Name an e-mail service – any e-mail service – that offers both a web interface and a mail client, by the same company, that syncs mail, address book, calendar, instant messenger, and allows you to connect it directly to your domain…
…all for free.
As you can tell from the title of this article, Microsoft and its Live Services is the only one.
For those that say “Hey! Google does all that!” Not quite – they don’t have a true-blue mail client, and this is important. More on that in a moment.
My story (thus far) concerning e-mail
(Note: If you want to skip this and get to the good stuff concerning Hotmail and the Windows Live Mail client, skip to the next heading)
As regular readers of PCMech know I got thoroughly disgusted with Gmail and dropped ‘em like a bad habit. Yes, I know I am one of the rare and few who dare (gasp!) state that Gmail sucks and absolutely will not go back to it. I know I am in the minority when I say that.
I also said I was fine’n'dandy with Mozilla Thunderbird utilizing IMAP mail.
But there’s a problem. I can’t sync.. well.. anything with Mozilla Thunderbird without add-ons. For those that wonder “Can you sync contacts with t-bird?” Yes you can, and more. If you want to turn t-bird into a powerhouse e-mail client, install Lightning then Sync Kolab. Then you can configure t-bird to sync your address book, tasks and so on to an IMAP folder. Cool? Yes. Very cool. It plugs up all the holes that t-bird misses, feature-wise.
But now you have another problem. On every computer you use, you have to install t-bird and two plugins. This is not an out-of-box solution and can get annoying right quick.
On the Gmail side, that service works best if you stay within the web interface (be it a normal computer or mobile device.) Once you go outside of that, say with a client, you lose a ton of Gmail functionality. Without the use of add-on utilities, your contacts will not sync to anywhere. Your labels will not sync to anywhere. You basically lose all the stuff that makes Gmail Gmail.
Enter the Hotmail
Here’s a few tidbits of info about Hotmail and why it, said plainly, kicks Gmail’s ass.
Windows Live Services has one of the best free e-mail clients out there; it’s called Windows Live Mail or “WLmail” for short.
This client will sync the address book between the web interface and the client – no plugins or add-on programs required.
The folders (God bless those) sync seamlessly between the client and the web interface. No plugins or add-on programs required.
WLmail uses HTTP for Windows Live Domains accounts, @hotmail.com, @live.com and @msn.com accounts. It absolutely beats the ever-lovin’ crap out of IMAP. Server time-outs? Non-existent. Speed? Way faster than IMAP. The HTTP protocol used for these accounts leaves IMAP in the dust.
Oh, and the best part: When you use WLmail, no ads. Zero.
(Side note: Yes I know you can use Gmail with a client and not see any ads either, however remember that you lose Gmail functionality when you do that. You don’t using WLmail and Hotmail.)
And for those wondering if Hotmail has mobile options, it most certainly does.
Did I mention that for other Hotmail/Live/MSN users it will update the contact info?
(from the help section of the WLmail software)
And no you don’t have to use this, nor are you forced to – but the option is there and that’s what counts.
How about having a choice of what type of spam protection you’d like?
The options you choose in WLmail share and sync with the web interface version.
No one, repeat, no one has anything that comes close to this. Not for free, anyway.
Final notes
Some will ask these questions so I will answer them up front.
How much space do you get? 5GB.
What’s the maximum attachment size you can send? 10MB. If you flip over $19.95 a year you can send 20MB attachments (and get your e-mailbox bumped to a 10GB limit instead of 5GB.) However the vast majority of people won’t need to do this because the free stuff is more than enough.
Am I telling everyone to drop what they have for e-mail and use Microsoft?
No, and this is particularly directed to Gmail users. They will adamantly defend the service and state it’s the best thing since cushioned toilet seats.
What I am telling you is to take a look. You most likely already have a Hotmail e-mail address. Try it out with the Windows Live Mail client and Windows Messenger. Check out the sync capability without the need to add-on anything.
And remember, PC Magazine rated the Windows Live Hotmail as an Editor’s Choice in 2007. It’s not the clunky interface you remember.
You might like it.
I liked it so much I moved my domain mail over to it.
– edit –
Yes I know I said I had a really bad experience with Hotmail in this article I wrote, but that was several years ago when that happened (way before even Gmail came into existence.) Hotmail is absolutely positively not the same crapola, hence the reason I switched to it.
“Rich Menga reply on June 3, 2008 10:25 am:
“OMG” = netspeak = fail, and it’s not PCM (that means Pulse Code Modulation), it’s PCMech – fail again.”
Correct me if Im wrong but wouldn’t “fail” standing on its own be considered “netspeak” now. A bit of pot calling the kettle black I believe. Also this is far and away a better example of an attack then any of the above posts by Craig. Also I do believe you read his second paragraph, but had no real retort prepared so you came with a second attack on poor Craig.
But hay, whatever. Lets get on with getting on.
Also why has no one responded to my first post with regards to free hotmail not working with Outlook 2007?
ps. I just noticed that the two of you are Tampons, like myself.
Not exactly because “fail” is a real word. Netspeak is anything that is a made-up word from the online world – but your point is valid.
And no I did not read his 2nd paragraph. Still haven’t. And won’t.
OL 2007 doesn’t emcompass the whole Windows Live thing for whatever reason. It seems to be purposely separated from it by design with no way to connect to mail via the HTTP protocol (i.e. Hotmail).
Even though that’s true, the first rule to using Outlook is to not see it as a mail client because it does ten times more than just mail. This is the reason I don’t use it. Having it just for mail and nothing else is a bit of a waste.
I completely agree that Outlook is overkill for most users. However speaking as a small business tech in the Bay area, it is very hard to get my clients to use anything besides Outlook for their mail clients. Its not because they use every bit of it, but more that it is what they are use to using. So while I have tried (and failed) to get my clients to try out T-Bird they’re in the end going to stick with Outlook.
This causes a large problem for your argument that live mail is better then Gmail. Everything syncs properly though Imap and the new google calander sync all thats missing now is a Google made contact sync. And best of all (for them) they get to keep using Outlook.
In truth I dont think Google care one way or another how well the sync works with any of the clients out there. This is all a stop gap while they work towards getting Google Gears related online/offline products ready for the masses. When that time comes I am almost positive we will see a change in the ascetics of the Google interface as well.
One more thing. While this is really just a guess, I believe that hotmail/live accounts do lead to more spam. But I believe this is more to do with a use having the account linked to .net and using Internet Explorer. I have never really done the research to validate any of this. It is solely based on experience. I will explain further is you do not already know what I am speaking of.
Not only will Outlook fanatics not use anything other than Outlook, they won’t even think about it. When they say “My life is in there”, they’re dead serious. Doesn’t just count for the Bay area either, it’s for anyone who uses it all the time.
I don’t put Outlook in the same arena as Hotmail because they serve different purposes. And I absolutely could not convince a dedicated Outlook user to switch.. to anything. No way, no how. I would lose and lose huge. I might get *some* leeway with Yahoo Mail because it syncs to Outlook easily, but they still wouldn’t switch.
You’re correct, Google only cares about how its mail works in the browser and nowhere else. That’s their m.o., as in to do everything inside (internet) and not out (client).
Concerning the spam, part of the reason Hotmail attracts more spam (and yes that’s true – I don’t deny that) is because it’s been around longer than Gmail. However both Hotmail and Gmail require “training”. You will get false positives with both that you have to de-spam. Put heavy use into the contact list, train for a while and either will “learn” what is and isn’t spam quickly.
To everyone wanting to use Outlook 2007/Hotmail together:
Go to Google. Type in “Outlook Connector”
It’s a plugin (yes Rich, we hate them, I’m with you on that!) for Outlook 2007 to sync/connect via HTTP connection to the @hotmail.com or @live.com domains.
When I used to use it it was a bit buggy and while it did work, I didn’t feel as though it was as efficient or fast the Windows Live Mail client was.
But yes, it does work and the option to sync the two together is possible.. It has been for some time now.
NOTE:
You must have a validated copy of both Windows AND MS Office 2007 so for anyone into warez/releases from the scene etc. who bypass the WGA and OGA protection so they get full functionality without the validation, forget about it – it won’t work.
So in a nutshell:
YES – You can sync your Outlook 2007 via HTTP with your free Hotmail/Live account.
YES – it works. Granted, not as well as the Windows Live Mail client in my opinion.
I quite disagree with your statement about losing some functionality from using Gmail with a mail client. My mail client gives me things that Gmail does not have or won’t have. For example, in the web interface of Gmail, I can see multiple images but I need to either open a window or a tab for each one to see the picture individually. However, with my mail client, if there is more than one image, I can view it as a slideshow. In addition to viewing multiple images in a slideshow, if there were any date or times important to me, then I could have that in a calendar on my computer. Not only that, but if there was an address in the Email, I could have a map from Google brought up (you can’t do this in the Gmail web interface). If somebody were to send me a video, I could open it w/o having the proper application to view it (with proper codecs of course) (Gmail makes you download the video, if you use the web interface). As for those of you that think it is bad to defend a product (like Mac users do), why do Windows users do the same thing? That is called being a hypocrite.
and by using hotmail/livemail you can access several services of of live like live spaces (kinda social networking), onecare(free anti virus online scan) sky drive (online hardisk) for sharing files, and it seems that you have your own page in it also with your email add you can sign in to thier Microsoft Office Live Small Business witch u can have your ownFREE websites with your own domain name and you can have a company email cool is in it? and with your account you can access to thier events (here it the philippines). and there is more… try it expirience it