Hotmail [Archive] - The PC Guide Discussion Forums

Eutychus

08-22-2002, 10:55 PM

Hotmail!:mad: I have about 212 items that I would like to express in great detail about that once useful and free email, none of it good.

Since you know every point I wish to make, consider it said. :D

It is so nice to have my own domain & email server. No adds. Web-based or my choice of email programs. No nasty surprises... Just plain old-fashioned communication.

jes

08-23-2002, 10:42 AM

My cousin bought a domain name for his parents for Christmas. They have addam@nevraumont.ca , ullyse@nevraumont.ca and gail@nevraumont.ca now. That would make it easy as that is their first and last names.
I would do that but I am moving soon and will probably pick up a different provider because I will be in a different province.

I would like to hear your bad testimonials about Hotmail. I have never found anything wrong with it, myself.

malcore

08-23-2002, 10:53 AM

Spam, spam and spam.
Spam, eggs and spam.
Spam, spam and eggs.
Eggs, spam and spam.

Also, not too long ago, they did a little "restructuring" and forgot to mention to users that their "preferences" were changed. The box for allowing them to share your address was quietly ticked, allowing for some...spam,toast,eggs and spam.
Also , their so-called "junk mail filter" seemed to filter, even on high setting, about 10% of the spam coming in. Limit to number of addresses you can block, etc., etc.

I still say if you want to get in touch with them, talk to Mr. Kaczynski.

jes

08-23-2002, 11:00 AM

So, Eudora has an affective spam filter?

mjc

08-23-2002, 12:40 PM

Jes,

Ever try to make coffee using chicken wire as a coffee filter? (Hotmail's spam filter may have bigger holes than chicken wire...)

Mitch Hatfield

08-23-2002, 01:37 PM

I mentioned my own anti-spam tool earlier in this topic, so I won't plug it again by name.

Suffice it say that it catches over 90% of the spam hurled at my Hotmail account daily and I don't even have the Hotmail junk filters turned on!

BTW, you've asked for it, so read this:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/21/hotmail/print.html

and, more recently, this: www.news.com.com/2100-1023-946430.html -

There's even this Hotmail Protest Page on the web, believe it or not:

www.gondwanaland.com/ml/anti-hotmail.html -

Some bedtime reading for you :D :D

HeadachesAbound

08-23-2002, 02:31 PM

Had several Hotmail accounts back in the good old days before M$ took it over. M$ drug it thru the mud and claimed it was clean. Had the virus filters on the highest levels and still received over 500 messages a day that were spam. Eventually closed the stupid things and got my own domains.

I currently use eudora to retrieve my pop mail at home and so far it has worked quite well for filtering. I plan on moving to a strictly web-based system before too long.

ErnieK

08-23-2002, 03:12 PM

As I have previously said 5 months with Eudora and had NO spam. Only one cookie set when you open up to collect mail and that deletes 90 minutes after you close Eudora down. Compare this with a minimum (I lost count at this point) 23 cookies with Hotmail. Some of them dated to last 35 years. My original hotmail account had to be closed (stopped using) because of the quantity of spam coming into it. About 98% of all mail was junk. As for the filter this was full as well.
Go here and check out Eudora. http://www.eudoramail.com/

I would strongly reccomend it. And believe me there are VERY FEW sites I would reccomend, much less strongly. PC Guide and Eudora are two of the few.

jes

08-23-2002, 03:29 PM

I have gone to that eudoramail.com and signed up (and moved some of my contatct from Hotmail, manuallyK). It is a very different interface, something to get used to. Where is the blocked sender list? Custom filtera? I can't find them in "settings" or "options".

jes

08-23-2002, 04:03 PM

I have tried to update my email from hotmail to eudoramail on ebay and paypal and they send me URLs to forms to verify my email address. When I do that, I get:

Redirector Error
------------------------------------------------------------------------The sender of this hyperlink is not authorized to use this URL. Please forward the original message containing this URL to spam@lycos.com. If you believe you received this error by mistake, please click on the original link again. Error number: 199

I have tried saying OK and trying again. I get the same error message.
This didn't happen when I used Hotmail. Does Eudoramail not support these things? Do I have to continue using Hotmail?

Vic 970

08-23-2002, 04:35 PM

I have 4 hotmail accounts 2 continually full of spam 2 always empty, I have had to re- open them though as I had not accesses for over a month.

I opened an eudoramail account a while ago to see how it went & have since forgotten about it. I just checked it & it is still open, even though my last access was when I opened it 2nd march. & there is only 1 e-mail 'welcome to eudoramail' so it is looking pretty good, I think I will give it some use & get rid of the hotmails.;)

setoguro

08-23-2002, 05:45 PM

I'm sick of Hotmail myself. I'm getting spammed to death thank you very much Hotmail for sharing my 2 e-mail addresses with the world. I'm going to give Eudora a look see. What do you all think of Yahoo?

jes

08-23-2002, 06:04 PM

I have tried to update my email from hotmail to eudoramail on ebay and and they send me URLs to forms to verify my email address. When I do that, I get:

Redirector Error
------------------------------------------------------------------------The sender of this hyperlink is not authorized to use this URL. Please forward the original message containing this URL to spam@lycos.com. If you believe you received this error by mistake, please click on the original link again. Error number: 199

I did this with Paypal too and just copied the URL to my clipboard and pasted it back to my browser. That worked well but I cannot do it with Ebay. I have tried saying OK and trying again. I get the same error message.
This didn't happen when I used Hotmail. Does Eudoramail not support ebay? Do I have to continue using Hotmail?

Paul Komski

08-23-2002, 08:05 PM

Whether you use webmail and/or popmail, I agree wholeheartedly with the suggestion of getting a domain name. This need not be expensive (e.g. you can get .us domain name for $16/year) - but it pays to shop around and look at the various options and associated deals.

There are pros and cons of using a WebHost or a WebHost Manager. I like the latter since it makes it easy to change your ISP, your actual mail accounts and your actual WebHost without having to change the (virtual) eMail and website addresses that your contacts already know about and use.

It also helps control spam, since once an eMail address is on the "mailing lists" it's there to stay. But with a manager you would just change the virtual eMail address to a new one and let your contacts know, without having to shut down the real mail server that you were using.

ErnieK

08-24-2002, 06:38 AM

Jes
I have the same problem with it, but keep forgetting to contact them about it. What I do is copy paste the address into the address bar. Bit of a nusance but a lot better than the other option of Shot mail. Will get of my butt now and contact them about it.

Mitch Hatfield

08-24-2002, 11:50 AM

Hi setoguro

Originally posted by setoguro
I'm sick of Hotmail myself. I'm getting spammed to death thank you very much Hotmail for sharing my 2 e-mail addresses with the world. I'm going to give Eudora a look see. What do you all think of Yahoo?

Yahoo webmail is not bad. It's interface looks old fashioned, but my account definitely attracts little or no spam - not that I've used it a lot so far.

I would have NO hesitation whatsoever in dumping Hotmail (over 50 spams on Friday), if wasn't part so many of my passwords and on so many of my bone fide mailing lists.

It isn't even absolutely straightforward to change your Email address in the PC Guide Forums.

setoguro

08-24-2002, 04:52 PM

Well it looks like it will be yahoo then. I've got 70 spams today in one account so far, haven't checked the other it should be higher. I got spammed with an ad for stopping spam this week. That one gave me a hoot:rolleyes:

jes

08-27-2002, 12:06 PM

I have signed up at Eudoramail. I really like it. It is so functional and best of all: no spam. Just one problem. When I was on Hotmail, there were custom filters. If an email message that you wanted to recieve was blocked by the spam filter, it would still be delivered to your inbox if the sender included a certain word in the subject line. For example, I would send questions to Ebay seller and the subject would come back at "re: question to Ebay seller". I had my custom filters set to pick up on the word "question" and deliver that mail to my inbox.
As far as I know there is no way to do that in Eudoramail.
I asked a friend about good web-based mail and he suggested Yahoo. Is the spam filter on Yahoo good? Are there any mail clients that you can use a Yahoo account through?

mjc

08-27-2002, 02:01 PM

Just hang around, Pete, will be able to tell you just howeffective Yahoo's spam filters aren't.....(I have had fair to middling success with them)

and recently Yahoo made POP3 access a pay-for feature....

jes

08-28-2002, 11:19 AM

Then what is good? What do you use?

mjc

08-28-2002, 01:32 PM

My Yahoo account doesn't get much in the way of SPAM, one reason is my user name....haven't gotten hit with a dictionary attack.

A good idea for any account is to use a user name that is a little out of the orindary, and a combinaton of letters and numbers. It throws off most dictionary attacks that way.

I use a combination of the Yahoo, Netscape and my ISP accounts...personal stuff goes to my ISP ( a couple of other thigs too, from when that is the only one I had...it gets about 10-20 spam messages/per week), most of the Web stuff (site registrations, etc) goes to Yahoo. Most everything else goes to netscape.

Here are a few free POP3 email providers...MyRealbox (http://www.myrealbox.com/a?.BQ.EE.Z1QQ.d), subDimension (http://www.subdimension.com/freemail/), NewMail (http://www.newmail.com/cgi-bin/cwmail.cgi) and Fastmail (http://www.fastmail.fm/mail/?STKI=19971)

(I haven't used any of the above, but myrealbox is very intolerant of SPAM and generally has a good SPAM free reputation, but it does have several restrictions, so please read the UA carefully)

PS I'm moving this down to the networking forum, because it has gotten way to technical for after hours...;)

jes

08-28-2002, 04:09 PM

The username that I have used in every free webmail account that I have had is jes173. I am most interested in a webmail account that has several different options for blocking spam. I have been looking for something like this for some time and it looks more and more all the time like Hotmail is the way to go. My problem with it is that is is M$. I really like Eudoramail but it has one major flaw. It has a really good spam filter but they only have two options: the two extremes. They will allow all email (with spam) or block all email and knows junkmailers except whomever is in you address book. I have emailed them and told them what I don't like. Hopefuly they will correct it.
My ISP has gone from offering clients pop mail to webmail. It has NO spam filter and it is really confusing to get around in. I have told them this. Hopefully they will correct it. Right now, I am planning to go with Sasktel mail (my ISP) or Eudoramail. Whichever gets their act togeter first. If you know where I can get webmail that offers what I have outlined in this posting, then please tell me.