Comparing Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail!

Did you ever bother to compare Google, Yahoo and Windows Live Hotmail services?

It's amazing to see that as you just like Google! These three services, along with AOL mail, make up most of the 500 million plus Internet users around the world.

These users are still using the good old Yahoo Mail and Hotmail interfaces that require page refreshes for each and every click. However, the newer applications, along with Gmail, offer a rich experience much like your e-mail client. When these web-mail clients are performing well, their speed and ease of use is easily as good as an e-mail client.

All in all, everyone prefers Gmail over other webmail applications because of performance, speed is consistently fast, and e-mails can be tagged making search much more effective. They also offer huge storage and other features, and it’s free! That is important.

However, Yahoo and Windows Live Hotmail offer more mainstream Outlook-like user interfaces (although Live Hotmail does not allow you to access other email accounts from their application), whereas Gmail takes some time to get used to. But, we guys hardly need any time. :)



If you are looking for speed and tagging is important, Gmail is for you. If you are looking for the closest thing to Outlook online, go with Yahoo Mail. Nowadays, we love to use Gmail and will continue to use it while having an alternative option of having a Yahoo ID! That's how being really smart and enjoying it from both the worlds.



Check out the chart compaing these major e-mail services on a feature-by-feature basis. Note that the user numbers for Yahoo and Hotmail include legacy users still on the old platforms.

Let's see what exactly is happening with Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail.

Yahoo Mail:

--> Is very good, allowing users to access other email accounts (POP-in), but only offers the POP-out access only for an additional fee which may not be that good for most folks! This is probably due to the legacy users who are already paying for this feature; Yahoo may not want to give up this revenue stream.

--> Storage is on the low side - only 1 GB, which is less than half of what Gmail offers! Still, Yahoo Mail has recently been running very fast and offers an intuitive, Outlook-like interface. Instant Messaging and RSS integration is going great.

Windows Live Hotmail:

--> The new Windows Live Hotmail will be a welcome change to Microsoft’s 228 million webmail users which frankly speaking look cool!

--> It falls just short of the Yahoo and Gmail offerings. Live Hotmail offers 2 GB of storage, better than Yahoo, but there are no POP-in or POP-out features at all, which actually is the best feature averyone's enjoying nowadays!

Gmail:

--> Gmail group emails in a thread into a single line in the Inbox, this is exciting and new. Some users love this, others hate it.

--> The best Gmail feature is the ability to tag emails for better organization and search. None of the other services offer this!

--> Gmail also has integrated Gtalk into the GMail interface, and continues to add other functionality as well (such as integration with Docs & Spreadsheets). Gmail is consistently fast, offers the most storage and free POP-in and POP-out, meaning you can use Gmail to access your other email accounts, or access GMail from whatever email client you use.

--> The fact that Google is paired with Google Calendar, the best online Calendar application, doesn’t hurt, either.

That's what a best service is supposed to have. I know that you too would agree that Gmail is the best... and the story newer ends as the competition is there any given time!