have to transfer my e-mails to my Yahoo account. I waste a lot of time but I'm forced to use it.

So as an advice to people who just want to start with is tht start with a Yahoo account rather than hotmail for mails and chat with an MSN id. But just use it for Chat. Plzzz rate my review and even comment on it. I would like it.. n better go n chk the site 4 urself if u think I'm tellin anythin wrong. byee...

Today, I switched on my computer, logged on to the net and typed in hotmail.com to check my mail. I stared at the screen. I yawned at the screen. I went to the kitchen and drank some orange juice. I minimized the hotmail window and logged on to Mouthshut, which, as always, popped up instantly :-)

Just as I logged in to my MS account, I thought of writing a review on the KING OF SLOW SPEEDS, MSN Hotmail!

First: What is MSN Hotmail?

I know all of you who read this review know exactly what hotmail is but I just wanted to make my review systematic! Lol!

MSN (which stands for Microsoft Networks) Hotmail is a free web-based email service and was originally created by an Indian called Sabeer Bhatia, who later sold it to Microsoft at about 2 million$$!!! (I think it is about 2 million, correct me if I'm wrong!) The service offers features such as a spam guard, a 2 MB inbox and everything that a conventional mailbox offers. I'm sorry to say though that though Microsoft is the world's leading software maker, they've hardly thought of anything more innovative and exciting to offer to Hotmail users.

The speed of the service is extremely slow. This is mainly because of some Security Certificates and such other crap that it loads. I know this is done for user-protection, but it really affects the speed, guys!

The horrible thing about this service is the Inbox Storage limit. MSN Hotmail offers only 2 MB of storage space for your messeges. Compare this to Yahoo!(100 MB), Rediff (1 GB), or Google[Gmail] (1 GB) and Hotmail really drops down to the bottom of the list! I mean, you get some pretty nice messesges with colourful attatchments and graphics and Hotmail immediately sends you a warning: Inbox Limit is full. You may not be receiving any more messesges. Please delete some of the messesges to continue using Hotmail services efficiently.

I mean, come on, that day, my girlfriend (I wish!) sent be a really nice mail (on Valentine's Day, that, too!) with pics and photos and all and Hotmail didn't put it in my inbox becuase it was over 2 MB!! My girlfriend was in tears! LOL! Joking, but I know this happens to a lot of people!

Let's come to the Spam protection Hotmail offers. the Spam guard is pretty effective and diverts spam to the Junk Mail folder. But still, an effective spam guard has to acually BLOCKspam from coming into your mailbox, not merely divert it! Also, messeges in your Junk Mail folder DO account for your mailbox limit so you have to delete them every other day. Hotmail automatically does this every 7 days or so but by that time, you're nearly out of storage space!

Also, sometimes, little things apart from spam end up in your junk mail folder. I know because a nifty little mail from my uncle inviting me to dinner ended up in the Junk Mail folder along with a Viagra advertisement!

Hotmail really plays up to it's marketing strategies. You are not allowed to block messeges from Hotmail itself advertising some freak trip to Iraq or some such place!

Apart from this, I found the site design pretty good and relaxing for the eyes as it's not too cluttered. The options are simple to use and the Contacts List feature which allows Contacts to be displayed alongside when you're typing your mail is great! You can simply click on the Contacts and the email addresses appear in the Send to: line.

If you're using Hotmail, you can also download and use MSN Messenger, an instant messeging service for Hotmail and MSN users which is about 10 times better than Yahoo! Messenger (though I love Yahoo! Messenger too!). Will write a review on MSN Messenger pretty soon, methinks!

OK, I gotta run. I think I've pretty much explained everything about Hotmail. Besides, I think the Hotmail page has loaded by now (I've just finished my review, heard 10 songs, ate 3 apples and quaralled loudly with my brother for about 10 minutes!).

Brought to you by the software magnate of the Microsoft Corporation, Hotmail.com is the most popular of free web-based e-mail and has been around ever since I can remember. I had my first hotmail address when I was 13 years old and--a few dozen addresses later--use it to this day.

The process of obtaining an address at Hotmail is simple, anyone can easily navigate the pages and have their personalized Hotmail account within minutes--depending on how fast you read and type. There are a series of legal documents you must agree to, including terms of use and privacy, which appear to be legally binding once you add your last name to them and press ''I Agree''.

Once you have an account, you have 2MB of storage space. This is generally quite acceptable, unless you receive a few hundred e-mails a day. There is also a message limit of 1MB, including attachments, not acceptable if you like to send big attachments such as pictures. If you need extra storage, you can choose from four packages of varied sizes starting at $30 a year.

If you exceed your storage limit, Hotmail will automatically delete incoming messages. I suggest saving any large files to your computer and delete all messages once you reply to them.

Hotmail has a very effective junk mail filter, which I recommend everyone apply to their inbox. Since setting it to exclusive, I have not received a single piece of spam to my inbox, thus cutting down the amount of time I spend filtering through and reading e-mail. Only persons on your contact list and safe list will be able to send e-mail directly to your inbox; all others will be sent to the junk mail box.

It also has a built-in virus scan for all incoming e-mail with attachments. Using McAfee virus scanning, Hotmail automatically scans all attachments for viruses and alerts you to them, to protect you against anything that can invade and destroy your computer system.

If you need help with your Hotmail account, or need to contact Hotmail, Microsoft has an open-communication policy. You can troubleshoot using the help button located on the page. You can contact customer service by phone and receive immediate help. If you need to report spam, there are options to report the user or to block them. The reason I mentioned these things is because I want to stress that although Hotmail is free and run by a perceived ''evil'' conglomerate empire, you can still expect great service when you need it, which is more than I can say for the e-mail accounts I received (NOT for free) from my internet service provider.

Hotmail has an esthetically pleasing page. The blue on blue with occasional white is easy on the eyes while maintaining its interest. The links are easy to read and navigate. From your Hotmail account, you can visit the MSN website using your NET.passport, which you receive when you sign up for Hotmail.

I adore the features available for composing e-mail. There are different fonts and colours, as well as jaunty 2-D colourful emoticons to add to your script. In a sidebar, there is a list of e-mail favourites--a list of people who you most likely e-mail all the time. This cuts down on time having to either remember all the e-mail addresses or pressing Contacts, searching for the name, and finding out you just lost everything you took time to write.

Hotmail does have it's problems. There are many times when the website is down, so you can't get into your e-mail. Sometimes the emoticons don't get transferred from the pull-down list to your e-mail. And sometimes (like now) the links are deactivated (replaced by red X's) and you have problems sending e-mail and navigating the site. Also, when choosing a name@hotmail.com, it frequently will tell you that name is already chosen so you might either have to choose something else or add a few numbers.

All in all, I think Hotmail is a good bargain for every consumer of every age, considering it's price--FREE! It's not always reliable, but technology is not always reliable and besides....it's FREE! It's better than Yahoo! Mail (for personal esthetic reasons) and better than your ISP e-mail--because it's FREE!

Hotmail was one of the first Internet based free mail clients out there, and for that it provides a useful service, but it is notorious for security breaches and spam. I am a male, but I get mail to enlarge my breasts. I do not own a home but I get mail for homeowners' insurance and home equity loans. I get tons of porn offers that I have never been interested in, the same applies to on-line degrees, Viagra, and ''cant miss'' financal opportunities.

Hotmail breaks down more than my other client (Yahoo). Hotmail is pretty fast with its mail delivery system. I basically use Hotmail as a ''dummy'' address, for people and companies who I don't know that well, if they do not blast my Hotmail inbox with junk they may ''graduate'' to my Hotmail address.

Hotmail, after years of massive amounts of spam, have been working on reducing that amount. Before I got 20 messages of spam a day, now I get maybe 5. But that is still too much. On Yahoo I get zero. Why can't Hotmail, owned by Microsoft do the same thing?

I will only recommend Hotmail as a repository for when you need a email address for your junk e-mail and news letters.

Ok now I got a chance to make my frustration come out for hotmail. Hotmail a free-e mail is nothing else but a hell mail. On an average I got 800 spams in a month. Does you need more? It is a very slow email client also. For about one week this free mail client is not working. I can?t believe that this hell mail can make some one millionaire.

I think Saber Bhatia have fooled bill gates. There one more a very frustrating thing about is that if don?t use it for one month you all emails will be deleted which you have stored in your inbox or any other folder. Yaa that also true that it is worlds first and most popular email client. But I don?t think now it deserves that respect. I have already made my new email account on rediff and it is working absolutely fine. Yahoo is also cool. But hotmail no no no.

Well, this is in defence to the ever vulnerable HOTMAIL. Whatever one may say Hotmail still remains the favourite of many people. With new looks and new features like spamgaurd &c, it will prove beneficial to many.

I have been using hotmail now for 3 years and I have no problems with it. People oppose it just because of a prevalent mindset against Microsoft. In reality Hotmail is as good as, or may be better, than Yahoo!, rediff &c. In fact I have used many email services. Many a times my mails have either got delayed or failed but this has not happened with hotmail.

Moreover hotmail was the first to introduce facilities like signature, emoticons &c. Hotmail also has tools like spell check &c. One can also avail of free newsletters. Hotmail also has a direct link to msn.com which makes it all the more useful.

Hotmail now comes with a new look, and lots of new facilities and loads of attitude. It is going to take up the market once more and take my word for it. Use it to believe it.

This was the 1st email service I ever used. BY signing up for a Hotmail email account/id, u are automatically registered (Signed up) for all other the MSN sites/services & can use/try it's partner/sponsor sites. It's fast, easy & a good service.

As Hotmail.com is the world's largest provider of free web based email & popular, it has many companies/organizations participating/partnering/sponsoring, leading to loads of spam & junk emails to Hotmail users.

Spam & junk mails can be stopped to a certain extent. While signing up (registering) for a Hotmail.com email account, just make sure u haven't checked the 3 or 4 checkboxes at the bottom of the profile info page & don't subscribe for any newsletter(s). Don't even opt-in for listing ur email or info in the Hotmail Members Directory.

Companies/organizations use the member's directory to get email addresses of people, & send them emails regarding the products/services they have/offer. Resulting in spam/junk mails.

U can also reduce the spam/junk emails by activating the bulk.junk mail option.

With a Hotmail id, u can chat with people through MSN Messenger & some other supporting chat clients.

There is a lesser risk of hacks & cracks as the MSN servers are all well protected. Msn keeps updating the security measures.

All the attachments in ur received emails are automatically check for virus with the help of McAfee anti-virus.

Try it. It's not such a bad service at all.

Let's face it's Hotmail has not the best reputation as a web service right? Now why do people use it ?

Well first of all Hotmail was one of the very first free email provider in the early days of the Internet... people dont wanna change their email address , and that's a point easily understandable right ?

Now I am using a Hotmail address. I was a Yahoo user for like three years before. Quite franckly I find Yahoo the best free email provider. But here is why I switched.

First of all, I often use Microsoft products. Should it be Money, Encarta or Picture it!, all of these software will extend their functions thru MSN Services. For example you can modify the photo you placed in MSN Photo with Picture it! Many other software use MSn features as a web extension to Microsoft. And that's basically the role of MSn..

Now the real motive of my change was MSN 8 (see my review on MSN8)Though it is a paid service, MSN 8 turn your Hotmail account into a most powerful service. Junk Filtering , Smart anti-spam, anti-virus....you got a booted Hotmail accountof 10 MB... MSN 8 email client is based on Outlook Express but feel much sleaker and agreable to use

As far as spam is concerned, I am not so much a victim... Maybe an average of a spam a day...But Microsoft 's new technology integrated in MSN 8 reassures me... anyway I did receive spam with Yahoo but I hardly saw them for they were directed to the Trash box...No real difference so...

Therefore it is my opinion that a Hotmail account is to be used by Microsoft user. I mean , should it be Yahoo or MSN...we're talking about BRANDS. Yahoo has many good services. If you have a Yahoo account you will surf Yahoo (Messenger, news, My Yahoo, Photos...) MSN has good services too and since I use MS products it is more convenient for me....

After all, it's just an email...just have a look at what's around.

Ok MS 's policy is harsh towards their competitors... but when you see the messenger integrated in XP, the MSN WebDocument preset as your network in XP and all that.... who can compete?

Instead of looking for a download manager + a Mail client + a calendar client + a sidebar + a quick browser+ .... why not choosing MSN 8 for example?

I'm more likely to try something else only if it can give me all I need

A hotmail account opens all lot of doors not to be forgotten

The most spam - inviting e mail service around in the world. You keep unsubscribing and the junkies keep popping up adamantly. Can someone please help spruce up the software to have some meaningful spam filters and junk mail reduction. The only good thing is the nice and slick new interface using some cool DHTML but beyond the package is a lot of unbothering software that allows dirt to come through.

This was the first e mail service hence people got hooked on to it and shared with friends and family. Probably that is the only driving force behind this giant.

Somebody made a claim that hotmail.com was the best email service provider…found it a little hard to digest.

there were some concrete points made by the person as to why it was the best.

I’d like to take each of those points one by one…

1. The hotmail.com page loads faster than any other page of an esp

Faster? Let’s have a poll….I doubt if hotmail would come anywhere even close to being the fastest. It might seem to be the fastest on a 2 Mbps line, where you really wouldn’t be able to make out which one’s the fastest, because it’s all there at the blink of an eye lid…..but from the average junta’s perspective, it’s pretty slow. Speed wise, I guess Yahoo beats hotmail hands down.

2. The features that hotmail provides in its mail service are the best in the business

Most of the features hotmail provides are available with yahoo, even rediffmail. In fact the latter provide more features compared to hotmail.

3. I can chek mail through MSN messenger.

You can do that with yahoo messenger as well as rediffbol....so what’s new?

4. The site has a classy look & feel to it.

Ok…looks is a subjective matter…yahoo and rediffmail too have changed their looks…and all look good…yahoo still leads 2-0.

5. It doesnt give any crappy messages when you want to log into the inbox like ’’Pay 250bucks & get free email+blah blah blah’’

Sure you do…hotmail too has a pay service. Look closely, u’ll spot it on you inbox page. E.g. the msn broadband service…they are all free services, they’ll drown without advertising.

6. -It doesnt seem like its gonna go bust in this millenium atleast.

That, maybe Nostradamus would be in a better position to comment on.

7. The compose facility has a lot of options like outlook express

Ok..i’ll give that one to you…still yahoo leads 2-1

8. Hotmail.com has all the features that you are looking out for like creating folders,automatically directing specific mails to specific folders,junk mail filter,etc etc.

So does yahoo…big deal!

9. downloading messages using outlook express...

ok plus one for hotmail.

10. Only negative feature that comes to my mind is attachment limit, but then again the limit is the same as ost other free email service providers.

Negative Features…let’s see…the inbox size of 2 MB compared to the inbox size of 6MB on yahoo, which kind of keeps you fretting you’ll go over your inbox size every 4 days….plus the additional hassle of clearing your account every 4 days (i.e. if you aren’t using outlook express with hotmail )...

Next up, maybe it’s just my bad luck or the MSN gods’ ploy against me or maybe reality – the famous lines from the hotmail service – “MSN is unable to sign you in. Please Try Later”…how often does yahoo give messages like these.

these are just some of them...plenty more..like ur account being removed if you dont use it for a month, etc...

Final Score : Yahoo :4, Hotmail : 2