It's popular, but is it any good (hotmail.com)

Member Name: Rook252

Product:	hotmail.com
Date:	13/11/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free

Disadvantages: Insecure

Hotmail is a web based email programme run by Microsoft. However it is not a requirement of windows, and as it is web based, you can access your emails from anywhere. It was one of the first free email services, and came into being in 1996, so early on captured quite a large share of the market.

Following the introduction of gmail, hotmail underwent a massive overhaul, improving functionality and the user interface. It offers features such as parental control, audio player, the ability to alter text to colour it, underline it etc, spell checker and attachments.

Hotmail has had a lot of issues with security in the past, and as a result I moved my main email account to Gmail in 2005. I do still have my hotmail account, but I find that in comparison it runs a lot slower than gmail, and the user interface isn't as simple to work with. In addition my hotmail account seems to have a useless spam filter, frequently messages from people in my address book are sent to the bin, while those adverts for under the counter blue pills appear in my inbox.

In addition hotmail also has much more visable marketing, while gmail has a small bold bar above the emails.

The main reason people use hotmail in my opinion is msn chat. You log in using your hotmail email account, and you can chat in real time to your friends. This is well used with teens, who will then tend to stay with hotmail and the system they know for years.

Overall I'm happy I left for gmail, while it provides a free service, the security issues and porn bombardments are a very good reason to leave well alone.

Summary: Better with gmail