I have a Yahoo account that I've had for something like over 15 years (firstnamelastname@yahoo.com). I use it for both business and personal use, and over the years, I've watched Yahoo's QOS decline to something that has become unbearable. Yesterday, I was negotiating with a certain venue for a certain function, and they tried to rescend an offer they had made me. Fortunately, I got everything taken care of by going back through our e-mail discussions and pointing out certain things that were discussed. Later in the day, I was creating a follow up e-mail, and when I wanted to go back to some of these e-mails, two of them that had particular attachments were just gone. I most certainly did not delete them.......they just vanished on their own. Had this happened prior to the resolution of my issues with this venue, it could have been very expensive for me. I just can't rely on Yahoo! mail anymore, so I want to move on. I briefly had some crazy thoughts about getting MS SBS and just hosting things myself, but then I realized what a nightmare that would be. I want to register another domain name and have someone host the e-mail for me. I'm leaning towards a large company that does a lot of this like godaddy or google, but besides a high percentage of uptime, I'd like speed and a good web interface as well. I registered for a gmail account a while back, but I just haven't been able to get myself to use it, so I can't really attest to how good their web based interface really is (though I know some people love it). I also have a hotmail account that I use on occasion, but I haven't really played around with it beyond casually checking e-mail there once or twice a week. What is the best bet out there for a hosted domain name/e-mail solution in terms of price/speed/storage/interface and most importantly........not losing my mail?
I use Network Solutions to host a couple of web sites and also have email accounts. So far, I have had no problems and uptime has been great. The web interface seemes reasonable and I can also get my mail through POP3 programs. I don't know if they have email only hosting, but I suspect they do. My daughter uses godaddy to host a couple of email only domains and she has yet to complain.
I still use my Yahoo account because their spam filtering, at least in my case, has been among the best. The problem with switching email providers is that you want to go to one that hopefully will still be around in 2 years. I'm not sure Yahoo will be, but your best alternatives are Gmail or Windows Live in that regard. I'm not a huge fan of GMail's interface, though.
I did some more poking around, and google apps provides hosted e-mail with 25 gigs of storage and an SLA guaranteeing 99.9% uptime for only fifty bucks a year. They will certainly be around two years from now, and although I could get more storage for less money elsewhere, I'm gonna give this a try..... thanks for the feedback. Of course, I'll still have my old yahoo account and I'm sure I'll check it like I do my hotmail account. I just need to go through the pain of transitioning over.
I [heart] Gmail's interface. Keeping track of "like" emails in threads is HUGE. Also, their search function is second-to-none (duh).
get your own domain, and host it through google apps email. basically, you get gmail, but you send/receive using your own domain name- http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html when you're signing up, it will look like a trial/paid service, but there's another option under the button to take a lower and free version. ive set this up on multiple accounts and it is amazing.
That's what I did........though I opted for the paid service as it will be a business expense. Already got it going with my domain name.
