Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail could be argued as being the three biggest webmail used by people on the Internet today.

You may have more then one e-mail account or you may have e-mail accounts with all of these providers.

Today, we discuss what’s hot and what’s not with these webmail providers and then we crown a victor.

So, let’s jump right into the fray. We will look at each of these from three important aspects: Look, Feel, and Options.

Hotmail

Ah, yes Hotmail. At least everyone has one of these. It is probably the most popular of the three.

The Look

Well, the one thing I definitely don’t like about Hotmail is that it is covered with too many ads.

I signed in and counted more than 4 ad blocks and banners. It’s not that pretty. Every time you use Hotmail you are constantly being bombarded with ads.

The Feel

Hotmail is well designed. It looks decent and is simplistic (It’s new beta version looks overly simplistic however). A user can easily compose an e-mail, reply, forward and do things pretty straight forwardly.

The layout is not difficult for many to master.

The Options

With 250MB of space a Hotmail account is pretty small compare to Yahoo! Mail and Gmail.

The options are exactly what you expect in a webmail account. You can creat an e-mail, forward, reply, send mail to junk, delete mail, create folders and move mail in those folders.

Advanced options allow you to change you password, create junk mail filters, custom filters, create a signature, and more.

The options are pretty good and the layout is great. Hotmail can’t be that bad if everyone has an account, can it? Personally, I like Hotmail, but I don’t like its overuse of ads.

Yahoo! Mail

The Look

I found it to be drab really. The color choice is pretty bad. The colors are dead; however, it does keep with the Yahoo! theme. The buttons look like computer buttons, making the interface look ancient for its time.

There are a few ads, but nothing like Hotmail.

The Feel

Like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail is pretty basic. It does what it’s supposed to do. This makes it simple for someone to use it with out getting too complicated.

The Options

Yahoo! Mail has very similar options to Hotmail. Yahoo! Mail, however, allows one to store 1GB of mail. That is a 4 times bigger than the storage space of Hotmail.

In my opinion, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are very similar. Their design is slightly different, and Yahoo! Mail has a lot more storage, but their functions are baiscally the same.

Gmail

Gmail is Google’s free webmail service. This service can only be used if you are invited. (E-mail if you do need a Gmail invitation. I have plenty)

Gmail is very different so let’s jump in.

The Look

Gmail uses simple colors and yet looks professional. It is pretty straightforward and is less cluttered. There are very few ads which make the experience a little more enjoyable.

The Feel

At first, I admit, I also was a little confused at how things worked in Gmail. Gmail has some different options (which we will get to) that changes the way things are done.

But the basics are plainly obvious. From there a user can then begin to advance to understand Gmail’s other features.

The Options

Gmail doens’t use folders. Instead it uses labels. These are similar to folders, but are powerful.

For example, if you had a “Family” folder and a “Funny” Folder, you can’t but one message in both those folders.

However, a message in Gmail can be multilabelled. Therefore, if your cousing sent you a joke, you could label it Family and Funny. The message would appear under both those labels.

Gmail, unlike others, has an archive option. This eliminates clutter. It allows you to put archived mail in their appropriate labels or in All Mail so that you have a clean front page.

Gmail also stores mail in conversation form. One mail is appended to the previous one.

For example, in other accounts, if a friend and I sent 20 e-mails both ways, I would have 10 e-mails. In Gmail, both conversations are stored in one e-mail. So, when you read it, you read the 20 messages, on after another.

Concise and clean. I like it.

In short:

Feature Hotmail Yahoo! Gmail
Space 250MB 1GB 2.3GB
Look Good Drab Pro.
Feel Good Good Good
Options Basic Basic Better Features

Gmail, in my opinion, is the best free webmail service, because it goes above and beyond the norm.

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