Free email overview – the state of free email 2018

The state of Free email.

Are you using free email?  Once upon a time vendors wanted to give you free email so they could capture your marketing dollar.  That marketing strategy has changed.  Now they market to you via ads on your browser, pay per click and Facebook advertising.  Because of that, many companies have quit investing in “free email” or they have stopped supporting it with actual humans.  You may also notice more ads in your Free email.  You know what we always say, “If you are not paying for the product you are the product.”

If you are not paying for the product you also have little to no technical assistance from the current platform you are on.  Your all important email has no technical support if you are not paying for it.  What does that mean?  It means you can’t call Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink and others for technical assistance like password resetting or hacking issues and get a live person.  The only technical assistance now available is by automated systems and codes sent via text message to your cell phone.

There are plenty of scammers out there that will offer to  help you reset your password for an account – but mostly they are liars and scammers and only the real company can reset your password and they won’t answer your call.

At best these guys create a new email account which they know the password to and charge you $149.00 for the privilege of giving you what you didn’t ask for and could have done yourself easily.

eMail is important to most people.  In all my years it is generally the most important.  We all have it and most people have had their email addresses for years.  Never the less free email with technical support (you can call someone and get help) is dead.

You need to decide what path you want to follow now.  Here are your choices:

1.  Stay with free email.  You will get ads and cookies and adware and tracking.  Additionally you MUST have access to a cell phone with text messaging.  If not your own, a trusted friend or family member.  You must have a cell phone number tied to your account now.  I can’t stress this enough.  Free mail is now automated.  No cell phone number on your account, ability to reset the password and the account is basically dead and gone as a free email.

2.  Stay with your Existing provider but Pay for service.  AOL, Gmail, Yahoo and MSN are all offering paid for solutions and they all cost about the same.  All run about $5.00 per month.  With a paid for service you actually can call them although the automated solutions are always easiest.  Of these providers Google or gmail offers the best solution and broadest services for the money.  Their spam filter is also superior to anyone else.  In my opinion.

3.  Move to a new provider and pay for service.  Of all the email addresses you have only Microsoft and Google have really moved forward into a professional space with email solutions.  AT&T who manages AOL, Yahoo, Verizon mail was never focused on business solutions like Microsoft and Google.  So if you are picking a new vendor, it’s Outlook mail or Google’s options which include migrating your gmail account to paid mail OR setting up a business level account @yourbusinessname.com for the same price.  Every business owner using free email needs to move to Google IMO.  You do not need to design a webpage to have business mail.

Mail migration is admittedly a long and painful process.  Here’s my overall advice:

.  If you are a home user, and don’t have a lot of issues with spam and what not, go to the paid service of your current provider, update all your account information and put a cell phone number on the account.  Keep a good antivirus program and backup.

.  If you are a home user with lots of spam issues.  Change your email and dump the junk.  Move to Google who will do a better job keeping the spam away.  You can run double mailboxes until you jump to the new one if you want.

.  If you run a small business you really need to be on Google and a domain name if you can which is unbelievably cheap for what you get.  Less than $200.00.

Microsoft has left many of you wanting in the mail department as it reduced the quality of mail programs which are automatically included with your new computer.  They want you to buy their product.  So that has also forced this switch to online services and paid for email.

Finally, if you have email that ends in ec.rr.com it is tied to Spectrum.  If you ever decide to leave Spectrum you lose your email.  Since email migration is better done over time, it’s best to start migration yesterday.  Mail like google and MSN is not tied to Spectrum so you may have it forever no matter where you live or what internet service provider you use.

Get in touch with us if we can help you with your email problems.  www.yorucomputerfriends.com