IT USED TO WORK SO WELL!!?? (hotmail.com)

Member Name: hazzeryoda

Product:	hotmail.com
Date:	03/12/00 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of people use it, no .com .co.uk confusion, features (if you want them), get MSN messenger (suprisingly good)

Disadvantages: slow, slightly unstable, buggy, some pointless features, VERY American

Predjudices against Microsoft aside, I think Hotmail is one of their better products. Well, that's when it works. Hotmail has the potential to be the greatest email utility there is (Outlook is just way to frustrating). Hotmail has everything you could ask for from an email client (except that there is no newsgroup reading facility) and can be readily accesed from anywhere in the world.

The problems begin here. Sometimes it takes AGES to jst display the inbox, navigation is also sluggish and unresponsive now. They say that there are conflicts etc between the new Internet Explorer 5.5 and Hotmail - this is made evident by the total browser freezes, disconnections, errors and even blue screens. ARGH!

Support for Hotmail is getting incresingly cryptic and new features are fiddly and annoying - setting up the Inbox Protector is painful and why is there an address blocker if they have this? The support for the Messenger is annoying, though I don't know if they include this on non-Messenger member's accounts. The messenger rears its stubborn and sluggish head whenever you send an email (very strange) and is integrated on various pages.

If MS could start listening to people other than Americans (generalisation I know) and begin streamlining, improving performance and getting rid of the features that many people wouldn't or can't-be-bothered-to-find-out-how-to-use, this would improve things no-end.

I'll still keep using Hotmail as it is my primary address and I have the feeling that things are about to be stripped back and improved with the amount of complaints.

So, I think I say 50:50 with Hotmail, but you'd think that a company like Microsoft would make consistently good products instead of coughing up mediocreness.

Summary: