E-mail is not only a means of personal and business correspondence, it is used for registration in social networks, websites and applications. In some cases, an email is mandatory, in particular, without it it is impossible to create an account on a number of educational platforms and government portals.

There are many email services where you can create an email account. But each of them has its own pros and cons, which you need to consider when choosing.

In this paper we’ll consider 5 popular email services and deal with their advantages and disadvantages.

5 best mail services

When considering services, we will take into account the parameters:

• Protection from viruses and hacks;
• Privacy of personal data;
• Spam filtering;
• Interface convenience;
• Volume of the box;
• Data backup;
• Working offline;
• Spell check;
• Availability of translators, etc.

Gmail

Mail service from Google, which occupies the first place by popularity – it is used by almost 2 billion people from all countries of the world. Has a friendly interface, switches to a simplified mode when the Internet is weak.

Service features stable operation and a high level of security. There is protection from viruses, phishing and spam. It supports two-factor authentication with sending an access code via SMS. When an email arrives, the system automatically recognizes its type and places it in a certain folder (Social Networks, Alerts, Promotions, etc.). There is a quick search system that allows you to find the right email by the word present there, and many other features.

Advantages:

• Ability to use offline;
• The presence of forwarding of letters;
• Support of a lot of keyboard shortcuts;
• High level of security;
• Apps for Android and iOS;
• Setting up spam filtering;
• 15GB of cloud storage;
• Chat for instant messaging;
• Support for POP, SMTP, and IMAP standards.

Disadvantages:

• Limitations on the free plan;
• Ads in mail folders;
• Possible problems with downloading on weak computers or weak Internet.

When you sign up for Gmail.com you get access to a number of Google services at once – Disk, YouTube, and more. Your free account will provide 15GB of storage for your Google Drive emails and files. Storage capacity can be increased by upgrading to a paid Basic ($5 per month), Business ($10 per month) or Enterprise ($25 per month) plan.

Proton Mail

A secure email service launched in Switzerland in 2014. It uses end-to-end encryption both when exchanging emails between user devices and when storing data on servers.

There are filters, autoresponder, built-in calendar and other options. To improve security, you can set an expiration date, after which the letter becomes unreadable. Registration of the mail box is carried out on the domain @protonmail.com or @protonmail.ch. For users is available free service VPN, working on platforms Android, MacOS, iOS and Windows, and ProtonMail Contacts – contact manager with enhanced protection of user data.

Advantages:

• High level of security and privacy;
• Mobile applications for iOS and Android;
• Multi-user support (on paid plans);
• Automatic deletion of emails after a set time; The possibility of automatic deletion of emails after a set time.

Disadvantages:

• Inability to recover a forgotten password;
• Limitation on volume (500 MB) and amount of messages (up to 150 messages per day);
• No support for email programs.

There are paid plans Plus ($5.66 per month), Professional ($9 per month) and Visionary ($34 per month) that allow you to remove restrictions and increase account security.

Outlook.com (Microsoft mail)

The service appeared in 1996 and was originally called Hotmail, but a year later it was bought by Microsoft, renamed and included as part of its own ecosystem. Outlook Mail maintains its popularity among western users, ranking third after Gmail and Yahoo!

When registering with any Microsoft service, a box on Outlook is automatically created. Due to the universal account, it can be used to sign in to Skype, the application store and any other service. The box actually has unlimited capacity – when the threshold of 5 GB is reached, it is automatically increased. The maximum size of the attached file is 33 MB, if you want to send a file of a larger size it must first be uploaded to the cloud OneDrive, and then the download link is inserted into the letter.

Advantages:

• Unlimited storage;
• Apps for mobile platforms;
• Integration with Microsoft services;
• Compatibility with standard email clients;
• Use of pseudonyms to hide the real email address;
• Quality anti-spam;
• Access to PayPal, Evernote, GIPHY, Uber, Yelp, etc.

Disadvantages: Ads take up a lot of screen space (located to the right of the mailbox.

Outlook is free to use, but there is also a paid Outlook Premium option, which is included with Office 365 Home ($99.99 per year) and Office 365 Personal ($69.99 per year).

Yahoo!

The original name of the service was RocketMail, it was created in 1994, after the appearance of Hotmail was its competition. In 1997, the service was bought by Yahoo, made some changes, and then presented it to the public under a new name. Among Western users, it ranks second (after Gmail) in popularity.

It has an elaborate interface, with a list of contacts, a diary, an autoresponder and automatic sorting of letters into directories. Distinguished by a large amount of storage (1 TB per account), the maximum size of an attached file – 50 MB, twice as much as most other services. Integrated with Dropbox cloud, supports synchronization with Facebook and importing contacts from Gmail, Outlook, etc.

Advantages:

• App for mobile platforms;
• Access to additional services;
• Effective spam blocking;
• Support for all modern protocols;
• Creation of custom filters;
• Compatible with most foreign services;
• Built-in messenger for instant messages.

Disadvantages: Advertising.

LockBin

An American mail service with a high level of security. It uses a complex encryption, which makes interception of transmitted data practically impossible.

On the free plan user can send files of up to 25 Mb and keep received mails up to six months after which they are automatically deleted. There is no support for traditional email clients because the owners of the service consider them unreliable.

Advantages:

• Protection of emails from interception;
• Android application;
• Java applet that is compatible with all operating systems;
• Plugin for Outlook.

Disadvantages:

• Deletion of messages after six months;
• No support for email programs.
• On the paid plan ($10 per month), the limit on the size of the box is removed and it becomes possible to send multiple files up to 1TB at once.

Conclusion

There are many email services, of which each user can choose the most suitable option for themselves. When choosing, you should pay attention to the key parameters of the electronic mailbox and take into account the goals for which it is created.