Why You Need a Second (and Better) E-mail Address by Dick Eastman

One of the worst situations I know of is having your e-mail provided by your Internet provider. If your e-mail address ends in “@” followed by your Internet provider's corporate name, your e-mail is being held hostage.

A case in point is going on in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont right now. Many of my friends in those states have been using Verizon as their Internet provider, and most of them had e-mail addresses ending in "@verizon.net." Verizon recently sold off the company's DSL and phone networks in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont to Fairpoint Communications in a deal worth $2.72 billion. The deal involved 1.6 million local access lines in the three states. Once the sale was completed, the problems began.

The first problem was that all the customers were given short notice that their e-mail addresses were being converted to addresses ending in "@myfairpoint.net." Next, all the customers had to reconfigure their e-mail programs. Sadly, these customers were not given much time to notify their email correspondents. Most only had a few days in which to notify friends and relatives and to change their e-mail addresses on e-mail lists and thousands of web sites. One of my friends who runs an active eBay business suddenly found that the hundreds of listings he had on eBay now pointed to a non-existent e-mail address. He changed the listings on eBay to his new myfairpoint.net address, only to find out that it didn't work. He lost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, and his eBay reputation was ruined.

Next, the myfairpoint.net mail servers didn't work very well. I only have second-hand information about the problems, so I can only refer you to the thousands of messages posted on various online message boards. Apparently, Fairpoint was not prepared for the sudden growth in the number of customers. The online message boards are full of reports about mail server crashes, lost messages, and more.

Many people report that they can send mail but not receive it or vice versa. One of my friends reports that he can see the message headers in his in-box, but when he clicks on any of the message headers, he receives an error message of "unable to retrieve" or something similar. He says it is frustrating being teased like that: he can see the headers of new messages but cannot read the messages.

Worst of all, messages being sent to the old Verizon addresses are not being forwarded to the new Fairpoint addresses. If they placed a message on a web site last year looking for relatives and provided their Verizon e-mail address, they will never receive any messages sent to them in the future.

Sadly, these latest reports are only the latest examples of such problems. In fact, Fairpoint and Verizon are only two companies that have created such problems. In the business climate of the last few years, many Internet providers have sold out or been forcibly acquired, resulting in customers scrambling to maintain e-mail capabilities.

Users sometimes create  further problems on their own. For instance, those who move. When moving to a new area, there is a high probability that you will have to switch Internet providers. It's a darned shame if you also have to change e-mail addresses. In fact, the problem could have been prevented very easily.

Another, similar, situation is using an e-mail address provided by an employer. What happens if you resign, get laid off, or if the employer is bought out by another company? In today's business climate, millions of people have their e-mail addresses forcibly changed every year.

I went through this last year: I voluntarily switched from Charter Communications cable television and Internet service to Verizon FIOS fiber optic as my Internet provider. I did so in order to obtain faster Internet service. However, I never changed my e-mail address. It remains the same as it has for the past five years or so. For me, the change in Internet providers was a non-issue.

The solution is simple: never, ever use an e-mail address provided by your Internet provider. Get a separate, independent address that can be used from any Internet provider.

For most people, that means obtaining a FREE Gmail (Google Mail), Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or similar service. Most of these services work better than the mail servers of most Internet service providers, plus they have the advantage of working from anywhere. If your Internet provider suddenly gets acquired or if you move to a new area or if you are simply on vacation for a few days in some sunny climate, you can always use the same e-mail address.

My favorite is Gmail, provided by Google. The power, flexibility, and ease of use of this e-mail service always amazes me. Gmail even offers advanced e-mail capabilities at no charge, such as IMAP and POP3 access, services that are not available on Hotmail or Yahoo's free e-mail service. With IMAP or POP3, the user never even sees advertisements. However, any user with a web browser will see ads in all three popular services.

NOTE: For an explanation of IMAP and POP3, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imap and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop3.

To be sure, there is never any guarantee that Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and the others will remain in business under the same banners, the same corporate names, and the same e-mail addresses. There is always a risk that even they will force their customers to change someday. However, the experience of the past five years shows that most of the turmoil has been in the arena of Internet service providers. So far, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail customers have seen no forced changes. The odds are that they will remain stable while the Internet service providers will remain in turmoil.

I'd suggest that you start planning NOW. Do not wait until one day your Internet service provider gives you seven days' notice or less. Obtain a free e-mail address someplace else right now. Then you can slowly migrate your e-mail over at your leisure. You might start by writing all your e-mail messages in your new address right now, but you can continue to monitor your old e-mail address for incoming messages for another year or two or three. As a matter of fact, Gmail has a Settings tool that lets you specify other email addresses you own – such as your “old” Internet provider's – so that those messages arrive in your Gmail inbox as well. This works with any old e-mail address that supports POP3 mail protocol. (AOL will not work as that company does not follow industry standards.) You also have the option of sending replies with either your old email address or your new Gmail address, all from the same Gmail account. In short, you can easily migrate all your correspondence to the independent mail system over a period of months or even years. I would suggest that such a plan is far better than waiting until you receive seven days' notice from your Internet service provider!

If you have an e-mail address ending in verizon.net, comcast.net, BellSouth.com, AOL.com, or any other Internet provider's "captive" e-mail addresses, the time to start planning is NOW.

In fact, you can sign up at all three: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail. And there are still others: Apple provides .mac addresses (to become .me addresses) for a fee, and there are many others as well. I use a commercial service that provides an e-mail address based on my name: richard@eastman.net. Even though I use a commercial e-mail provider and am happy with it, I also have a Gmail account that I use as a second account for situations where I do not want to use my primary address. I'd suggest that everyone should have at least two e-mail addresses. After all, they are free.

Experiment for a bit to see which service you like best, then settle on that one and start notifying all your friends and relatives.

Of course, you should continue to monitor your old e-mail address for another year or two so as to receive messages from those who have not yet received the word of your change in e-mail addresses.

I like the idea of adding a "SIG file" that automatically appends a “signature” line or two of text on the bottom of every e-mail message you send: "Please notice that my e-mail address has changed recently. Please send all future e-mail messages to..."

Why be held hostage by your Internet provider? It's YOUR e-mail! You have a right to receive e-mail messages and to not be "jerked around" by corporate buy-outs. I'd suggest that you take control of your e-mail now. Obtain your own e-mail address today, and start migrating your mail.

Finally, if you are immersed in the Verizon/Fairpoint problems right now, why fight it? Pick up a Gmail account now and switch to that. You already have to notify all your correspondents anyway; why not get an e-mail address that works and won't change for a while?

Comments

[Michael John Neill]

I concur about using one of the "free big boys" even if your ISP gives you email. I have used gmail for years and have been very happy with it. In fact, I have two gmail accounts, one for genealogy/professional use and one for personal use. And gmail probably gives you more storage space than your ISP for email anyway.

[Linda]

This is a very informative article that I may want to refer to in the future. If I save a bookmark with this URL, how long will I still be able to find it? The same goes for your previous articles. Can I find them again at the same URLs, or are they archived somewhere else after a period of time? Thanks!

[Lucie]

This is excellent advice. My Internet service provider changed so often beginning with Roadrunner. Each time a company bought out the previous one I was at a loss as how to notify and change the information on all the websites that contained my addy in addition to notifying all of my family and friends. A year ago last month I wanted to switch to Verizon fios. I decided it was time I had as permanent an addy as I could have. I created an email address through my website server that I have subscribed to for 8 years. However "just in case" I also have a gmail account. By the way, I have a friend in New Hampshire whose phone calls were not going through when that changeover began. she could call out but if we called, it sounded like the phone was ringing but it was not going through to the house. Go figure!

[Dick Eastman]

---> If I save a bookmark with this URL, how long will I still be able to find it?

All the Standard Edition articles for the past thirteen years are still available here. You can find any article in the "Search This Site for Past Articles" section in the menus to the right of this and every page.

- Dick Eastman

[Ray Marshall]

As genealogists, we all know that genealogy is like prospecting for gold. We spend a lot of time prospecting in many different places looking for those nuggets that will provide the elusive clue we have been seek as to where great-grandma was born.

I have been on the computer since 1989 and since the internet was formed in the mid 90s. As such, I have "salted" many sites with my email address in the hope that someday a remote relative might find my query and contact me. It has happened a few times.

Therefore I am reluctant to totally abandon my original email address until I absolutely have to. Being that my internet provider is quite small, I have been lucky. It has changed ownership at least three times, but the condition of the sale was that the original email address would be still usable, even though the old company no longer exists, at least in my area.

MNInter.net was bought by Infinetivity.com that was bought by Pixius.com that was bought by Metro-Provider.com.

But I have had a gmail address since they became publicly available and slowly have switched many of my subscriptions over to that. Now that you mention it, I think I will check this weekend to see how difficult it would be to switch my many Rootsweb subscriptions over.

Thanks for the reminder.

[Bill Teschek]

Two points. First you made a mistake that could confuse some people. Addresses didn't change from @verizon.net to @fairpoint.com. They changed to @myfairpoint.net. Big difference. Everyone should go through their address books and change any of their verizon.net friends to myfairpoint.net.

Better than simply getting a gmail/hotmail/yahoo, etc. account, is to get a permanent forwarding address, if you can find one. My alma mater -- the University of NH -- offers to all alumni and families free forwarding addresses for life. I had a verizon account as well but all my contacts knew my address to be @alumni.unh.edu. When the myfairpoint.net change occurred all I had to do was log on to the alumni web site and change it there. Done. I didn't have to notify any of my contacts. I'm not held hostage to any corporate entity that might go out of business some day. I don't expect that UNH is likely to just go away some day, although I suppose it's possible that the forwarding service could end. I'd be surprised if it did, however. I expect other universities may offer the same service. I know that Tufts does, but not sure about any others.

[Billie Walsh]

If you read the "fine print" on Yahoo their free e-mail account is only free if you use the net-mail interface. If you want pop access it costs. Net-mail, even with my 1.5 meg pipe, is just way to slow to bother reading with my 200 > 300 e-mails a day. I leave my computer running 24/7 with Thunderbird running so I can just sit down whenever I want a deal with them

I haven't looked at G-mail. I've heard/read some horror stories about getting pop access set up with G-mail and certain e-mail programs. I do have a hotmail account I've never used. Over the years, through various reasons, I've collected something on the order of 30 or forty e-mail address's. Six or seven are directly linked to my SWBell account.

Way back when, in the dark ages, when I took the training wheels off my internet [ left AOL ] and signed with SWBell it was all dial-up. I still pay for that dial-up account even though I never, well almost, use it. I have a different high speed provider. Two reason for this:

1) When I'm traveling I can always/usually find a dial up connection either through ATT/Bell or a partner if there is no other alternative available. [ also have a sprint broadband card ]

2) There's absolutely no way I could ever change my e-maill address everywhere it's posted/linked/etc. Not after all this time.

Quite some time back ATT/Bell partnered with Yahoo to be the e-mail provider.

[Dick Eastman]

---> I've heard/read some horror stories about getting pop access set up with G-mail and certain e-mail programs. I

I have used POP3 and later IMAP on Gmail for years. My computer runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, checking e-mail all the time on Gmail. I have never had a problem with it. It is quick and easy to configure and works well.

- Dick Eastman

[A.E. Holmes]

I agree with Bill above. Best to find a permanent e-mail address that allows you to change the forwarding address to what ever your current e-mail address is. My college alumni association provides such a service. I too have an employee based e-mail that dates back to the mid 80's that has been used for genealogy. It was set to forward once I retired and so far is still working although there are no guarantees. Other than college alumni organizations, does anyone else know who might provide such forwarding services?

[Albert Edward Belanger]

Some time ago I came across a site that had been set up to post changes of email addresses, so if anyone got a message that a once valid address is "unknown," it was a simple matter of going to that site and, if the adressee had posted the change, Bingo! However, I lost the "change of address" address....Does anyone know of it? I don't know why someone hasn't set up a program that one could access where at the clock of a mouse the computer would Google search for all emails with an old address and add a tag that would either direct you to a site where changes are logged, or, better still, insert the new address. This latter wouldn't be able to get into every place, but would surely help with the problem with "lost" possible contacts.

[Nancy]

My sons keep urging me to get a pobox.com address, stating that no matter how many e-ddresses I have or have had, it will deliver my mail. I didn't see anyone mention that. Comments?

[Bev Anderson]

How many of those free email addresses ALSO provide ad/commercial-free web space for their customers...? I have two of the free email addresses (yahoo email & hotmail email addy I've only used for Messenger, but I always have junk mail in the spam inbox). I had the Yahoo email address before I obtained a computer at home, so I still use it for all of my genealogy list emails and check it daily. But I have a third email address for friends and relatives....

A local phone cooperative has telephone services (with local tech support I have on speed dial and after-hours tech support in a state south of me and I can also get TV cable through them but haven't yet 'cuz I don't watch that much TV) plus DSL AND 5 MG free web space with each email address (up to five email addresses free, thus it's possible to have five free web sites). Anything over 5 MG for web sites is an additional $1/mo/5MG above the initial 5MB free email. No blasted ads with the free email address and I have total control of my genealogy web sites and can correct them any time, or even have access to the web server and can delete the old sites in preparation for doing an .ftp transfer with an updated web site. Because it's a local communications cooperative, I get a statement every fall that I've earned monetary credits and it's always higher than the year before, but so far they've not sent any checks. All customers get notices about voting for other local people to sit on the board of directors. I first had dial-up through my local phone company, and when they got DSL I was on the list to get it and switched my phone service through them, too. If I want to talk to anyone at my local phone-internet-cable company, it's a local call and I can talk with friendly local people. (My bro, who lives in another part of the state, has phone/internet service from a local phone company, different from mine, but his is from the same company that owned all the phone lines when our parents were alive, so it was the first phone service anyone in their area ever had. I don't think the big communications corporations have found their way into that remote area yet.)

All in all, it's a pretty neat arrangement. I certainly hope they never go out of business or are bought out by a gigantic communications corporation "too big to fail." It all sounds like horrible headaches for the customers who have to put up with corporations "too big to fail" and then end up with really bad service from those same corporations who should have had all the bugs figured out before they made the switch.

[Jay Van Zeeland]

For a small annual fee, everyone can register their own domain (I use vanzeeland.info) and forward this to whatever e-mail provider they use. If the provider changes its name, you simply change the location that your mail is forwarded, a simple 5 minute change. In addition, your own domain name can be used for a web site if you desire without having to use some obtuse URL address. Domain names can be purchased for generally less than $10 and you have control as long as you desire to keep the domain.

[Michele]

I must be very lucky! When my ISP has been bought out, the new company has taken over all the old e-mail addresses.
So my current provider - Primus has my old e-mail address even now.
I believe it has gone through at least four different ISP's.

My big problem would be if I personally changed my ISP. So, my answer is simply not to do so.

But yes I do have a gmail account and also a business account
Though I do have a tendency to forget to check my gmail account.

You know it would actually break my heart to have to give up my e-mail address, seeing as I have had it now for around 14 years. Only problem I've ever had is junk mail - and Primus to a certain extent deals with that too.

[dorisw]

I'm glad to hear so many people are happy, and I hate to throw cold water on them. However, the day will come.... Dick's advice is solid. I acquired a gmail address when they first became available and now use it almost exclusively. My old ISP address is still there, but it is so filled with spam and garbage that I only check it about once a week, just in case. One major advantage of gmail that Dick did not mention is that you have two choices: You can just leave all your incoming and outgoing mail on the Google servers and never have to worry about your computer crashing, or you can have your email both ways: Download it to your computer and retain copies at Google. The best of all worlds.

Doris

[MARIE F. HOKE SINGER]

I had such hope when I saw "Netherlands",went through all of your newsletter and couldn't find a single word on it. Very disappointed. The Dutch made their mark on America. My cousin and I cannot find the original person from Holland to the US. We know he came over betwem 1650-1700. She has been working on this for 10 yrs and I for 2. This family was well know in upstate NY they didn't go to PA.

Thanks anyway.

Marie F. Hoke-Singer (family of elusive Johan Frederick Hoke(or any & all spellings.)

[Meg]

To the person who was thinking about using poboxes.com - I had a @poboxes.com address for years, paying a nominal sum annually. Then suddenly the site stopped working. (I was paid up.) Apparently they were out of business. There was no way to contact them from their website.

[Bill W]

Another suggestion would be to purchase a personal internet domain name -- like eogn.org and configure your email service to be forwarded to your current ISP. That way, people would send a note to noreply@eogn.org. That domain would automatically send the note on to whatever email server you are using. This is a very common practice.

[Dick Eastman]

---> Only problem I've ever had is junk mail

One thing I didn't mention in the article is the fact that Gmail has an excellent spam filter system. If your present e-mail address receives too much spam, switch to Gmail. You will be pleasantly surprised.

In fact, you can even keep your old e-mail address. Simply sign up for Gmail and tell Gmail to retrieve all your messages from your old in-box. You don't even have to tell your correspondents about the new e-mail address: they keep sending to the old address, Gmail retrieves the new messages from your old in-box, filters out the spam, and then displays the remaining messages to you.

- Dick Eastman

[Dae Powell]

Thanks for the tip about verizon.net, Bill. Now if only my address book had a global search/replace function!

Happy Dae.
http://ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[Israel Pickholtz]

Here I sit in Jerusalem, with an Israeli ISP, with a no-frills subscription. My email address is based on a domain name that sits on a server at my brother-in-law's house in Illinois.

My personal email forwards from Illinois to gmail, which filters out the spam and then forwards it clean to my ISP. I read it from there using Pegasus.

[Joe Callahan]

One email problem not mentioned here happens when a spammer hijacks your address to use as a fake return address on a huge number of messages. It happened to me last year. Spam filtering tools used by ISPs recognized the content as spam and blacklisted my address. This blacklisting is then shared with all the other users that software, including my ISP. That blocked all incoming mail from the auto-forwarding function at my university (they did not offer webmail or POP3 or IMAP). My ISP insisted that there was nothing they could do internally or with the vendor of their spam detector to override the blacklisting, and the university would not even respond to my attempts to get them to give me a new address.

There does not seem to be any way to prevent this, but having several addresses that you use consistently for different kinds of email (personal, professional, on-line business, hobby, etc.) is a way to isolate the damage if it happens. I have several on gmail and fetch everything into Thunderbird, where the various addresses are helpful in filtering it into folders as it arrives.

[Lynn]

I'm a happy user of gmail.com, too, and would recommend it to anyone. Very good spam filters and access from anywhere.

[JP]

I signed up for yahoo and got stuck with sbcglobal.net somehow...this has been years ago. spam has been terrible so started process of elimination by signing out of all my "yahoo groups" went from about 500 to 30-50 spam messages. NOW I have received a notice again about yahoo photos this last one from FLICK they are disbanding us then yesterday I received a message BRIEFCASE is going to be discontinued.
Anyone get these notices what does it mean ....
jp

[Jason Presley]

For reasons similar to those in the article, I long ago abandoned the use of any pf my ISPs email services. Due to buyouts, restructuring, poor service and just plain going out of business, I've changed ISPs probably 8-9 times in the last 13 years (BellSouth, Rennaissance, HiWaay, NetZero, Millenicom, AOL, Comcast, Knology, and others I can't even remember). I really didn't see the sense on constantly having to set up a new account and send everyone my new address with every change. I've had accounts with Yahoo and USA.NET for nearly as long as they've been around and got a Gmail account about a year into their beta testing. Once I picked up the web based accounts, I completely gave up any ISP-linked accounts. Just not worth the hassle.

USA.Net went from free to pay, but I'd had that address for 7 years at that point and wasn't about to give it up, so I pay for it now just for the continuity. I'd advise anyone to go with a web based account and never even bother setting up their ISP account.

[Phyllis]

Anyone who has a DSL, cable, etc. providing the internet connection can get AOL for free. I have used AOL for about 15 years, and it is available anywhere by going to www.aol.com and logging in. You can use it anywhere -- even on a cruise ship. Several years ago I got a DSL live from the phone company, but I kept my AOL address. Since I have had the same address for 15 years, I have no intention of ever changing it.

[Bruce Hamilton]

pobox.com (NOT "poboxes.com") is a great inexpensive forwarding service which I have used for years and still use as my primary email address. For details visit http://pobox.com/.

--Bruce

[Jerry Hale]

I've used a HOTPOP account for years "myname@hotpop.com" it will "shotgun" messages to your other addresses and you can change the target addresses. It's free and has been working perfectly for many years.

I also have Juno web mail and gMail accounts, both have been great but gMail is far superior and I use it more and more. I have RoadRunner ISP but have never used their address.

Dick is exactly right, I handle our Gen Soc newsletter and many of the addresses change as the ISPs change affiliations. I'm constantly having to update the mailing list.

Jerry Hale

[Gary]

To JP--Thanks for the alert about YahooBriefcase closing down. I did not get the same close-down message, so I checked "My Yahoo" homepage, which merely said YahooBriefcase "is moving," but when I clicked on that link, I did find a close-down notice. How did you get the warning--via a Yahoo Email to you? ** Yahoo says the solution to users should be "to begin downloading your files to your computer," but most folks using YahooBriefcase have used it because they are using a public computer such as one in a library, and do not have a computer at home. For those in that situation, web-based storage of their documents, as on YahooBriefcase, was ideal. While Flickr, etc, have acomplished this for photos for free, what is the alternative for text documents? I have heard of web-based document storage, but have never encountered it. *** Yahoo says it is doing this "because, in a Web 2.0 world where Yahoo!Mail has unlimited storage and Flickr offers media sharing, users and services have outgrown what the Yahoo!Briefcase service can provide." However, YahooBriefcase was designed for storing word-processed documents--not email or photos, and Flickr and Yahoo's unlimited Email storage aren't alternatives to YahooBriefcase for web-based document storage. *** By the way, you are wrong when you said "I signed up for Yahoo and got stuck with sbcglobal.net somehow." The two do not come together. *** In addition, Flickr is not disbanding, so far as I can see, and with the Library of Congress using Flickr to host some of its own collection, Flickr is unlikely to go away any time soon. And Yahoo disbanded its own photo-hosting capability a couple years ago, long before it bought Flickr, so I can't understand what you mean when you write "I have received a notice again about Yahoo photos this last one from FLICKR they are disbanding us." *** Yahoo is still a good Email service, and I get very little Spam, and almost all of it automatically gets sent to the Spam folder.

[Jan]

Dick, this reminds me of what is happening with comcast that some folks might not realize. Comcast will not accept emails from an ISP that does not have appropriate filters to keep out spam. In the long run this does favor the comcast customer; however, I wonder if people who have comcast realize that if they are emailing people in Ireland with the ISP eircom.net or in Australia with the ISP optusnet.com, people with those two ISP's cannot connect with comcast customers. So far, it seems that those w/ optusnet get an error message so they know their email has never arrived at its destination. I have learned that many of the people I email with who have the ISP eircom.net were rather frustrated because I never answered their messages. They had no idea their messages were not being delivered. I don't know if you would like to look into this in order to alert all of the folks who work on Irish genealogy who might be unaware of the program. I do know that some people with eircom have no problem with spam, but others say the problem is severe, and still others are leaving eircom for other reasons. So I do think Comcast has taken appropriate action, but somehow we should have been notified, or perhaps we should be getting a message from Comcast about an undelivered message. In any case, this situation forced me to use one of the ISP's you referred to. I have had one of these addresses but seldom used it. I now check it regularly.

[Jane]

There's a lot I still don't know about computers, so I would like to ask how getting a gmail or yahoo address (which I do have) works if you use a program like Eudora. I have a personal, business and genealogy address. How would I do this using gmail and still use my Eudora program? This is what is confusing me.

[Bette]

Thanks for letting us know this, Dick and the knowledge that Google will retrieve mail from our old account and transfer it to Gmail. That's super. I love Gmail and have never had any spam on it but I have another address and don't want to change that.

[Dick Eastman]

---> ...so I would like to ask how getting a gmail or yahoo address (which I do have) works if you use a program like Eudora.

Gmail works well with all e-mail programs, including Eudora, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. However, Yahoo's free e-mail service does not.

For details, go to http://www.gmail.com and look for anything that says POP3 (that stands for Post Office Protocol version 3) or IMAP. Those are the standards used to retrieve your e-mail messages and display them in an e-mail program.

- Dick Eastman

[Keith Hunter]

I use Yahoo for my front end client. Since I subscribe to AT&T DSL Pro I also get several of the Yahoo extras included. BUT... I also spent a little extra and have my own domains (personal and business). I use these for my 'real' email addresses and the 'yahoo.com' is my spam collector.

My domain providor (and web host) is 1&1 and I couldn't be happier with their price and services. I only wish I could sit home every day and web master my sites!

Here's a link to 1&1: http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=7838756

[Debbie]

Unfortunately, those generic email addresses are also the domain of many a spammer and senders of malicious viruses.

Many companies and ISP's block emails with those addresses on their firewalls and proxy servers and that's not always apparent to the email user who is left wondering why someone didn't respond to their email.

[Bryan]

Getting my own domain years ago was definitely the right choice, and I recommend it. It doesn't cost much, it's _yours_ and not the property of another company. Even gmail or yahoo may not be here in 10 years...you never know. Just look at how much trouble Yahoo has had recently. I have been using my own domain for about 7 years, and I still get the occasional response to an ancestry.com message board post I made years ago. Having that consistent address is very useful.

[Dick Eastman]

---> but I fear the spam problem noted in an earlier comment above -- being highjacked and spoofed by a massive spammer...

Spoofing an e-mail address easy to do. It only requires a second or two. Anyone can spoof any address at any time. It makes no difference if it is an ISP address or Gmail or Yahoo or Hotmail or an employer's e-mail address or whatever. Spammers can make their messages appear to come from ANY e-mail address they wish.

Therefore, that is not a deciding factor when selecting an e-mail provider. ANYONE can forge ANY e-mail address.

- Dick Eastman

[Dick Eastman]

---> Comcast will not accept emails from an ISP that does not have appropriate filters to keep out spam.

Comcast users miss a lot of legitimate e-mail messages. AOL is even worse, AOL users never receive all their e-mail. Some people think their e-mail provider is only deleting spam but that's impossible. All spam filters also occasionally delete legitimate messages. That's called a "false positive."

I use my own spam filters and they seem to work well but are not perfect. Occasionally, someone will tell me "I sent you and e-mail message and..." but I have never seen the message.

That's a problem with many e-mail providers although AOL and Comcast appear to be the two biggest offenders.

- Dick Eastman

[Betty]

My gmail address receives much spam every day.
How do I get it filtered out?

I have not had any spam on my sbc address in 3 years.
Betty

[Richard]

Dick, I use gmail at your suggestion of several years ago to filter mail to my ISP (Verizon DSL) and have been extremely pleased with it. In your article you said gmail could be set up to receive mail from an "old" account. Unfortunately, it seems the old account still has to be active and not closed for this to work. I had posted the old address many places and had hoped there was a way to receive mail still being sent there (my former ISP), which must be bouncing back to the senders. I don't believe my former ISP will forward any mail sent to a closed account.

[Dick Eastman]

---> Unfortunately, it seems the old account still has to be active and not closed for this to work.

True. Grabbing e-mail from the old account is a great way of transitioning from an old account to a new one, but is only practical for a few months or for as long as you want to pay for the old account.

- Dick Eastman
(in a hotel room in Orlando)

[Sue Ellen Ash]

Hello
I have five active email accounts. With a very old
computer that wont run the large emails folks insist on sending with vidoes and such I am happy with my present set up. These I can read at my families houses with bigger and better computers that wont work in my very remote DSL only area.

My main account is with a very small provider in Ohio, and I love it. Have had this account since 1990. If it ever goes under my other accounts are online accounts with big companies and they would not be affected. I am not in OH, but continue to be able to use my provider nationwide.
One reason I love my small provider is I never have to spend 8 hours trying to get an answer to a problem. They are all in America I dont have to deal with folks who have no idea what I am talking about.
I once spent 8 hours on the phone to close an AOL account my son had. My peopel are there when I need them and they all speak English and understand me.

I need to study this Gmail information more as it is one company that continues to spam my private account so much I have blocked all incoming mail from G mail accounts. Have anyone else had this problem????
Thanks.