So You Want to Pick an Email Provider?

There are so many email providers out there thatbeen popping up in my junk mail recently. If
it can be difficult to figure out which one will bestyou’re considering an email provider that
suit your needs. Here are some of the majordoesn’t supply the following, we have one
factors to consider.  word for you…don’t.
1)  Usage: This is generally divided intoAnti-virus: No self-respecting email account should
commercial and non-commercial usage. Ifbe without this. If you know that you’re going
you’re simply looking for a personal emailto be downloading anything at all from your
address then you won’t need to shell out aemails, look for an email provider that offers
dime. You can, of course, pay for upgraded plansscans using some of the more reliable programs
if you so desire.such as Norton or McAfee (please note that this
Businesses should ideally have an email addressis not a substitute for having your own antivirus
that reflects either the business or domain name.installed).
These commercial accounts are usually moreAnti-spam: Users of Yahoo Mail and Hotmail are
secure and feature-driven than personal emailwell acquainted with errant spam creeping into
accounts. However, the choice is ultimately yours.their inbox from time to time. Sigh...anti-spam
2)  Availability: Pick a name…any name. Now trysoftware rarely seems to be 100% effective, but
to sign up for a Hotmail or Yahoo email accountsome protection is better than none. 
with that name. Chances are if you can think it,If you have an absolute zero tolerance for spam,
it’s been taken. You have a higher probabilityyou might want to consider paying for a service
of getting a short, easy to remember emailsuch as that offered by Bluebottle. In this sender
address from a smaller, lesser known emailverification system, only emails from senders who
provider. If you really want to open an emailare on you’re allowed list make it to your
account with one of the larger providers, yourinbox. Anyone else receives a confirmation
best bet is a combination of letters and numbers.message that must be clicked on before the
3)  Space: I'm going to let you in on a littleemail is allowed. This eliminates the possibility of
secret. I'm constantly in contact with freelancingautomated spam getting in.
services and clients. I write fiction and always get5)  Filters: Yes, sending spam to the bulk folder is
feedback from readers. I also volunteer as a betaa sort of filtering but that’s not quite what
reader so I regularly receive new chapters fromI'm talking about. What I mean is that you should
authors. I can never seem to find the time tohave the ability to create folders and send
delete all the old emails so they keep piling up.relevant new emails there automatically. This
Why am I telling you this? Because I'm using asaves time, especially if you receive a lot of
whopping 2% of my 1GB+ limit.emails.
In the land of email accounts, size does not6)  Attachments: It is important to remember
necessarily matter. Unless you plan on using thethat not all personal email accounts allow
same email address for the rest of your life whileattachments. There are two things to take into
never deleting a message, or you’re actuallyconsideration: both the total size and the number
certain that you will have use for the space,of files you can send through your email.
don’t limit yourself to a huge inbox. ThatYou’ll need to find a balance between the
doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sign up if youtwo. It doesn’t make sense being able to
want to, but you’ll probably be fine with ansend unlimited files with a size limit of 2 kb per
inbox between say 100MB and 250 MB.file, now does it?
4)  Security Tools: There are a lot of bad thingsSo, taking all these factors into consideration,
out there and most of them find their way intowhich email provider would I recommend?
your email. I'm not even going to tell what’s