Talk:Web-based email
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[edit] Question on GB v MB
Regarding the changes made on 23:25, 20 September 2005 by 61.11.38.6, is it really advantageous to change all gigabyte values to megabyte values? It seems more concise and usable to keep the values in gigabytes. Any input would be appreciated.
- KHenriksson 03:30, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
- I'd say lets revert to what it was, for from now on list the space as the providers list it, like Gmail in MB and others in GB - Ablaze 12:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
- Using the same notation as the providers seems like a good idea, but will probably lead to inconsistent notation. I think if we do this we should at least put a more consistent notation in parentheses i.e. 2048 MB (2 GB). - KHenriksson 05:20, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
- I'd say lets revert to what it was, for from now on list the space as the providers list it, like Gmail in MB and others in GB - Ablaze 12:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Some people might not understand the MB form. Sadiq815 14:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Webmail Links
Why were the links erased from the main article? I can't see any good reason form Wikipedia:External links why they should have been removed. - KHenriksson 05:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Advantages of webmail
Under this section and the one after it (features of webmail), there is a lot of info commented out. Can someone with more technical knowledge than me either pull them out entirely and archive them here -- with the explanations of why -- or restore them if the comment are in fact valid? Thanks. Janet13 18:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I commented out some features not germane to webmail services some time ago during a rewrite of those sections and annotated them to encourage editors to think about the non-features to prevent them from creeping back in. The sections are reproduced below; excised bits are marked blue. Pilatus 19:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Advantages of webmail services
- Messages do not have to be downloaded.
- Not a unique feature of webmail
- Many services allow anonymous sign-ups.
- Moved to "Other features
- No need to change eMail addresses should you switch ISP's.
- This is true for popboxes, too, and not a feature of webmail -->
- Assuming the webmail user logs out of the service and the site's pages are not cached locally (most are encrypted anyway), email messages are not stored locally on the user's hard drive, thus are not usually at risk of data retrieval should the hard drive be searched.
- Not germane to webmail services; accessing a POP3 server through a telnet connection leaves no traces on the local harddisk either
- Web browsers are always available at internet cafes; terminal emulations and email clients typically are not
[edit] Disadvantages of webmail services
- If the provider goes down, you no longer have your mails. Although this doesn't happen usually, it's quite possible.
- This is trivial
- The user must stay online to read and write more than one email. They cannot easily edit mails they are working on offline (except by cutting and pasting the text).
- Commercial webmail services often offer only limited email storage space and either display advertisements during use or append them to mails sent. Unlike with a local client, the user cannot keep the messages on their local hard drive.
- Most emails are usually short, plain text messages of less than 2 kB, but using webmail the original email is wrapped in the website's HTML, which can be 40 kB or more. Obviously this brings a significant decrease in speed of use, especially on a slow network connection.
* Webmail usually has speed and functionality limitations relative to other email clients, partly due to limited capabilities of HTML (web pages). For example, when messages are tagged for deletion in the index, these tags are usually lost when one reads a message. That means you can't read a message that you suspect you may wish to delete (to help decide) without deleting already tagged messages or having to re-tag them. Thus it is more awkward to delete multiple messages. I don't understand the example much. Can anybody explain more clearly or show me what webmail has this disadvantage? Thanks.Vinhtantran 11:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Other features of webmail
- The origin of mail from them cannot be traced without help from the owners of the service.
- This is true of normal e-mail, too.
- Webmail accounts can be set up with minimum technical competence and provide independence from one's current ISP as well as a degree of anonymity.
[edit] GMAIL, Best Webmail?
"Despite causing quite a stir of publicity, Gmail, the best free webmail service recently introduced by Google, only has 4%, mainly due to its invite only policy." Just running it through you guys. Can you claim that? -- Abid Ahmed 19:02, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the word 'best', such a statement doesn't really belong in Wikipedia Timffl 22:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] MyPersonalEmail.com
Notable or not? --Lakhim 23:02, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Advertisement
"On March 21, 2005, Streamload announced the launch of xStreamMail. The first e-mail enhancement system specifically designed for sending and sharing collections of full-quality videos and photos, xStreamMail users are given 10 GB of free e-mail storage and file attachment limits to paying subscribers of 50 terabytes per e-mail." [Emphasis mine.] Since I don't know anything about them, I can't really delete it.... If anyone does, please get rid of it. 141.149.206.197 21:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] info on email "relays"
how about some info on what could be called "email relays" like HOTPOP ?
since they redirect email to whatever REAL email adress you currently use, by needing only a single user@hotpop.com styled email adress...
Comes in handy for people constantly changing webmail service. You give a single email adress to friends, and any change of webmail service doesnt affect contacts.
I think this should be discussed as well, even if such services do not behave like regular webmail sites. Whats your say in that ?
[edit] Most popular
In April 2006, Google were only laying claim to fourth most popular: see http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/04/gmail-fourth-most-popular-webmail.html. This article has them in the top 3; and without citation. Unfortunately, Google do not provide their data that puts them at #4.
- Cited an article which collates various sources of data to put Yahoo and Hotmal top, but Gmail fourth (at best) and considerably less important from a numbers point of view. Golf fan 15:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Webmail client" vs. "webmail service"
I think this article is very confused as it doesn't make the distiction between a "webmail client" - a web application that is an email client running on a web server with interface on a web browser and the services offered by "webmail services" - some of them are specific capabilities of the webmail client but others - such as POP3 access and email forwarding have nothing to do with the "webmail client" other than being offered by services that are more famous for offering a webmail client for accessing the email store than for other features they provide. Many of the "webmail services" are email hosts that provide lots of email functionality that is accessible to users without using the web application they also offer.
So "webmail" is used in two quite different ways: one is a general purpose email service that is not tied to an ISP's internet access service. The other is an email client implemented as a web application. Most webmail services are offering the use of a webmail client and most well known webmail clients are tied to a particular webmail service, but there are exceptions, and the two concepts are not the same. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hadaso (talk • contribs) 08:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC).
[edit] webmail account user is always traceable?
"The ability to access it anywhere means it is harder (though by no means difficult) to trace the individual who uses an account than if they used a connection associated with their home address." Is this necessarily true? What about if I set up the webmail account in an anonymous internet cafe and only ever used the webmail account from anonymous internet cafes.139.133.7.37 19:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)21:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] the fourth paragraph
the fourth paragraph of this article says too much as should a introductry paragraph, (i.e., paragraphs before the first heading, I do not remember what we call it on wikipedia). Is it not biased towards Yahoo Mail? Sumitkumar kataria (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
