Webium

Webium/EMAIL

November 7, 2009 – A friend recently was attacked by an email virus that replicated itself by sending a message to everyone in her address book – twice. Quite a pesky virus, too; based in China, very rare, and no known workaround.

Once her problem was solved, she wrote to me mentioning that she was seriously considering switching from Earthlink to Road Runner with Time Warner.

My suggestion to her is that she also consider getting a Gmail account at the same time – whether or not she switches providers. After compiling the reasons, I thought it would be best to share with everyone:

Here are some things to consider:

1. Gmail offers virtually unlimited storage (I've had it for 5 years and only am using 10% of my storage). You really never have to delete mail, just archive it. I keep almost everything now, including items with extremely large attachments. And Gmail keeps increasing your storage.
2. It is free.
3. It is not tied to a service or a provider that you pay for; if your provider changes, your email does not.
4. It allows you to accept incoming mail from old email accounts, and even send and receive mail under those old aliases, as if the accounts are still open -- without leaving Gmail.
5. It is extremely hostile to spam and has set a benchmark in that respect. It is quite a rarity that spam slips by their filter and reaches my inbox; and even when it does, when I mark it as spam, Gmail immediately takes note and filters it from others' inboxes.
6. Further along those lines, it is not tied to a software program on your computer (like Windows Mail) into which your mail is downloaded to your computer. Such programs are highly susceptible to viruses and bots that use your address book to replicate the virus to your friends. Rather, it is web-based (but you can still use it offline to read and compose mail).
7. It is very searchable – lots of filters and advanced search capability for finding mail from years and years ago.
8. It has been around long enough now that everyone trusts it.
9. You can import all of your old Earthlink mail and contacts into your new Gmail account. Nothing will be lost and you won't have to access both accounts. I checked, and Earthlink is one of the providers supported by this feature. So if she switches, she's in luck.
10. Gmail is constantly being innovated and upgraded on a scale I've seen in no other email – paid or free. Some of the optional features are so smart you wonder why no one else has thought of them. For example, it can search your message before sending it for words like "attach," "attached," or "attachment," etc., then prompt you if it doesn't actually find an attachment in what you're sending. In other words, it prevents you from accidentally forgetting to attach something. Lots of cool stuff like that.
11. It integrates with Google's other products. For instance, I use Google Voice (which is free long distance from any phone I own). Google Voice integrates with my Gmail address book, acting as a caller ID for people in my list. And I can save all my voicemails, listen to them online, and send them as email attachments. (Google Voice is a whole other story – amazing.)