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Webmail is a web application that allow users to access their e-mail through a web browser, as an alternative to using an email client such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Eudora.
The most popular webmail providers are Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. Other webmail providers include AIM Mail, Mail.com, Fastmail and Lycos Mail. It is also possible to run webmail software on one's own web server. There are commercial webmail software such as Outlook Web Access (OWA) or Atmail as well as open source software such as Horde IMP, OpenWebmail (based on NeoMail), RoundCube or SquirrelMail. Many universities and schools use such software to provide students and staff with web-based access to their email accounts. Also, many Internet Service Providers offer webmail for their customers.
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Features
Most webmail services have the following features:
Filtering (incoming e-mail to dispatch to related folder)
Several webmail services offer the following features:
Dictionary and thesaurus when composing messages
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Advantages of webmail services
E-mail is stored remotely on a server, which means that it is accessible anywhere there is an internet connection and a web browser.
Centralised maintenance of the (Webmail) email client; upgrades and security fixes are done by the administrator. No need to install, update and patch local email clients.
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Disadvantages of webmail services
The user must stay online to read and write more than one e-mail. They cannot easily edit mails they are working on offline (except by copying and pasting the text).
Commercial webmail services often offer only limited e-mail storage space and either display advertisements during use or append them to mails sent. Unlike with a local client, the user cannot keep the messages on their local hard drive.
Most e-mails are usually short, plain text messages of less than 2 kB, by using webmail the original e-mail is wrapped in the website's HTML, which can be 40 kB or more. Obviously this brings a significant decrease in speed of use, especially on a slow network connection.
Webmail accounts are often targets of spam.
Webmail accounts are accused of being insecure.
Some webmail providers offer disposable (spam collection) e-mail addresses - examples include TrashMail and Mailinator. There are also secure webmail providers like Hushmail that do not store any personal information and send all mails with 128-bit encryption.
For providers who do not allow POP3 access a program like FreePOPs may be used with a conventional POP3 client.
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Other features of webmail
Webmail accounts can be set up with minimum technical competence and can provide independence from one's current ISP as well as a degree of anonymity.
The ability to access it anywhere means it is harder to trace the individual who uses an account than if they used a connection associated with their home address.
These features mean it can in theory be more easily used as a communication tool for nefarious purposes (or for avoiding oppressive authorities) than conventional e-mail. In practice, most governments' security agencies are fairly easily able to track individuals who try to use such methods, just as with someone who calls from phone booths. Ordinary citizens will find it more difficult, however.
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Gigabyte storage
Due to the heavy media coverage of Gmail's initial announcement of 1 gigabyte of storage, many existing web mail services quickly increased their storage capacity, as did many ISPs. Before Gmail's announcement the largest storage commercial webmail service was Runbox with 100 MB. Many webmail services followed Gmail and this was seen as a move to stop existing users from switching, and to capitalize on the newly rekindled public interest in web mail services. Below is a brief outline of the course of events following Gmail's initial release.
On March 31, 2004, Gmail was initially released with 1 gigabyte of storage space per user. On April 1st, 2005 (Gmail's first birthday), Gmail increased each user's storage quota to more than 2 gigabytes. This new figure and the original offering of 1000 megabytes are hundreds of times more than what other webmail services offered at the time of Gmail's original announcement in 2004.
On April 5, 2004, Spymac became the first open-to-the-public free e-mail service to offer a gigabyte of storage based on the Atmail software.
On May 29, 2004, the European edition of Lycos raised its paid storage allowance to 1 GB.
On June 15, 2004, popular web mail competitor Yahoo! Mail increased its free storage space to 100 MB and its paid storage space to 2 GB. (Free storage space for Yahoo! Mail was later increased to 250 MB on December 2, 2004).
On June 18, 2004, Rediff.com headquartered in Mumbai, India, increased the storage capacity of its free public Rediffmail service to one gigabyte.
On June 24, 2004, Microsoft's Hotmail increased storage space to 250 MB and 2 GB respectively for its free and paid e-mail services for users in North America.
Throughout June, the Israeli search site Walla upgraded their service to 1 GB of space.
On July 29, 2004, Yahoo! Mail increased space to 1 GB for its users in China in hopes of getting a foothold in the country's booming internet market.
On August 16, 2004, AlienCamel.com introduced unlimited storage. The first e-mail service to do so.
On March 21, 2005, Streamload announced the launch of xStreamMail. The first e-mail enhancement system specifically designed for sending and sharing collections of full-quality videos and photos, xStreamMail users are given 10 GB of free e-mail storage and file attachment limits to paying subscribers of 50 terabytes per e-mail.
On March 23, 2005, Yahoo! Mail announced that it will soon (in late April) begin giving all users of its free Web e-mail service 1 gigabyte of storage.
On April 1, 2005, its first anniversary, Gmail increased its storage size to 2 GB, and its storage has increased constantly since then at a rate that works out to 1 GB per year, a rate that Google pledges it will keep up as long as its servers have room.
On May 11, 2005, AOL announced AIM Mail, a free Web e-mail service with 2 gigabyte of storage.
On June 6, 2005, AOL announced unlimited e-mail storage for its paying subscribers.
On October 8, 2005, Runbox announced 10 GB e-mail storage for its subscribers with a 1 GB Files storage.
30gigs announced 30 GB e-mail storage for its subscribers.
On August 2, 2006, Lycos increased its storage size to 3 GB (beta) without size limit of attachments.
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See also
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