Jump to content

Talk:Comparison of webmail providers/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This whole article is not appropriate for wikipedia

According to the policy at WP:DIRECTORY, wikipedia is not a yellow pages. As such, there is a user (Barek) who is keen to destroy pages that catalog services, as he did on the Online_post_office comparison article. Folks might want to consider moving this content to another wiki before he gets to it. Jgombos (talk) 16:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

This would be most idiotic move if he gets on it. The reason is: Wikipedia is encyclopedia. Common, delete comparison of AMD and Intel chips, Nvidia and AMD/Ati gpu chips, filesystems, hell - kill the ABC, its not informative at all. What a BS. How about he just gets banned for this? This is called vandalism. 31.23.46.45 (talk) 11:36, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, this article was nominated for deletion, but it has been decided not to delete it. It doesn't mean that this is a good article. The real problem is that Wikipedia lacks an article on the term "Webmail provider". A definition exists in the article about webmail, however, it provides very little information that I would expect of a good article about "webmail provider" to include. What I would like to see is an historical account of the development of email as a web-based service, starting with the early days of the web (early 1990's); an account of the early web-based services (such as Hotmail before it became a MicroSoft property, Yahoo mail and what preceded it, some other services that were pioneers but did not survive; continuing with ongoing development of these services, and key turning points, up to the present. Not just a comparison of the "big players" and not a full list of every boring email service that's out there with its precise offerings (such as user quotas etc.) I do want to read in such an article about "insignificant" players that made significant innovations adopted by others, even if they later disappeared, or if they remained small to medium despite being innovative. However, I was not able to find any source that describes this history, so I guess it's something that still needs research, and for the time being we have to be content with a list type comparison of what is offered by current web-based email provider. Who are the providers to be included in the comparison? I think the criterion should not be their "size" or "market share", but rather their unique offerings, since this is not a place that offers product reviews, but rather information for people that want to understand what is a webmail provider, what's common to all webmail providers and what is not common but is related or is unique to some of them. What I'm sure should not be in this list is webmail resellers (that offer the service through standard platforms). The purpose of the article is to provide information to people who seek knowledge about the subject, not to consumers looking for the best deal. And I sure would like to start an article about the History and development of web-based email, including the social aspects of it. It's a pity that a subject that had such an immense impact on the way we humans communicate in the past 15 years is covered so poorly in the world's largest body of knowledge! Hadaso (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

This article is called "Comparison of Webmail providers", k? It is not called "Webmail provider", nor "History of webmail providers". It is a comparison article for users interested in non-biased information to compare. Like comparison of operating systems, comparison of file systems, comparison of search engines etc. This is valueable article and anyone wishing to delete it is straight vandal in face of wikipedia users. 91.0.6.248 (talk) 08:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

GMX

someone please research GMX mail thanskMrahman1991 (talk) 02:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

GMX actually adds ads in outgoing messages 88.117.82.249 (talk) 13:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Does it? I have never seen that.90.210.24.124 (talk) 12:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
It does in the unpaid versions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.223.176.56 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 13 April 2010
I'm not sure what information you (the mysterious someone of the start of this section) want researched. I have been using GMX for some years, and the main problem I saw in the article was that English is no longer supported as an interface language in the browser. It used to be handled through a different website, perhaps with a dot UK extension, but they discontinued that service years ago. The article mentions Spanish, too. I did spend a while searching the system, but the only language-related options seemed to be Austrian and the Swiss version.Shanen (talk) 02:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I have been a GMX user for just over a year. GMX definitely has an English interface and doesn't add ads to my outgoing messages. 89.168.109.44 (talk) 00:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

GMX with IMAP is not for free, you have to pay additional fee! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.7.25 (talk) 10:50, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

AOL Mail

It's cited to allow attachments up to 5GB! A lie as far I can tell.

Ref. AOL Mail Help: The largest piece of e-mail that you can send or accept from the Internet is 16 megabytes (MB). This includes the message text, headers and the attachment combined. If the file you are trying to transfer exceeds 16 MB, you will need to either compress the file or split it into smaller parts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.19.99.233 (talk) 12:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Lycos

has stopped any (Mail) Service in Spring 2009. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.7.25 (talk) 10:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Any language?

Some services are reported to support any languages... not too many? There are more than 7,000 languages in the world! Ale85 (talk) 20:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The confusion appears to be caused by the loosely defined column header, "Languages supported". It seems that the original intent was to track the number of user interface language localizations. However, some people have interpreted the meaning to describe how many character sets a web interface supports, which can very well be considered (most) "any" if the UI supports Unicode. --Brian T. Nakamoto (talk) 21:01, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Signatures

Maybe a mention or category in the table about which providers include a signature advertising the service at the bottom of the email (a la Hotmail and Yahoo) vs those who don't (gmail, aol maybe?)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.206.73.125 (talk • contribs) 17:01, 10 July 2006

Prod Discussion

As is my understanding from Wikipedia:Proposed deletion: If anyone removes Template:Prod from an article for whatever reason, don't place it back. If the template was removed and replaced, the article will not be deleted. If you still believe the article needs to be deleted, list it on AfD. --Cumbiagermen 20:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

Now then, what is the community's concerns with this article's messiness? Personally, I think it's well-divided into sections, i.e. there are not too many columns, everything is color-coded, links are relevant and placed in appropriate places.

Too many insignificant services makes the tables too large and bloated. There are some rather pointless comparsion topics as well. "Unique features" and "Filters out emails with executable attachments" should be removed--Immunmotbluescreen (talk) 20:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Secondly, why would it be incomplete? From what I can see, and especially with the good edits done this morning by kind editors, almost all of the columns are accounted for. Is this an issue about not having enough providers compared? Please, throw me with your acumen. --Cumbiagermen 20:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Importance

Given that a majority of Internet users have a webmail account and that these services play a large role in the Internet on a worldwide basis, why would a comparison of the major webmail services not be of importance? --Cumbiagermen 20:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'm removing the tags until someone provdes an explanation for why they were placed on the article. -- JJay 20:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
The issue isn't whether webmail is important, but whether these four providers in particular warrant a comparison to the exclusion of the literally hundreds of other webmail providers that exist. —donhalcon╤ 21:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you serious? I don't know about AIM, but Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail are obviously the big three. There is no reason to list every webmail provider, however if there are some you want to add then go ahead. -- JJay 21:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I am serious. If we don't care about other providers, how can we even pretend to be NPOV? This article basically amounts to free advertising for the services that don't need it. (I'm a GMail user, but I still don't see the point of a four-service comparison except in a product view, which Wikipedia is not.) —donhalcon╤ 21:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
  • You may claim to be serious, it looks to me like you are just trying to raise problems where there are none. You provided the link to webmail, I suggest you read the article, particularly the section about market share. Notice exactly which companies are named. Then compare to the list. If you still find POV issues start by working them out on the webmail page. We are also not "advertising" anything. We are comparing the leading services.-- JJay 22:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
No, really. I am totally serious. I did read the article. If Google has only a 4% share, why is it listed? If that statistic is accurate, it seems likely that there are more people who use webmail via Comcast, Verizon, and other large ISPs than GMail. So why aren't they listed here, too? There are more than four webmail providers listed in the webmail article, even, and I'm not going to claim that that article doesn't also need work. I don't think this list can ever achieve a neutral point of view, at least not without a much more specific title. —donhalcon╤ 22:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The point is to compare the leading providers. Not every provider. The name could be changed to reflect that. While your questions are good, the answers require more research. That is a time consuming process. But I don't see anyone trying to delete the webmail article becaue it mentions Gmail or Hotmail and not every other provider. Whatever Gmail's current share, it should be there because it's owned by Google. And because this is wikipedia, anyone can add other services or at least make a case for them here. You are not convincing me with the POV argument though. If you were right, logically, we would have to have articles on every player in a given industry. For example, we have Hotmail and Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. We don't have articles on every other player. I for one would like to see articles on every webmail service. Considering that you spent most of the day nominating articles for deletion, I tend to doubt you would agree. -- JJay 23:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I second that. I think it would be wise and informative to have either a "Market Share" or "Number of users worldwide" column in the General section. I'll put the column up right now and we can start filling it in...--Cumbiagermen 06:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I think that this article should not compare only the leading webmail providers - Gmail, AIM Mail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. It should also count the major webmail providers outside the Big Four. I was the user who added the list of less notable webmail providers to the webmail article, and I think they should be listed here. The Comparison of web browsers article, for example, does not cover just IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Adding information about market share or number of users is a good idea. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 11:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed! I support. --Domthedude001 22:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Windows Live Mail's features are not all listed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.81 (talk) 20:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

Right now this list only includes the mail services offered by AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google. Attempts to add other services have been reverted. I understand the desire not to include every non-notable webmail provider, but in my view it's a violation of neutrality to arbitrarily exclude all but the most famous ones.

By way of comparison, Comparison of web browsers and Comparison of instant messaging protocols don't exclude less well known entries.

I think the other providers noteworthy enough to have Wikipedia articles should be included here: for example, FastMail, mail.com, and Hushmail. Wmahan. 16:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Since no one has objected after a month, I have restored the links. If anyone knows of other providers with Wikipedia articles, I think it would be a good idea to add those too. Wmahan. 16:10, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, go for it! It should be open to almost anything besides really unknown ones. The ones you mentioned are okay. 70.111.224.252 15:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

posted by JCDenton: Why not add example E-Mail? Example: Yahoo: name@yahoo.com , name@yahoo.de , ...

Would be very nice — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.189.10.82 (talk • contribs) 15:43, 7 February 2007

Yahoo Mail Beta

The yahoo mail beta information should be added to the comparison. It is easily attainable now. 70.111.224.252 15:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Security Issues

Things like secure sign-on or ability to send secure e-mails should be included as comparison criteria. --MatthewKarlsen

I think so, too. Have you noticed, that Hotmail's SSL certificate isn't valid and also outdated? -- mms 12:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hotmail's login system is SSL, but unfortunately the displayed and sent email is not. Once you log on the SSL certificate no longer applies. Some other webmail systems don't have this limitation. I would like to see this data included in the chart. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.11.239.226 (talk) 05:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

"forwarding"

in the bottom table, one of the categories is "forwarding". does this mean the ability to forward a message to another address? yahoo mail beta is indicated as needing a plus account, but I forwarded a message with a free account. --Philo 22:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

How?

Any web mail provider will let you manually forward individual emails to another address. The table column refers to the ability to automatically forward all (or possibly subsets of all) emails automatically. The column header could be changed to e.g. "Automatic forwarding". --58.96.71.120 01:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

http://thinkpost.net/

http://thinkpost.net/ isnt offering free email anymore. (it says clearly on the front page of their site if you just visit it). anyone want to update the chart?

--Hno3 02:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I updated it --David 15:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

nerim.fr and free.fr

Webmail of nerim.fr and free.fr does not appear in the list! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.41.137.29 (talk) 17:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

+ UTF-8

This page does not explain which webmail is UTF8 compatible, and which is not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.41.137.29 (talk) 17:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

Gmail, Live Mail, and Yahoo! Mail (Beta) support Unicode. A-giau 17:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yahoo! Mail access Mistake

There is a mistake for Yahoo! Mail; free members can check their e-mail with other clients. Yahoo! users can see this by going to Settings > POP Access and Forwarding > Web & POP Access. Can anyone change the square to green?Digitalapocalypse 16:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait, I'm confused - [1] source says that POP In for Yahoo! Mail is free, but POP Out is for Plus users. Can anyone clear all this up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Digitalapocalypse (talk • contribs) 23:12, 2 April 2007

Access through your desktop client is free in some countries while paid in others. Whereas fetching other POP3 mails in your Yahoo account is free for all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.250.247.200 (talk • contribs) 08:54, 11 July 2007

MSN Hotmail

Shouldn't the section on MSN Hotmail be deleted now that it is officially replaced by Windows Live Hotmail? Stephenchou0722 02:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The dates for hotmail going live on this page and the hotmail page are different I assume that only one can be correct? Lawbringer (talk) 15:40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

(Assuming this part talks about Windows Live Hotmail as well as the MSN one) Hotmail DOES NOT offer POP3 to all users. Only paid ones. Proof: Click [2], search for "POP3" (without quotation marks) and click on "How do I add my e-mail account to Microsoft Outlook Express?". In the first paragraph it says "If you have a Windows Live Hotmail Plus subscription, you can use a POP3 server" - Zimbico (talk) 07:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Providers with unlimited capacity

Two e-mail providers (Rediffmail and AOL Mail (India)) provide unlimited storage space, but do not find mention in the table. Is there a reason for exclusion? Also, can anyone tell if it is possible to find out the first public release date of these services without contacting them directly. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Gmail and in-mail ads

I think that Gmail has only ads in user interface. If someone can verify it, please fix it... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.139.74.159 (talk • contribs) 13:36, 14 June 2007

not unlimited

No email service, free or otherwise, offers unlimited storage. Unlimited storage is impossible. It does not exist. The term is a blatant marketing scam. A fantasy, to cover up TOS fine print, throttling, and other flim-flam. The term should never be used in WP articles about email services, except in quotes, in a marketing context. And it cannot be assumed that someone offering "unlimited" storage is actually offering more storage than someone else who actually states what the limits and rules are. (If you doubt this, please store 1000GB in your "unlimited" email account, for starters, and report back to us on your success.) -69.87.204.122 01:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

retention period

The tables should list how often you have to check your free email to keep it from getting deleted. Hotmail/MSN deletes all your email very quickly. It actually matters more than the amount of space that is offered -- who cares how much space you get, when ten years of email are erased at the drop of a hat, with no way to get them back, even though they only took up 10MB! -69.87.204.122 01:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Inbox.com

should be listed for inclusion —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atomic1fire (talk • contribs) 22:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

"Client E-mail for other server" column

"Client E-mail for other server" should be separeted by sending and receiving features, because gmail supports only the sending feature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.40.10.179 (talk • contribs) 00:16, 30 December 2007

Two sets of notes

There are two sets of notes, and therefore the links for the second set lead to the first set, which they aren't supposed to do. How can this be fixed? 170.140.183.4 (talk) 17:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Subscribers

As an encyclopedia article (as opposed to a product review site), it may be useful to add more information such as how many subscribers each site has. Has anyone got this data? 87.113.102.136 (talk) 00:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Interface script technique

It would be nice to arrange this information so that one could readily find out which services are accessible using a system with particular abilities. (e.g. which ones work with just plain HTML, no java/ajax/etc. e.g. for access by an older browser or over slow connection.) As it is it is unclear which technique is actually required to use the service (vs. ones that are optional and it will use them if available.) Does the listing of HTML in an item mean that an HTML only interface is available? Does the listing mean that all of these are required to use the service? It isn't clear.

Some designation of what the minimum scripting requirements are, and a way to sort on that (showing least demanding first, e.g.) would be helpful. Zodon (talk) 19:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Please state the policy!

I'd like to add some well known free email providers in Poland, (i.e. poczta.onet.pl - the email service of largest online portal in Poland, or poczta.gazeta.pl) but I don't want to see my work "reverted". This is not clear for me what are the rules of adding new descriotions here. Please lighten it up, or citate the Wikipedia rules.

Rafal Stanilewicz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.171.116.99 (talk) 19:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Excite Mail

Excite Mail is a webmail provider not listed here. Information about it can be found at http://www.excite.com. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 21:40, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Indiatimes

Why was indiatimes.com's email service removed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.72.25.210 (talk) 21:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Client compatibility

There needs to be another table illustrating which clients each is compatible with. Yahoo! is only compatible with Zimbra, Hotmail is incompatible with Outlook but works with Windows Live Mail client, Gmail is incompatible with Windows Live Mail client, etc. Unfortunately, that's all I can contribute to that table, though. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 15:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Missing from the list

Just want to mention that Zoho Mail seems to be missing from this otherwise quite helpful comparison. --95.34.19.89 (talk) 19:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. PersistentLurker (talk) 17:09, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone know if myrealbox.com is still functional at all? Ever since the takeover I've not been able to log in. If it is, it should also be included ih the list. 71.0.202.205 (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


Anyone know figures/details for @ibibo.com - thought might be worth adding as seems popular. Cool wiki article otherwise, helped me find some useful sites :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.36.31 (talk • contribs) 12:40, 26 September 2009

GMX browsers

GMX now works in google chrome and continually crashes in IE8 (even if it is in compatability mode)90.210.24.124 (talk) 14:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

o2 webmail

i have added into the table when an o2 webmail account is deleted. i got this information by emailing them so it is accurate. 82.3.127.54 (talk) 19:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

General Information overcrowded

Hi. I am the original creator of this article. Good job guys. The last 3 columns in 'General Information' are actually features though, they should be moved down to that section. --Cumbiagermen (talk) 18:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Services Size

Is there a way to check how many users are registered with each service? I think it is a very good base for comparison which is missing here, and may even surprise us that the most "famous" services we know of are not amongst the largets as I am sure some Chinese/Indian services should be substantial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.126.3.210 (talk) 07:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

#fon_12_back target link/id missing, therefore obsolete?

Here's the blob of current 08 jan 2010 html that points to missing target: <p><cite id="fon_12"><a href="#fon_12_back">Note 12:</a></cite> Free of charge, but web-mail only.</p> i took a look at html source of old 19:34, 7 July 2008, and it is very different, suggesting that wikiware generates targets . Unfortunately, I don't know the ware enough to trust i'd edit the current problem correctly. --2z2z (talk) 21:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

Comment moved from the article: --Cybercobra (talk) 17:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see comparisons of limits on daily messages sent, and number of people sent to. This is useful for small businesses as well as volunteer organizations as experience with Windows Live shows we cannot reach all users with single lists, and single messages. Multiple of both are needed. Is this the case with others as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.88.212.32 (talk • contribs)

It would also be helpful if there was a column to indicate whether the email service provider transmits or blocks the sender's ip address in outgoing emails. Identity Theft victims look for this in an email service provider. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ujnedc (talk • contribs) 19:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

SSL/TLS

For me the single most important question about a web mail server is whether it supports secure http throughout the session, encrypting not only login but mail transfer. Gmail does; they've recently even made it the default. Hotmail does not seem to. Others, I dunno.

I'm in China, so my concern is blocking snooping by the Great Firewall, but there are lots of other situations where this could be important. In fact I find it hard to think of a situation where it isn't, unless perhaps everything you send or receive is already PGP-encrypted anyway.

Could we please have a column for that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.111.37.183 (talk) 11:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

TLS support has been added to the IMAP/POP3 support column. There should be another column to indicate whether the server supports STARTTLS (SMTP with TLS) for incoming and outgoing mail. Currently Gmail does, Yahoo! and Hotmail don't. Dunno about any other providers. Probably most don't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.198.151 (talk) 21:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

EarthLink Webmail

I don't have the necessary info to be able to add an entry for Earthlink, but it might be a pertinent inclusion since they're one of the top ISPs. AncientBrit (talk) 03:00, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

czech webmail

mail.centrum.cz mail.volny.cz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.146.55.207 (talk) 01:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Account security features

Maybe a worthwhile addition, even in a spun-off table, along with link-level encryption support, password reset options, pre-registration checks, etc. Example of media coverage:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20017798-245.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Problem is, researching this kind of data for all providers in the main table looks like a nightmare. Volunteers? (Count me in, of course.) ElPeste (talk) 11:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Language tab

The langauge tab on this article contains links to foreign language articles on other topics. The French one is about the Freenet#Freemail plugin, and the Dutch one is about a defunct Dutch provider of the same name. The Hungarian article is about a Hungarian provider that apparently offers free email service that we may be able to add to this list, but to link it as equivalent is misleading. The Italian article is a true counterpart to this one, while the German one is limited in scope to German operators. We should clean up those language links and look for more. 213.29.115.6 (talk) 10:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

vmail.me

Who the hell are they? Apart from being young on the net, they seem to offer best conditions, ie long inactivity period, pop3/imap etc. 109.165.91.91 (talk) 07:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Their service seems to be rather unstable. Sent two mails from gmail to vmail and neither arrived. I did receive other email, though. The English translation is off (ToS is only available in French) and there doesn't seem to be any customer support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.142.170.94 (talk) 15:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Hey thanks for response. They seem to be just private company with questionable privacy or service availability.87.79.84.24 (talk) 12:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Support does exist, but wasn't helpful at all - pop/smtp doesn't work (server connection failed, socket error: 10013, error number: 0x800CCC0E), so, unless you use the web page, it's useless. 89.153.150.71 (talk) 18:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Currently not working at all. It seems that they should be removed from the scope in order to not confuse users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.88.211.34 (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Recyclability of the deleted/expired account

For privacy/security reasons, I think it's better to add the column like the title above in "General information" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.167.114.12 (talk) 02:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Do they read your mail?

To me the most important 'feature' is .., do they NOT read my and my correspondents email! Is there any free or non-free provider that does not? outlook.com seems to claim not to ... but who can believe microsoft. I'd be interested in trying to develop that information but ... since wikipedia is essentially run by bands of vandals ... I'm not interested in wasting my time just to be vandalized. Jfmxl (talk) 07:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

QQMail

<a href="http://mail.qq.com">QQMail</a> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.242.149.65 (talk) 19:54, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Disorganized Tables

There are four tables with unrelated contents. Languages should be 2-letter ISO codes. Missing several established Exchange ActiveSync providers. Tables should be organized:

  1. webmail features, browser requirements, languages
  2. pricing and limitations, site URL
  3. misc: POP3/SMTP/IMAP/EAS/SSL, attachments, authentication

207.216.217.237 (talk) 02:01, 29 May 2013 (UTC) EricG

webmail.alternativefuse.com Offline !?

For about one month now the webmail seems to be offline.

As of today, http://webmail.alternativefuse.com/ only shows you this:

Index of /
Apache/2.2.24 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.24 OpenSSL/1.0.0-fips mod_bwlimited/1.4 Server at webmail.alternativefuse.com Port 80

Hippo99 (talk) 18:35, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Posteo.de

I will add posteo.de later. They're a german-language security and ethics-focused German language providers. There are others that could be added too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.28.21.4 (talk) 11:26, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Please don't add providers without existing Wikipedia articles to the table. All entries should be for notable webmail providers/products, according to Wikipedia's definition of notability for websites and/or for companies, and the best way to ensure that is to have an article about the product first. Thanks, --bonadea contributions talk 11:56, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Does this include UKInbox? It doesn't have its own Wikipedia page, but it's from SquirrelMail, which does. http://squirrelmail.org/about/history.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SquirrelMail#cite_note-history-1 http://www.freestuffjunction.co.uk/ukinbox-login.html

Additional information

Wouldn't it be useful to add a column showing number of registered users? 175.156.115.92 (talk) 00:17, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Webmail Provider Terra is failing

http://correo.terra.com/ It is the Webmail of Telefónica

--77.47.30.210 (talk) 20:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

New columns "Verification" and "https"

Considering the latest NSA spats, I suggest we add two new columns:

  • "verification" that says whether the site enforces some verification (like through SMS or a phone call), which will link your account back to you, or does not require such a verification (which allows people to stay truly anonymous)
  • https which states whether the site allows access through https, which helps in this regard as well.

Comments? Quanted (talk) 18:13, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

New Columns

Would be useful if there were new Columns for:

  • EAS (Exchange ActiveSync) support
This is a critical requirement for most mobile users in order to receive critical messages and turn-around responses in a timely manor.
  • IMAP Push support
This is a valid alternative for EAS.
  • country of business registration
This is also a critical data point for certain users if there is a concern over security of businesses within the country, or if the government is overreaching wiretapping and content harvesting with or without a recognized court order or awarded search warrant.
  • countries where data centers are housed
This is analogous to the previous requirements for the same reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.74.13 (talk) 16:18, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Supported Browsers of Gmail

Google says Gmail only supports IE, Firefox, Chrome, & Safari. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6557 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.127.85.131 (talk) 09:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

They also only support IE 8 and above, and I believe that's being sunset for minimum support of IE 9. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.74.13 (talk) 16:22, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Hungarian webmail

freemail.hu - owned by T-Pont — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.74.13 (talk) 16:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Inbox.Com

  • I noticed the list doesn't include INBOX.COM . Would this be an acceptable addition?
This is the link: http://www.inbox.com/products/storage.aspx
Imperator Romanii 09:07, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Gratis?

I know Gratis refers to "free of charge", but why we have to use an ancient English terms? Shouldn't we change it to "Free", or because Free is linked to disambiguation page and not specific meaning of "gratis"? --G(x) (talk) 06:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Like you noticed, free is ambiguous unlike gratis. Palosirkka (talk) 09:44, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

MailPriva.com

I would like to suggest adding mailpriva.com to the list of webmail providers. We provide a secure and private email service for both private and commercial use: https://mailpriva.com/about. MailPriva (talk) 07:29, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@MailPriva: you may notice all of the webmail providers on this list already have Wikipedia articles about themselves (e.g. FastMail and Gmail). This is commonly (not always, but usually) a requirement to be listed. There's an essay, WP:WTAF, which explains this in more detail. I would encourage you to create an article about MailPriva if you feel it meets Wikipedia notability criteria, and then list it here (although I would also recommend checking out Wikipedia's policy on conflict of interest editing given your username. --— Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:58, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Webmail? How bout email?

It's not like there's no email clients. I would think most people are interested in email, not webmail. Or course we could have a separate article or then just a column for webmail interface. Palosirkka (talk) 09:46, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

@Palosirkka: - And in fact there is one! :) See Comparison of email clients. --— Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:54, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites: - Thanks but I mean email service providers, not client software. I guess my original wording could have been clearer. Palosirkka (talk) 18:34, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Colors in digital rights section

For some reason for Gmail "Yes" in "HTTP tracking cookies", "Personalized ads", "Information sharing" and "Browser/platform tracking" columns are colored as green (like "good"). I disagree with it. Tracking can't be good from the privacy stand point. -- LockerX (talk) 08:53, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

In tables like that, it's standard to use Template:Yes and Template:No which automatically color the cells green/red. I noticed that Bitmessage flipped some of them, but not consistently. Operating under the assumption that in a digital rights section the columns under "verified privacy and legal defense" should be green if yes and red if no, while the columns starting with Internet censorship should be green if no and red if yes. I've made the changes to bitmessage and gmail to this effect, but didn't change "possible" as it uses a different template and while I don't think it would hurt anything to just use the No template with the text "possible" I'll hold off for now to see if there's an objection. --— Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:18, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

POP outdated, remove?

On POP: "Virtually all modern e-mail clients and servers support POP3", then I notice, say iCloud, doesn't have it. POP came before IMAP, but IMAP should be listed first (only?), as alphabetical. I hesitate to switch columns, twice the work of just dropping.. While there are some holdouts, haveing a no in some column here implies that it is bad when it really isn't.. comp.arch (talk) 14:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

rediff mail has now 112 bit encryption

Kindly update it. 182.64.86.162 (talk) 11:36, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Deletion comment

I found this list very useful -- with nothing like it available -- in Jan 2016. I hope it is not deleted. 73.222.208.252 (talk) 23:24, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

This comment was below the AfD notice at the top of the page. Rest assured, that discussion was from 2011. It is not currently the subject of a deletion discussion. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:00, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

What about Workspace Webmail from Godaddy?

Godaddy has a service called "Workspace Webmail". IIRC, you get a 1GB account free with purchase of a domain name from Godaddy or one of its resellers (it will be accountname@whatever-domain-it-was-you-bought.com), with the possibility of more storage and/or multiple accounts if you buy an expensive web hosting plan. I am currently using this as my primary email, so I'm surprised that it's not listed. It's also not mentioned anywhere on the GoDaddy article, which is very strange because that's definitely a service that they offer. 2600:1015:B10C:3485:AC1B:D834:F03E:4D8B (talk) 18:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

relogmail.com does not work

I set up account with relogmail on 1/2/16. I received a welcome email, but no other email to it shows up or even bounces. Also, it cannot send emails out. Every time I send one, it gives a "SMTP error, could not authenticate" message. There is no help or support available except to email administrator@relogmail.com. I have emailed the administrator 3 different times, the last time just to ask how to delete the account, and I have not received a reply. I think relogmail should either be deleted from the list or have a disclaimer that it doesn't actually work at this time. 73.222.208.252 (talk) 23:28, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi there. I've removed Relogmail, but not because of technical issues or quality. Criteria for many lists on Wikipedia is that the example have a Wikipedia article (which requires a demonstration of notability). Relogmail didn't have that. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:57, 10 January 2016 (UTC)-

Update-

I'm am the CEO of RelogMail. We had a technical issue recently, but we had our team fix it up before it did any real damage. I would really appreciate it if you would add RelogMail back, we are non-profit, just looking to make the world a better place. RelogMail is currently one of the biggest email providers in Egypt, Syria, Afganistan, and Libya. As we have a strict anonymity policy for our users! Thank! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.167.15.172 (talk) 21:07, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Digital rights section sources

The Digital rights section is sorely lacking citations. Hardly any of the yes/no assertions are sourced. Anyone familiar with the various services should try and find relevant citations and add them. ♣ Ameliorate! 14:17, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Privacy column? ...and... Why doesn't the USPS offer e-mail and e-mail boxes?

Could you add a privacy column? THAT would be appreciated. Trying to find a provider that does not claim use rights over your data. In 2013 Yahoo called it "scanning and analyzing" and you had to click a button that said you agreed they could do it or they would not let you access your e-mail anymore, even your old e-mail from before that policy change, so users lost years of valuable e-mail. How is that even legal? Google told a court that gmail users have "no reasonable expectation of privacy." I assume some of these other companies at least are trying to serve the market for private mail, but who are they and what does that mean, in terms of government collecting and corporate big data uses? Could you please offer a privacy column and please make distinctions clear and easy to understand?

Plus, who's not on this list? The USPS. Why doesn't the USPS offer e-mail and e-mail boxes? Now, THERE your privacy rights would be clear: The Fourth Amendment. I think this is worth noting as part of public awareness--what is there and what isn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.193.227.199 (talk) 19:50, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Creation account Gmail

To do justice. Gmail asks for the mobile number to create the account. But you have the option to leave the field blank (the alternate email field can also be left blank!). I created an email this way yesterday. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WolneyJr (talk • contribs) 12:52, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Americocentrism

The selection is extremely americocentric and tailored to the knowledge level of the average U.S. American. The lists would look rather different from a British, Irish, South African, Australian, New Zealander and even Canadian point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:8C:4C4E:F700:C493:E51D:14:63 (talk) 13:38, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 external links on Comparison of webmail providers. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:05, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

gmail JS reversion

User:Flyer22_Reborn reverted my edit that changed gmail's javascript description to be more accurate, and referenced Good Faith in the revert comment. Not entirely clear on why this was reverted since not having javascript and not requiring javascript is an important distinction to many, not to mention more accurate in the case of gmail. Perhaps it was a lack of citation, but none of the other JS listings are cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.8.12.241 (talk) 04:13, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

mail.com seems to be closing down

Their web page says "Signup is not possible / Neuregistrierung ist nicht möglich"

I suggest we remove them from this list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wefa (talk • contribs) 03:52, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Telephone number

The information that telephone number isn't required for registration on Mail.ru seems fake to me. I tried to register there today, and although it lets me click on "I don't have a telephone number", when I click "register" it says "insert a telephone number" in red, and does not allows me to create my account. Maybe this exception is only valid for people registering from Russia, or something like that? Anyways, I removed this info from the comparison, because it's incorrect.--MisterSanderson (talk) 00:18, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Chinese providers

It seems to me a fast growing percentage of emails comes from Chinese providers such as 126.com. Could these please be covered in wikipedia? Who owns them? What are their characteristics? Anything known about state surveillance? Omikroergosum (talk) 21:03, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Calendar support?

What I would love to see is a section on calendar support. GMail has a calendar, as does Kolab and Roundcube, as well as Outlook. I cannot find such a comparison here in the Wikipedia. Have I overlooked it?

I'll come right out and say it: what I want is some method of viewing my work calendar, which is Outlook-based, on "anything not Microsoft". I am struggling to make it work somewhat against GMail (where the rest of my family's calendars already are), and have tried Thunderbird, Evolution, and various others. A long time ago, I even used various syncer apps which ran on Windows; nowadays I no longer have access to a Windows machine (and I simply refuse to run a virtual machine for the sole purpose of reading email and/or syncing my calendar to something that actually works). JanGB (talk) 20:05, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft now offers Exchange as an option. They do not advertise it well at all https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/compare-microsoft-exchange-online-plans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.94.169.82 (talk) 16:39, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Mobile phone requirement for protonmail

ProtonMail allows you to skip the mobile phone requirement by making a donation (of any amount) or signing up for a premium account. I'm not sure if this counts as mobile phone not required, is there a consensus on this? It seems disingenuous to just have "mobile phone required", there should at least be an explanation, in my opinion. 166.216.158.50 (talk) 23:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

StartMail should be included in this comparison?

Hi, I think one service provider should be added: https://www.startmail.com/en/ – This is a mail service you can trial and buy from StartPage Web Search page. You'll find StartPage on an article about Ixquick (which maybe should be merged with a new article about StartPage. --El Rayno (talk) 09:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Page Cleanup

  • When cleaning up POP3, IMAP columns in "General info" table, changed style="background:#FFC7C7;vertical-align:middle;text-align:center;" class="table-no"|-- to ? since it is not sure exactly what "--" is supposed to mean. In any case, the table needs considerable updating (some claim just free, when offer both free and paid, etc).
  • Maybe the features (POP3, IMAP, SMTP, SSL) in the "General info" table should be merged into the "Features" table.
  • The "Supported Languages" tables seems redundant as the "General info" has a column for language support. Maybe merge into to the "General info" table?

Devon (talk) 02:19, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

This data seems very out of date. It's 2017, I'm pretty sure every provider still in existence now supports TLS, not just SSL. Might as well remove this column entirely or perhaps specify TLS v1.1 v1.2 etc. Still, this is almost like showing which providers support HTML. TLS 1.2 is pretty much everywhere now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebyrob (talk • contribs) 13:54, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Some (all that I've checked) of the providers for which "SSL" or "SSL, TLS" are listed only support TLS; I think "SSL" support is still announced on their websites as a more recognizable term. Another issue is that it's not clear which protocols it is about: for instance, Tutanota, which doesn't support any of the listed ones, is still said to support "SSL" (probably HTTPS).

It may be more compact to replace the individual protocol columns with a single "interfaces" column, possibly reflecting the presence of web interfaces as well, and removing the cryptographic protocol support column: anything noteworthy about those can also be included into "interfaces". Defanor (talk) 05:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Verification section

I couldn't understand how to edit the information in the 'verification' table, so maybe a more adept editor can update the information: Both mail.com and gmx.com (and I'll guess gmx.net) require sms (default) OR email verification, saying that it's for password recovery, which is a benefit to the user and therefore does not have to be compulsory unless there's also an unstated purpose of verification. Not that any user gets secure privacy signing up for email on a web page unless they are (unlike me) hiding their IP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.166.16.4 (talk) 10:17, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Yandex Mail SMS Verification

The article claims that Yandex Mail always requests a phone number for a falsely claimed need of identity confirmation. I have had a free Email account with them for almost three years now, and have not provided my phone number or remember being prompted to do so (some automated messages have been received in Russian, which I may not have read). They have sent a genuine message advising me of a log-in from an unusual IP address, but it didn't demand any ID confirmation. I think the claim should be removed or at least watered down to reflect that it is just a possibility rather than a certainty, and the corresponding box in the table changed to "optional".

Yandex Mail does also provide the option of "secondary Email verification". 1.152.110.97 (talk) 06:55, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I thought that story very suspect, so I'm glad to see your correction, though I think it would have been better if you deleted the misleading claim. (I won't as I don't have the knowledge that you have.)
Many sites that I use nag me to set up 2 factor authorisation, and I usually don't because I believe that contrary to the claims it undermines security (in some circumstances). It is possible that the author of that unlikely story mistook a message from Yandex that was simply encouraging the use of a phone number for 'security', not requiring it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.166.16.4 (talk) 10:27, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Erroneous entry for Yandex delivery confirmation, mistakenly identified as 'Email tracking'

There is a column, in the Other table, checked as 'Yes' for Yandex, labeled (by hover-help box) as:

Email tracking is a method for monitoring the delivery of email messages to the intended recipient. Most tracking technologies use some form of digitally time-stamped record to reveal the exact time and date that an email was received or opened, as well the IP address of the recipient.

But this is incorrect and describes something entirely different, that Yandex does not do. As well, the linked reference in the 'hover-help' box is off-topic.

For Yandex, to be a 'Yes' the first sentence would have to read as follows: Email receipt confirmation is a method for monitoring the delivery of email messages to the intended server. 

I would suggest that, to be correct, either another column would have to be added to the chart, or this existing column would have to be relabeled and the explanation for Yandex corrected.

I have been using Yandex for a while and can guarantee that when the user, on the 'Compose Message' page, 'Checks' the box labeled Notify Me, there is definitely no notification of when the recipient receives, opens or reads the message.

What it does do is to create a message in the Yandex inbox that the email address does exist, and that the recipient's server has accepted the email. If the Yandex user so desires, a 'chime' is generated on the sender's system, providing audible verification that the recipient's server has responded -- by accepting the message.

I was attempting to find out if any other webmail services had the same feature, but in that Yandex' feature is incorrectly identified, I gave up trying to obtain this information from further reading of the chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PerioMadeira (talk • contribs) 16:03, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Birth date questions

Many e-mail service providers ask for birth dates of new users. Are there any e-mail service providers that do not ask for birth dates of new users? Why do e-mail service providers ask for birth dates of new users? —Jencie Nasino (talk) 06:15, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Jencie Nasino, are you aware that you can simply provide a fake birth date, if that annoys you?--MisterSanderson (talk) 13:15, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Mailbox.org

Just a note that Mailbox.org was removed but will probably need to be added later when de:mailbox.org is translated here, as it's a rather large provider. Nemo 15:01, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Contestable assumptions in table colouring

For present purposes, this comment assumes that 'red' is connoted with 'bad' and 'green' is 'good'.

The tables make contestable assumptions about certain things being bad. For example, 'requires javascript' is red for yes. Why the assumption this is bad? The modern web depends on Javascript. Also, Javascript can be used for zero knowledge web services, webmail services without Javascript cannot be zero knowledge. Another example is 'personalised ads'. Why is this bad? Who is making these assumptions?

Also, for the 'account expiration' column in the main table, Tutanota is green for 6 months expiry, Outlook.com is red for 270 days. Makes no sense.

Whoever loads these up with contestable assumptions needs to read WP:NPOV

61.245.139.33 (talk) 13:46, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I've added a source for that. Such feature tables usually attempt to track "additional" feature or characteristics which go beyond the obvious. Because software is proprietary by default, providing or requiring only free software is an additional feature. Sources are generally required both to show the significance of the feature and its presence for a given product. Nemo 15:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Gmail smtp

The information that gmail provides smtp appears to be faulty, as attempts to send email from an email client generate a demand to allow cookies in "your browser".

Perhaps malware from predators like google and M$ has cookie handling included, so that 'smtp' works in these spyware 'email clients'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.166.16.4 (talk) 11:42, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

You are right. SMTP is becoming increasingly unusable with Gmail since 2014. Fixed. Nemo 15:11, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: additional criteria

The list is getting out of order. I tried[3] to ensure that at least web hosting providers are kept out of the list. Now I'd like to propose that the comparison is restricted to companies that offer webmail out of the box – essentially, I assume this is what readers are most likely to be looking for when searching the Wikipedia for "webmail provider". This will effectively exclude email hosting services – companies that offer advanced email solutions in the customer's own internet domain, like Rackspace, G Suite, Office365 and thousands of web hosting providers.

Please share your views. Thanks — kashmīrī TALK 18:00, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a manual. Webmail providers need to be listed by their notability according to sources and "out of the box" is not a criterion. Excluding the largest providers just because they don't fit some arbitrary criterion would defeat the purpose of having the article in the first place.
Some of the providers currently in the list don't have any source for their notability as webmail providers and I agree that's a problem. Some will need to be removed while for others it's relatively easy to find sources, we can do it gradually. What doesn't help anyone is to have a slow edit war of removal and additions. Nemo 20:39, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, there is no requirement to have only notable entries on the list - it's fine to include items that do not have independent notability. See WP:LSC. However, we must agree to draw the line somewhere so as not to have those thousands of hosting providers who offer hosted email with a webmail interface in own domain (via Roundcube) to anyone who buys web hosting from them. To come with criteria is our role here, and I argue that being a "proper" email provider (and not a webhost) is a perfectly valid criteria.
No idea what you mean by "not a manual". Did I propose anywhere to write a guidebook or offer advice? — kashmīrī TALK 20:50, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I think it would be reasonable to limit this list to products where email is the primary offering, and not an incidental extra. That is, exclude ISPs, web hosts and so on unless they have a separate webmail offering as well. - MrOllie (talk) 20:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
When you write that users may be looking for a solution that works "out of the box" it sounds awfully like a manual.
Yes, we need to draw the line somewhere and the best line is notability. There's no point listing providers on whose webmail services the sources have nothing to say. I'm the first to admit I just added a couple which might be dubious (OVH and Gandi?): I think we can find sources for these, but I may have been wrong. There are several others for which the article currently contains no source and whose linked article has no source either. For instance Lycos, Rediffmail, Excite and Zoho do not seem to have a single third-party source on any of the respective statements, so it's hard to tell why they're included; Yandex has a single dubious source and nothing is said on the linked article. For some of these it's not too hard to find sources, for others I'm having a hard time.
By the way, mail services are not offered "via Roundcube"; Roundcube is just one possible component. It's a useful feature to note because users can be used to it. We might also want to note whether any notable provider uses Zimbra; sources sometimes discuss that. Nemo 21:02, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Contrary: what you propose explicitly defies WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Given that nearly any modern web server can be configured to host email, I think we must draw a line somewhere. For instance, I hope nobody here will argue that Digital Ocean or Google Cloud should be included as webmail providers, even though email servers can certainly be set up on these hosting providers by skilled IT professionals.[4][5]. More: even some consumer-level devices, like Synology NAS, can be configured to run an email server complete with webmail access.[6] Similarly, most if not all of the thousands web hosting providers offer tools to enable email service on their servers, provided an IT professional properly configures the domain and the server.
For this reason, I have proposed to restrict the scope of this article to "pure" webmail providers: those where the potential user is not required to hire an IT professional in order to enable email service – but is able to send and receive email after a simple sign up (much like it is the case with Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, GMX, AOL, Lycos and some others). I have no idea why anyone sane would see any "manual" in having such criteria. — kashmīrī TALK 13:06, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Unnecessary Font Size Shrinkage

Hi Kashmiri, yes, font size shrinkage is allowed on oversized tables, however 1. these tables fit without scaling on a standard 14" laptop display, and 2. font size changes are to be avoided and the recommended remedy for oversized tables is to split the table (font size shrinkage is a last resort). If you are using a particularly small device, please zoom out rather than shrinking the page's main text for everyone. 198.52.130.137 (talk) 00:19, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Also, could you clarify how this table requires font size shrinkage? Even on my 10" tablet it has spacious padding... 198.52.130.137 (talk) 00:19, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

the recommended remedy for oversized tables is to split the table Can you point me to such a guideline? I'm also not seeing anything about shrinkage being "the last resort". Please note that shrinkage is not recommended with regard to prose - in tables, infoboxes, captions, etc., a smaller font is perfectly acceptable. — kashmīrī TALK 09:13, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Considering that the tables are the main content of this article, using a small font tends to be annoying. Kashmiri, what issue were you trying to solve and is there any alternative solution you can think of? Nemo 08:10, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Avoiding the unnecessary horizontal and vertical scroll on smaller screens, and increasing the amount of information visible at a time without significantly impairing legibility. This is a comparison article, the reader must be able to compare the items and not simply see half a row at a time. — kashmīrī TALK 11:56, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
That's a good point, but I wonder if there are better methods to achieve this goal. Which rows do you currently see problems with? Maybe they could be trimmed. Nemo 14:07, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Web interface in English

The lead section currently requires that the list is limited to providers who offer web interface in English. Which in my view is a valid point, because (1) this is en-wiki, and (2) in a lot of countries there exist email providers who only offer local interface and this is certainly not an article to list them all, duplicating sites like this one.

Consequently, today I removed[7] a handful of email providers who have no offer for an English-speaking user and those who only cater for their existing customers (like Orange France offering email only to their broadband customers). This was reverted by Nemo Bis [8] with a somewhat vague explanation that Wikipedia is an international project. Well, sure it is, but this does not mean we have to stick everything in here, and it is perfectly normal that articles have specific criteria in order to keep them manageable and focused. Thank you to share your thoughts. — kashmīrī TALK 17:52, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. I think that criterion should be removed, unless it's made to be workable in a way consistent with the five pillars.
It's not clear what sources you used to determine that those services do not have an English-language interface. OVH most definitely offers an interface in English, for instance. Although this is trivial to verify (OVH uses Roundcube), I would have to resort to original research, which is in my opinion inappropriate. It's rare for third party sources to focus on such details when they are obvious, so it's unclear how such information could be supported by reliable sources.
I agree that the inclusion criteria for this comparison are difficult to determine, but the volume of traffic as measured by Google (or other big mail relays for which any report can be found) seems a rather solid source to me, and a few rows you removed included such a source. I suggest to focus on removing unsourced information (or, even better, finding good sources where it's easy to do so). Nemo 18:16, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
@Nemo bis: OVH is no more an email provider than any single web hosting company from this, this or this list. All or almost all of them offer some sort of email hosting with a webmail interface. What's worse: these lists only include providers who offer English interface; if other languages are considered, then our article will grow by thousand more entries.
Google's volume of traffic is a poor proxy of notability (see WP:GNUM). For Wikipedia, we must define and apply criteria that reflect the subject's notability and relevance. My instant proposal is to list only providers who (1) offer English interface, and (2) where email hosting is an important part of the offer; not just one of many features that the hosting customer can activate on the web server if they so fancy. This way we are likely to limit this list article to 20–30 entries, which will then indeed have an informational value for the reader. — kashmīrī TALK 20:43, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Conversation threading

I added Conversation threading. For many people, it is a central feature. I also removed the three seperate claims (three different services!) claiming that only they provide threaded conversations. Brinerustle (talk) 07:30, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Gandi

I don't think Gandi should be in this list. Email services at Gandi are limited to those who have a (paid) account for domain name registration and/or web hosting. Many web hosting providers include email, so that should not qualify for this list. -- HLachman (talk) 06:40, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Not sure Proton Mail supports IMAP/SMTP

Based on the citation ( https://proton.me/mail/bridge ) for Proton Mail supporting SMTP and IMAP, it actually supports a program that is downloaded to the computer, and that bridges to IMAP/SMTP. (Source code seems to be here: https://github.com/ProtonMail/proton-bridge ) I am not sure this actually counts as IMAP/SMTP support. I think it should be "Paid and requires separate bridge program" Jrincayc (talk) 13:05, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

SSL/TLS

Why is SSL and TLS seperated nobody uses SSL anymore, the column could denote the used max TLS version. But in this State it is weird. --Jannes Althoff (talk) 06:38, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Missing

I noticed that Roundcube, SquirrelMail, Mailpile and Internet Messaging Program are missing from this list. Catfurball (talk) 19:35, 12 May 2021 (UTC) Also Android | iOS App. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.83.225.20 (talk) 21:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

FastMail don't need "SMS verification" and "Secondary email verification" when opening an account.

@MrOllie: I tested. FastMail only need "SMS verification" when creating aliases by "trial user". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 10bu62PpX8kXvox0enKLXo (talk • contribs) 18:43, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Comparison_of_webmail_providers/Archive_1&oldid=1219243077"