Lets go back in time to 2001.  Windows XP has not long been released and the general public are buying PCs like there’s no tomorrow.  The world is just waking up to broadband, but take-up is slow and most users are still using dial-up connection.  Internet service providers (ISPs) are numerous and fragmented, each offering different services.  However, they all offer the consumer their own email address.  And this email address is usually set up by the  “setup” program the ISP distributes.  And these setup programs, almost without fail, configured Outlook Express to collect and send mail using this spanking new email address.  Result: one happy end user with a new email address…

Now, lets come back to the present day.   Our previously happy end user has changed ISP 3 times since 2001, due to mergers, buyouts, name changes and bankruptcies of the dial-up ISPs after broadband became mainstream.  The user has now had four email addresses dished out by each successive ISP, and they are all using Outlook Express to manage the email sent and received by these addresses.  The user is confused by the settings and preferences required by each email address (and they don’t know how to clear the error that appears from the email address which no longer exists!).  Also, the mail files that Outlook Express uses are becoming bloated and slow the users old machine down dramatically.  However, they happily plod along until one day, the computer crashes and the hard drive is rendered useless.  Six years of email lost.

I’ve seen situations like this (although not quite so extreme) and they can easily be avoided.  Now, I’m going to tell you something that may blow your mind: you don’t have to use the email address your ISP provides!  In fact, I’d strongly advise you not to.  If you change your ISP, there’s a good chance you’ll lose your email address too.  Instead I’d recommend one of the many free web-based email services that are available.  Personally I’d recommend Google’s Gmail.  With a fast and reliable interface, excellent spam filtering, multiple email addresses, POP3 and IMAP support, plus an ever-increasing storage limit (today it stands at 5451MB) it offers a great service at no cost.  Some people may prefer Windows Live Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail, but whatever the choice, the benefits are great:

• Remote Access -By using a remotely hosted email solution, you can now access your email, read and unread, anywhere in the world and on any Internet-enabled device (PC, mobile phone, games console, etc.)
• Backups - The issue of backing up your email should now be out of your hands.  A major company offering a service like this is going to do everything they can to avoid outages and loss of data.  They will have backups of your data and will restore it if needed (that is, if they have a major storage failure and not in the case of an accidentally deleted email).
• Fewer Resources - Because all that is needed is an internet connection and a good reliable browser, you do not need large amounts of memory to run your email application or hard disk space to store your email.
• More Features, No Cost - Web-based applications, especially ad-supported ones, are constantly developing more and more features to attract new users and to reward existing ones.  After all, more users equals more ad revenue.  Google are particularly good at this.

You can even set up your old email to be received through your new webmail service.  That way all your email is in one place.

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