The best webmail services

Conclusions

So what do we think, then, at the end of our tour around webmail clients of the world? Well, one thing that's clear is that Gmail is no longer the shoe-in no-brainer that it once was. Yahoo and Apple have caught up with Google when it comes to AJAX interfaces, and Microsoft provides anti-spam that is on the same track. If you're looking to stop spam dead, SpamCop is also a better option, and provides just as much flexibility when it comes to POP and external email accounts.

What Google does is a great job at everything, without being exceptional at any one thing. It's highly competent when it comes to functionality, interface, flexibility, spam - without being the best, necessarily, at any of them. However, it's still better than Yahoo Mail, which is ad-tastic. It's still better than the new Hotmail, which is really limited in terms of functionality. It's also better than .Mac mail, which, whilst incredibly slick, is spam-crippled on the webmail side.

Google also provides you with a HTTPS login page, which you can use to login securely, if you so desire. It's not exactly the same level of security as HushMail, which prides itself on PGP and system-wide encryption, but then HushMail's 2MB of storage really is amazingly laughable.

When it comes to spam, SpamCop really is the daddy, but the webmail is just horrid to navigate through. When it comes to picking the ultimate webmail application, we'd suggest combo'ing two - picking a domain, having that forward to SpamCop then having that forward to Gmail. That way you get a double spam filter, eliminating junk almost entirely, a decent amount of storage, flexible access - and you pray that Google spends some time updating the interface sometime soon. Consequently, SpamCop and Gmail both get our Recommended award. To the other guys - nice try, you have some good bits, but come back when you can play in the big leagues.

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Google Mail & SpamCop