Google's Gmail Beta offers lots of promise, but there's an old standby that's been good and just got better. Find out who our pick is for the best free Web-mail service.
Yahoo Mail | Google Gmail Beta | Lycos Mail | MSN Hotmail | Netscape Mail
In the same way it rocked the Internet-search world, Google has caused a stir in the Web-mail arena, this time with its recent introduction of Gmail Beta. At the time of Google's announcement of its new online mail service, leading services such as Yahoo Mail and MSN Hotmail were offering free e-mail accounts with one or two megabytes of storage, while Gmail boasted a whopping one gigabyte of storage for free.
Not surprisingly, the competition took notice. Yahoo was the first to take action, upping the storage maximum for its free service to 100MB. Microsoft has said it will dole out roomy 250MB in-boxes for its free Hotmail service later this year, but for now, you're still stuck with the minuscule 2MB max. Lycos and Netscape have yet to respond to the Gmail threat, keeping mum about their 5MB in-boxes.
With the free Web-mail landscape changing, where should you spend your money -- er, your time? We look at five of the largest Web mailers to find out which delivers the best user experience and the most features -- from virus scanning to spam filtering -- for, well, nothing. Until Google completes its beta test of Gmail and releases a final version of the service, we'll reserve our final judgment (and rating). We'll tell you what we think of it in its current form, however, and say how the others stack up to it and to one another.
Yahoo Mail
Its newly expanded storage space, its ease of use, and a long list of useful features make Yahoo Mail the free Web mailer to beat.
Google Gmail Beta
Despite some beta kinks, Gmail offers a unique take on the e-mail in-box, not to mention a huge 1GB of storage space.
Lycos Mail
Amid the clunky interface and the small in-box of this free Webmailer, there are some useful features to be found.
MSN Hotmail
Expanded storage is promised, but for now, Hotmail's puny 2MB in-box lags far behind the competition.
Netscape Mail
Sure, Netscape's free Web mailer has fewer ads, but you'll also find far fewer features in this outdated e-mailer.
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