Pastimes

It’s been a rivetting week :-) But after playing some free video games over at Bored.com, I thought I might share a few other, possibly more enlightening, links.

There is, you see, the issue of free online email. I have kept a Hotmail account for years now, to use as my “reveal to the world when I have to register on websites” address – the sort of places you don’t necessarily want to leave your real email address, either because you don’t necessarily know who they are or because it will be displayed on websites ready for spam harvesting (as in blog comments on many sites, or on forums). Anyhow, I’ve been getting fed up with Hotmail for various reasons (annoying site design, the way they replace all links in email with Javascript that stops me doing my usual “right-click to open in a new tab”) but mostly because my work blocks access to Hotmail, so I can’t check email there from work.

So, I’ve been doing a little research on alternatives and I’ve settled on Inbox.com. They have a nicely designed, fast site that offers good spam protection and a decent storage limit. It even has calendaring and online file storage, if you want that sort of thing. A couple of other places I was tempted by include Fastmail (ultimately let down by slightly clunky site compared with Inbox.com) and Care2.com. Care2 is supported by adverts, but donates 10% of its income to environmental charities. It offers various extra services, like news on various ethical issues (civil rights, human rights, global warming etc.) but, again, its site design for email let it down – for example, you have to log in every time you visit, instead of being able to bookmark your inbox (which I rather like being able to do).

If you’re still using Hotmail, or any other webmail service, have a look at some of the alternatives. The standard is pretty high these days. Nowhere near enough to tempt me away from desktop email, but pretty nice nonetheless.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 4:16pm on 19 January 2007
Category: General, Links, Computers