New email account for parent? Recommendations?

[GTaudiophile]

I am helping my dad (61) to migrate away from his earthlink account to something else (gmail, yahoo, etc.). 90% of the time he will access this account via MS Outlook (POP), so the web-based version/GUI is of lesser importance.

Which provider would you recommend for an older parent?

 

[Alone]

GMail.

 

[lxskllr]

GMail.

^^^

 

[KidNiki1]

Gmail, and why is he using outlook still?

 

[Scouzer]

Gmail. There is no other option.

 

[JSt0rm]

gmail. No spam bullshit

 

[GhettoFob]

Gmail

 

[Leros]

gmail has the best spam filtering.

 

[MichaelD]

gmail. No spam bullshit

I use Gmail daily, but I beg to differ with your comment. No "spam" but Google reads and logs every word you put in your emails. Ever notice the print ads to the sides/top/bottom of the page?

Send yourself an email. Subject: Buying a wok. Text about you looked at woks, which one is best? Amazon has a sale, etc. Now watch what ads you get. This scares me and is one of the reasons why I own multiple domains and have emails spread across them.

I LOVE GMAIL. Fast, free, 99.9999% uptime. But too many people put their fate in the hands of a soulless corporation. If Google decided tomorrow that GMail is dead, millions are screwed. Not me though.

 

[MotionMan]

I am surprised that no has suggested Gmail, yet.

That's odd.

MotionMan

 

[Alone]

I use Gmail daily, but I beg to differ with your comment. No "spam" but Google reads and logs every word you put in your emails. Ever notice the print ads to the sides/top/bottom of the page?

Send yourself an email. Subject: Buying a wok. Text about you looked at woks, which one is best? Amazon has a sale, etc. Now watch what ads you get. This scares me and is one of the reasons why I own multiple domains and have emails spread across them.

I LOVE GMAIL. Fast, free, 99.9999% uptime. But too many people put their fate in the hands of a soulless corporation. If Google decided tomorrow that GMail is dead, millions are screwed. Not me though.

What does that have to do with what he said at all? There is no spam.

People seem to think there's a person in some dark hole reading all your private e-mail. That's not the case. It's an algorithm that searches your e-mail for key words and directs ads to you based on what you seem to be interested in. To me, this is a good thing, not a bad thing. If I have to put up with ads, I'd at least like them to be somewhat relevant to my interests.

 

[MichaelD]

True. I knew this already. Two things. As far as I'm concerned, even an algorithm crawling my emails and displaying targeted ads IS SPAM to me. If the service is truly free and without "strings" what's up with the targeted ads? And I'm sure they have about a Petabyte dedicated daily to logging every single email anyone sends over their network. This level/kind of monitoring makes me nervous.

What does that have to do with what he said at all? There is no spam.

People seem to think there's a person in some dark hole reading all your private e-mail. That's not the case. It's an algorithm that searches your e-mail for key words and directs ads to you based on what you seem to be interested in. To me, this is a good thing, not a bad thing. If I have to put up with ads, I'd at least like them to be somewhat relevant to my interests.

 

[Cyco]

Has anybody recommended Gmail?

 

[Leros]

True. I knew this already. Two things. As far as I'm concerned, even an algorithm crawling my emails and displaying targeted ads IS SPAM to me. If the service is truly free and without "strings" what's up with the targeted ads? And I'm sure they have about a Petabyte dedicated daily to logging every single email anyone sends over their network. This level/kind of monitoring makes me nervous.

Its free because of the ads.

Google isn't free. Keep in mind that you're not a customer, you're inventory. Google's customers are advertisers.

 

[Alone]

True. I knew this already. Two things. As far as I'm concerned, even an algorithm crawling my emails and displaying targeted ads IS SPAM to me. If the service is truly free and without "strings" what's up with the targeted ads? And I'm sure they have about a Petabyte dedicated daily to logging every single email anyone sends over their network. This level/kind of monitoring makes me nervous.

Oh, so you're hoping for grade A service and products for free, but you don't want the supplier of such services to benefit from it? Sounds reasonable.

I just hope you're aware that every e-mail provider does the same thing.

 

[BoomerD]

GMail.

Indeed. So simple, even an old man can do it.

 

[xSauronx]

I use Gmail daily, but I beg to differ with your comment. No "spam" but Google reads and logs every word you put in your emails. Ever notice the print ads to the sides/top/bottom of the page?

Send yourself an email. Subject: Buying a wok. Text about you looked at woks, which one is best? Amazon has a sale, etc. Now watch what ads you get. This scares me and is one of the reasons why I own multiple domains and have emails spread across them.

I LOVE GMAIL. Fast, free, 99.9999% uptime. But too many people put their fate in the hands of a soulless corporation. If Google decided tomorrow that GMail is dead, millions are screwed. Not me though.

sounds like a headache, tbh, but if hes using outlook then it can download his mail so he has a local archive

/loves mah gmail

 

[edro]

Geocities

 

[Texashiker]

No love for yahoo mail? Which is also integrated with yahoo messenger.

But then again, having a google account should help him get a youtube account - for commenting on videos and such.

I have a yahoo mail account, and gmail, and prefer yahoo.

 

[Numenorean]

True. I knew this already. Two things. As far as I'm concerned, even an algorithm crawling my emails and displaying targeted ads IS SPAM to me. If the service is truly free and without "strings" what's up with the targeted ads? And I'm sure they have about a Petabyte dedicated daily to logging every single email anyone sends over their network. This level/kind of monitoring makes me nervous.

I don't see any ads in my gmail.

 

[darkewaffle]

Google doesn't "read" your email, all it does is pick out keywords to try and sell you something. That's like comparing a Ctrl+F to taking notes.

Bitches be crazy.

 

[blackdogdeek]

if only google made some kind of web email system. i would totally recommend that.

 

[lxskllr]

No love for yahoo mail? Which is also integrated with yahoo messenger.

I get tons of spam in my Yahoo account. That's been fully demoted to my bullshit account. I use it like I'd use a temporary email service.

 

[ShawnD1]

What does that have to do with what he said at all? There is no spam.

People seem to think there's a person in some dark hole reading all your private e-mail. That's not the case. It's an algorithm that searches your e-mail for key words and directs ads to you based on what you seem to be interested in. To me, this is a good thing, not a bad thing. If I have to put up with ads, I'd at least like them to be somewhat relevant to my interests.

We should go back to using hotmail style ads. The ones that tell me how to get an abortion or where to buy tampons.

 

[JujuFish]

I get tons of spam in my Yahoo account. That's been fully demoted to my bullshit account. I use it like I'd use a temporary email service.

Not to mention it doesn't have free POP access, making it completely irrelevant.