A free email account, which may come at a price. (hotmail.com)

Member Name: LoolooMe

Product:	hotmail.com
Date:	10/07/09 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: it's free and generally easy to use.

Disadvantages: the amount of junk mail.

What is it?
-Free online email provided by Microsoft.

How do you get it?
It is free to register, just simply fill in the form.

What's good about it?
1. It's free.
2. It is a recognised brand.
3. It allows all of the normal email functions (such as attachments and prioritising).
4. It scans incoming attachments for viruses. (See disadvantages)
5. It has a junk folder where all of your junk mail goes (See disadvantages)
6. It has an address book (See disadvantages)
7. It allows you to create sub folders to store important emails in

What are the disadvantages.
1. You do get junk mail which contain viruses or spyware, so never open an email if you don't know who it is from. Although in your junk mail no attachments get opened without your authorisation. Remember pictures (those cute dancing frogs etc) are attachments.
2. Sometimes vital mail is transferred to your junk mail folder. Which means that after 14 days they are deleted. Also the empty junk mail folder means that you may delete something which you needed, and once it is gone from the junk mail folder there is no getting it back.
3. If you get a virus then it will probably go through your addressbook and send your contacts the virus. Which will probably annoy your friends.

What are it's main competitors?
-Gmail (google) - yahoo mail (Yahoo).

These are not really better or worse they are just different, so it depends on what you prefer to use. The benefits of gmail over hotmail is that gmail allows you to search for specific emails and gmail does look nicer. The benefits of yahoo mail over hotmail is the front page which provides you with news, links to all of the yahoo contents and show you whether you have any new emails. You can also customise this front page to your liking.

Would I continue to use it?
I have used it for years (in fact so long that the user name I set up when I was 13 is now far too embarrassing to use). I only rarly use it and prefer using my yahoo account.

Why I continue to use it?
-As this is the contact that people have and like I've said I've had it for around 10 years so if a friend wants to get back in touch with me this is the email they will use.

Should you get one?
- It is helpful to have if you are signing up for something online where you know they are going to send you junk mail. Then it goes into your junk mail folder and you can simply click empty without having to individually delete them.

Summary: A useful account to have, but there are others out there.