how many times have you switched primary email addresses?

[nageov3t]

something I was thinking about with that whole facebook email thing.

switching your primary email address is kind of a pain in the ass. I've only ever done it twice.

my first ever email account was my AOL address. when I graduated high school, I switched to hotmail because I wanted to break way from the AOL stigma. I used hotmail for most of the early 00's, but switched to gmail in 2004 because the spam filter was so much better. 6 years later and I still occasionally run into a login that's inaccessible because I forgot the password and it's associated with my hotmail account, though. (and my hotmail account got toasted due to inactivity... that kinda pissed me off)

at this point, my google account is so ubiquitous for everything that I couldn't imagine switching. and I haven't really seen any features anywhere else that would make me want to.

 

[Jumpem]

Never. I've had the same rr.com email address since Road Runner first became available in my area around 1998.

 

[Brainonska511]

Maybe 3-4 times over the years, but all when I was <18. Around my first year of college, I made my gmail address using my name and haven't had a new primary since (unless you count school addresses, but those all forward to my gmail).

 

[Gillbot]

0, i've been using hotmail as my main address forever.

 

[L00PY]

I've switched three times. First was from my Cleveland Freenet address to my college address. Then from my college address to a Yahoo one. Finally to my Gmail one.

 

[strep3241]

I have only switched once and that was several years ago, can't remember why though. I do not have any plans to switch again for a long time.

 

[Bignate603]

A few times when I was a kid in highschool, since then I've kept it the same.

 

[lxskllr]

WebTV-MSN-Earthlink-Comcast/gmail

I'm thinking about transitioning away from Comcast, and doing everything through gmail. That way the address is portable, and not isp dependent.

 

[preslove]

Once. I jumped from hotmail to gmail during the hard-to-get-an-invite gmail beta days.

 

[GeekDrew]

Back in junior high and high school, I changed email addresses frequently. I've had addresses with all of what were then the local ISPs, Hotmail (back when it wasn't owned by MS), Yahoo, and Juno.

I registered a domain on 04/16/2005, and have ever since used the same mailbox. There are numerous email addresses pointed to that one mailbox (one for assorted crap, one that's <firstname>@<firstname><midinit><lastname>.<tld>, numerous others that are misspellings of either of those). I have a couple gmail accounts, but they forward all of their incoming mail to that single mailbox as well, and those addresses have never been told to anyone for general use.

The best part about having my own domain(s) registered is that I can move my mailbox to whatever service provider I want (or host my own), and senders/recipients will never know that anything has changed.

 

[SsupernovaE]

aol and gsgis.k12.state.va.gov to virginia.edu to mit.edu to gmail.com

 

[Exterous]

Never since I got my hotmail account. I added a gmail one but use them for different things

 

[JimmiG]

Twice. I still have my previous primary email address in the email client. 104,447 unread emails in the Spam folder since 2009/04...and the Live Mail spam filter doesn't even catch them all.

If you give your email address out to websites, spammers will get it. If you give it out to friends, one of them will have a virus on his computer that steals the address.

Basically, the only way to use email is to never give out the address. To anyone. Ever.

 

[NetWareHead]

aol -> hotmail -> gmail

 

[Cookie]

Never.

After reading your post I just went to check my secondary hotmail account that I haven't logged into for probably over a year or two. It was gone. At least no one else took it yet and I could get it back. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[ahenkel]

I switched once. Mainly just for professionalism than anything else.

 

[pontifex]

maybe 3 times, none by choice though. although I do have a ton of alternate addresses through various places.

 

[sjwaste]

4. Local ISP, next local ISP (when I became an employee there), domain hosted by some IRC friends, and then gmail.

 

[BoomerD]

We just changed from AT&T to Comcast. It's the first time since the mid-90's I don't have my @pacbell.net email address.

 

[AlienCraft]

Still have the AOL addy, Lost the AT&T one before switching some accounts, but now use my Yahoo account. That makes 3 or 4 if you want to count the Comcast address I have, but don't really use.

More to the point of the post.
In 2002 I was about to transition to a service that is POP3 so I could send email to my phone (as is so common these days) when I screwed myself out of my gig and had to down size drastically. Now, It's not imperative to stay so connected.

 

[gophins72]

0, i've been using hotmail as my main address forever.

same. it makes my gmail friends very angry too.

 

[ManyBeers]

I have switched one time from an Earthlink account to my current Fastmail acct. when I dumped Earthlink dial-up and went with Qwest dsl.

 

[shortylickens]

When I stopped using ISP email I stopped switching it around.
Gmail for the mother fucking win!

 

[amdskip]

yahoo -> domain -> gmail

 

[Scouzer]

i switched from hotmail to gmail. that's it. i'm definitely considering making the switch to facebook tho...