Google Mail

One of the newest players in the free web based email arena if Google mail. When Google came on the scene with email, it changed the way the public used and understood free email. Google mail is known as gmail.

For those who sign up for a Google mail account, there are some noticeable differences. Google offers a large amount of free storage – over 2 Gigabytes and that number keeps growing. Google also displays your google mail in related conversations. By using Google’s search technology, Google can sort your emails by conversational relevance.

Google mail brought the end of pop up advertising in free email accounts. Google will show advertising with your email, but it is targeted advertising based on keywords found in your email. Thus, in Google’s opinion, the advertising seen in google mail is relevant to the user. Many people arguing against Google when this email was first offered. People believed that google mail would be read and privacy would be ignored. I think that perhaps those concerns have been overshadowed by the popularity of google mail.

Google mail may also be the first and maybe even only free email provider to provide POP3 access to the email account. What does this mean? POP3 access allows you to access your email account from a client email program such as Microsoft Outlook instead of using the web based interface.

I chose to try google mail while it was still in Beta testing. In those days, the only way you could get a google mail account was by the invitation of someone who already had a gmail account. The google mail accounts were highly treasured items and were somewhat difficult to find. At times, the invitations were even sold on eBay and made available to the person who was the highest bidder. I confess that I was so eager to get a google mail account of my very own, that I myself found my invitation on eBay.

Having a google mail account means I can travel all over the world, and always have access to my email. You can’t always access paid email accounts from countries outside the United States. I love the POP3 access, because I can fully configure and control my email access. Google also offers spam protection as part of your email account. In addition, Google mail offers free mail forwarding to other email addresses you have. I have been a gmail user for many months now, and have loved every minute.