I used Hotmail years ago, and I don't really mind that Microsoft owns them. You won't find a free email provider that is not wedded to a major corporation. But you can at least be mostly certain that they are not in bed with the government. I have recently started using them again, and report no problems on any front. I recommend them along with Yahoo. Just don't expect miracles and you won't be disappointed.

Although they once had the bad habit of closing accounts that weren't accessed regularly, they don't do that anymore, so I'm quite satisfied with my free service.

Not that great of a service. I was on vacation for a month one time without any internet connection and they truned off my account...I lost contact from years before...I was mad. But I still have an account with them, most likely for my XBox so that the junk emails have somewhere to go.

It's amazing that an email provider could actually be worse than AOL Mail, but there is at least one which is worse, and that is Hotmail. The problem I have with Hotmail is that they don't even attempt to make the interface work the same in Firefox as it does in IE and there are so many faux pas' in their UI it's unbelievable - if you have a long email and then want to perform an action such as delete or reply you have to scroll back to the top instead of them being duplicated at the bottom like in Gmail.

Their next problem is the spam filter, it's so bad at filtering spam (not that I get much on this account) that I've seen more spam hit the inbox than the spam folder. It's management of contacts is about as bad as you can have different types of contacts based on whether they exist on your Windows Live Messenger account or not.

I'd recommend people try Gmail instead.

Was headed for the toilet but crawled back into 3-star territory the last few years.  About 2-3 years ago they finally increased their storage space to compete with their competitors.  Their upgraded system does offer a few bells and whistles- but all that means they were behind the times to begin with.

When Hotmail went to Microsoft all went to hell. They were my first, sad to see them go to the dark side.

Hotmail does everything that I need it to do. Yes gmail is probably better, but I already have a hotmail account, and that's where everyone sends me stuff, so I see no need to switch to gmail for my primary email account. Hotmail used to be fairly bad for spam, but lately I've noticed a significant reduction in the amount of junk emails I receive, so I have no complaints.

I am surprised no one is mentioning the GLACIER speed of Hotmail. (I have DSL)

very informative. great site.

highly recommended.


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It seems not many people like hotmail due to the spam and viruses they seem to be getting, but if you do not sign up to stupid things you would not get things such as spam, i have use hot mail since 2001 and i have never had a problem with it, i get the odd bit of spam from things ive signed up to before, but other than that it is clean and easy to use, also now they give you alot more space than before when you got 2mb you now get like 100mb and can send 10mb attatchments, also the spam filters have got better as they don't over filter things like before. All in all hotmail is good for a free service, g-mail is better if your lucky enough to get an invite. But hotmail is the probably one of the best free e-mails you're gonna get your hands on.

i love hotmail

I used Hotmail for a long time (several years) before I switched to Google's free Gmail service. Hotmail left a lot to be desired in terms of interface (clunky) and ease of use (I don't like MS Outlook, but that was the only option until recently); however, it did the job I needed it to do, and it was free, so I can't complain about it *too* much.

Hotmail? Don't bother...all my junkmail goes there now. Ever get the notion it's a spy window for the Microsoft people?

Simply awful. Bombarded with ads, inundated with spam (even with super high security filters and custom spam filters). I finally gave up on it after years of having an account when they began requiring a fee to use it with various pop mail programs like Outlook. I've since switched over to gmail, and while not as polished looking, I've been much happier with the spam filters, lack of obnoxious flashing ads and overall simplicity. Hotmail now is my designated junk mail address.

After my bad experience with Mail.com (formerly iName), I tried Hotmail and found it OK. However, there is a serious security problem: I started receiving very confidential messages for someone with a slightly similar name and wondered how many of my own personal messages were being read by other people to whom they had been randomly sent. I have never knowingly experienced this problem with Yahoo!, which continues to perform well.

Haven't used it much, it's my 3rd e mail address, and the 2nd free one. No problems, though.

It's okay, but at times it's slower and I get more Spam in hotmail email than I do in yahoo.

paying for extra memory is NOT worth it,

It's okay...

Hotmail. More like Crapmail. I got my first account ages ago and never felt a difference until the day I hit solid gold and got a Gmail invite for Gmail Beta. Yes I've heard that a new version of Hotmail is coming out, but guess what? You're never gonna beat the whole concept of marking your e-mail and archiving it. The MSN interface is old, and the extreme makeover email edition is coming somewhat late, because i have tasted Gmail and nearly die of fright when i go onto my MSN account. Of course MSN will live. They have MSN Messenger. Most people don't know what Gmail is. That is what Microsoft is truly capatilizing on, because when the majority of people realize that MSN stincks and all they need is a .NET Passport, Guess what? Bye MSN!

I'm changing my rating to 1. I get tons of spam, even when I mark it as spam I still get spam from the same people! classmates.com is pissing me off. Hotmail sucks.

I like it. It is very easy to use and I have never had a problem with it.

Just another email provider that gathers up a lot of spammers and turns them loose on the rest of us.

don't like it for one, it puts spyware on your pc everytime you go there. for another I have to have cookies enabled to be able to use it which is really annoying

I have used Hotmail before, and although it is useful and free, it does bring in spam and a tiny MB space which I didn't like. I like Yahoo and GMail mail much better because they are free and HAVE MORE SPACE. :)

Cannot hold a candle to most FREE email service providers out there today. Terrible storage space, frequent down time, and don't get me started on the spam. Many online services refuse to accept Hotmail accounts since people have used multiple accounts to register online aliases. Yahoo! is marginally better, and if you can get your hands on a Gmail invitation you have struck gold.

OMG, the worst eMail provider there is, I'll never get another hotmail account, I'm better off using a passport account for MSN.

I have had to open new hotmail accounts on a regular basis because the spam and junk become unbearable once again. And now hotmail has stopped working altogether, haven't been able to open my inbox for weeks and I have opened new accounts but they also will not work. People I know are starting to experience the same problem everyday a hotmail stops working! TIP: save all your addresses before hotmail blocks you from your inbox and other folders and get a new email some place else. Don't bother contacting microsoft once you encounter the hotmail problem either, because ofcourse they dont even care to answer let alone solve the problem.

I have had the same account since 1998. I still have e-mails that are 7 years old. For awhile, Hotmail was truly horrid due to limited file space and more Spam than Hormel. One dude bombarded me with the same spam-mail every 10 seconds (and I was on vacation for 3 days and it took me 2 weeks to clear out my account). Since then, Hotmail has more file space, excellent spam controls, and a more Outlook-like interface.

Sadly about 80% of mail I receive in my account seems to concern penile enlargement of some sort. Are they trying to tell me something?

I have had a hotmail account for four years now. In the beginning it seemed o.k. mainly because of the price...free right? Well today with so many others trying to get you to use their services to obtain add revenue, it's a new day. In general, I try to stay clear of microsoft web based products in due to high targets for spammers and hackers. Also, in the past they have tried to gouge people for reasonable storage space and even charging for a calendar !? Now I see it's free....thanks Gmail ! Here's to a free market society.

Hotmail is a mediocre email provider. The attractive interface is a bit disorganized, but on the whole clean and easy to use. The features are improving, from the calendar, contacts, address book, storage organization (it can be broken down into folders), and junk mail filters (which are either too effective and block all incoming mail from unknown addresses, including people you know who've never written you before, or are too weak and allow junk such as pornography and advertisements into your inbox). Hotmail offers very limited space, only 2 MBs, while most other e-mail providers offer a much more decent amount of space that won't force you to continually empty you account, or else you'll be sent the famous You're approaching your account size limit e-mail from hotmail, which only takes more space from your account. And for the people who are new to hotmail and wish to create an account, good luck creating an e-mail address that hasn't already been taken! Of course hotmail can be improved (Hotmail Plus offers 2 gigabytes of storage space), but for a little bit of cash.

I have had a hotmail account for 4 years now, and all I can say is that it's decent and it does it's job. It's not overly impressive, it's not incredible, it's just okay. I have never had any problems with it, other than the storage space, but once Gmail comes out who knows how many hotmail users will be deactivating their accounts.

I serves its point well. although my favorite is yahoo.

This is what I have. I don't really care too much about email. I didn't get any junk mail until I strated filling out forms for free tickets, and such. Its free and it does its job.

Nice to have a free e-mail account that is not work related. I do tend to get annoyed with the frequent landscape changes however. Just as I get used to one style they change it.

Actually thnak you very much MSN for giving us 10 megs of space on our accounts... That was nice of you! also the attachments have imporved... htey block lots of them and thats good! keeps those nasty viruses away and also prevents others from getting your address. that's true.. if you let an image load from an HTML email, or follow a link for that matter... even those unsubscribe links... all you are doing is letting spammers know that your email address is valid and thats really how spam spreads... and also, please disallow all possible email scripting within your email application if you decide to use one to read your hotmail, or any other email account system for that matter! follow these security mesures and you wont get spam or visues!! and of course!! KEEP YOUR ANYTIVIRUS SOFTWARE UP TO DATE!!! nuff said....

What do we expect people ITS FREE!!! Who honestly wants to invest in improving a service thats free, we can complain from now to kingdom come people are still going to use it and those big wigs at the top know that.

Hotmail pales in comparison with Yahoo! Mail. The biggest problem (as other comments have noted) is the spam. With the limited amount of space for a free account and the preponderance of spam hitting the account, it takes no time at all before your legitimate messages get bounced for lack of capacity. Moreover, it is just a pain to hack through the spam that doesn't get filtered to the bulk folder. Being free, Hotmail gets one star more than it should.

This is the one I choose, because it seems the easiest and most fun to use. But it isn't perfect. For one thing, they constantly limit your storage and send you messages pestering you to buy more space. And the junk mail is incessant, much of it pornographic in nature. The block sender feature is totally worthless, because the dirty advertisers just keep sending the exact same ads from different addresses.

Oh yeah, this is just great, as long as you want a hundred spam e-mails a day selling you pictures of women corrupting the morals of donkeys.

Junk Mail Central.

i feel like in the last little while HotMail has been squeezing me and squeezing me more and more. it started on the premise that it was free, web based email. now it's free web-based temporary letter storage. i say this because you can't keep anything there for extended periods of time because your space fills up every six emails or so....that's what it seems like anyway.

If you like spam, this is the place to be.

I used to have a Hotmail account until the jerkwads were gonna charged me. Mail space was a joke.

Of course it ain't perfect, but in all honesty it gets the job done. And you can't beat the price.

More like Coldmail...the service is awful even for a free service, and that is bad. I think it is ridiculous that you can only get 2megs of space as well, and spare me the short span of time you get to check your email before they close your acct. I will never use this service again...

I used to have a hotmail account and I'd get nothing but pornography. It only bothers me because I didn't ask for it. I just don't find pictures of girls screwing horses sexy at all.

The site and service is great...its just all that junkmail....!

Jesus Fu**ing Christ! who need all that junk mail?!