simple free email service

I'm looking for a free email service without all the unecessary features. I try to sign up for a simple Yahoo account and I'm bombarded with a bunch of chat, message, profile, facebook type stuff. Its unclear how to turn off it, or if its even possible.

I was looking into Inbox.com but in order to create a free account you have to install a Windows/DOS program and I use Ubuntu. I wouldn't want to install the program anyway.

 

I have a Yahoo! Mail account and your remarks seem quite inaccurate. I'm not "bombarded with a bunch of chat, message, profile, facebook type stuff", so I have to wonder what you're doing.

If you go to http://www.yahoo.com/, click the Yahoo! Mail link under My Favorites on the left side of the page, and then login to your email account, where is all the "chat, message, profile, facebook type stuff"? I don't get that.

If you want to try another email service, for comparison to Yahoo, I suggest Google's gmail.

What about your ISP? Don't they provide an email account? And, if so, don't they provide POP mail? Since you're using Ubuntu, you could use set up a POP3 email account in the email client you already have installed with Ubuntu; it's called Evolution. Or, you could install Thunderbird and use it with a POP3 email account.

 

Hi liveware, I see you have an answer... usafveteran, we posted at the same time!

 

Gmail has served me well for years. I'm not impressed with the Yahoo mail. Too much spam gets through the filter. It almost never happens with Gmail.

 

usavfveteran, Maybe 'bombarded' isn't the right word, but the stuff is prevalent in the inbox area, and sometimes it asks 'would you like to be chat buddies with so and so?' (paraphrased). Have you signed up for an account in the last several years? Even if you choose Yahoo Classic during the sign-up process it asks about all these features and its not easy to tell whether you can opt out of them. Its overwhelming bs when you just want an inbox.

On the middle left of my inbox screen I see "Chat & Mobile Text" box with options to "start a new chat" and "start a new text message". On the middle right there's a box that says "Get updates from.." and under that there's a list of people I've emailed. One day recently yahoo forced me to create a Profile as part of its campaign to become the equivalent of facebook. I changed my name to "S", because all this stuff makes me nervous. For all I know my friends are trying to chat or something and they think I'm ignoring them.

TeeCee, I can't find "account settings"

 

So, you have not actually registered for a Yahoo! Mail account, right? Your previous comments gave me the impression you have an account, but now I get the impression you do not actually have an account yet.

I don't recall what questions you encounter during registration since I registered a long time ago. If you want to try a Yahoo! Mail account, I think it's simply a matter of declining chat, instant messaging, and whatever else you see offered during the registration procedure and go ahead and register. You do not need to install Yahoo! Messenger; you do not need to use any other Yahoo features once you register and start using a Yahoo! Mail account.

Or, as suggested by me and evilfantasy, try a gmail account.

 

I have a yahoo account. I've had it for about 5 years. I'm also trying to find a simple email service for a family member. (and myself)

Gmail has several chat features on the left-hand margin. I suppose I could just ignore them, but what I want is a service that has no such features so there's no remote possibility of anyone searching for me or thinking that I'm snubbing them. Someone I know was really offended when they found out I had a gmail account and wanted to chat with me. I told them I don't mess with that stuff and I'm pretty sure they didn't believe me.

I have other issues with gmail. You're logged into this whole google infrastructure, so that when you try to use another google feature you're logged in as your user name.

If you have two gmail accounts you can't be logged in to both at once on the same computer. You have to log out of the one you'd like to keep open all day, and log into the other one to check it for thirty seconds, and then log out and log back into the original one. Also everytime you reply to an email it sends them the whole conversation. Also I'm unable to figure out how to put the emails -sorry "conversations"- into folders.

I don't have a cell phone. I don't text, chat, message, or anything of the sort All I want is an inbox. Its getting harder and harder to find simple programs, services, and interfaces. Everything's 2.0, web-integrated, social-network enhanced,..

My ISP is comcast and their interface is inadequate for a number of reasons as well.

I realize none of you design these services. I appreciate your info and suggestions.

 

I don't like my ISP's email either. But if you use Mozilla Thunderbird you can use your ISP email without having to use their web page. Just configure it and your off and running.

There is even a portable version. Portable Thunderbird

 

Here's an image of my Yahoo! Mail account. http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/farmpond/forums/YahooMail2.jpg. No chat, nothing but email. So, what's the problem here?

It's a simple matter to set the chat feature in gmail to "Invisible"; under Chat, click on the drop-down arrow just below your name and select "Invisible".

How is that a problem?

In gmail, folders are called "labels". And, gmail allows creating additional labels.

Well, I know one way to logon to two gmail accounts simultaneously; I'm doing it right now. I have one gmail account open in Firefox and the other in Internet Explorer. I do not know whether it can be done with only one browser.

No, you can edit the original message before replying.

Exactly what are those reasons? Comcast offers POP mail accounts. This would give you more flexibility than any webmail account in managing your email.

 

usafveteran,
I don't know how you have your yahoo account configured, but mine has ads, and the above-mentioned bs. Is yours a free account? Someone in this thread mentioned going to "account settings", then they edited their post. If there is a place to turn off all this extraneous stuff and make my inbox look like yours, I'll do it. I'd still need to know if I have some profile or some way that people can look me up. I stay off facebook because I don't want people I don't want to talk to attempting to contact me (and then telling people I'm a duesche for ignoring them). I don't see why these type of features are automatically there in an email account (even if you could fully remove them). To me, they should be add-ons.

I don't like gmail's system of conversations, labels, etc. It just doesn't make sense to me. I don't want to have to think about how to accomplish would-be simple tasks. That's my general point here. If I have to spend 1 minute worrying about "hey is this chat function really turned off, and are people I care about somehow being offending by some secondary implications of this unnecessary crap?" -that's one minute too much. But its not just the 1 minute, because its always at the back of my mind when I'm there.

This is usually the time in such a thread where people reply. "Hey, you don't have to use it" And that's true, but I'm trying yahoo, comcast, gmail, and hotmail and I have major issues with all of them. I went to toptenreviews.com and looked at the reviews of free email services. They all have a list of features that I don't want. Inbox.com was the closest to what my ideal would be, but it turned out you have to pay for that ideal.

I have now changed the gmail chat feature to invisible, but that doesn't stop the people I have emailed and will email from knowing I have an account at gmail.

I was hoping someone would post in this thread and say "You should try plainmail.com ."(fictional)

As for the google empire, its a big brother thing. I already was uneasy about a powerful company storing data on everything I (we) search for. But now there's so many things from shopping, maps, images, books, etc and you have to log out of your google account if you don't want to be signed in while using these features. Now, you might ask why I don't just abstain from using these google features. But the reason plainmail.com can't make a go of it is because the Yahoo's and Google's have funneled their billions into making something more alluring to the average user, thus muscling out anything simple and plain.

~

You might be able to edit a single gmail message, but the whole conversation is still there when you get a reply in your inbox. That's the very nature of the gmail conversation. I've had conversations that were 54+ exchanges. It will be (for example) the next July and the title reads "October event inquiry". If you're friends with the person you can start a new conversation, but there are cases -such as when you connect with someone in a business setting through a website- where they haven't added you to the 'allow' category in their filters, but as long as you stay with the original conversation it gets through.

~

The thing with an ISP is if you move frequently you end up moving to a region (or country) where your current ISP doesn't do business. Then you have to switch, and learn a new but equally subpar interface. And you have to adjust your Thunderbird/Outlook settings for the new ISP, and you have to send everyone your new address and/or fool with forwarding.

One huge black mark for me with comcast is that everytime you log in to you have to look at all these headline images such as a bald Britney Spears, or the mug shots of some reality show 'star'-turned-drug-addict. Is it too much to ask to just see a list of folders and emails? I don't think so.

That leaves desktop email programs such as Evolution or Thunderbird. I should probably go this route and eventually will, but they too have more features and menus and configuration steps than I'd ideally like. (I'll eventually have to read the manual). Also I'd rather log into my separate accounts on at a time online, rather than trying to sort them out in Evolution. I'd probably get use to this if I stuck with it though. Also if you're away from your computer you have to revert to logging in to websites and trying to remember your passwords.

But if I had a magic genie I would have him/her make a simple bread and water online email account for me.

 

That's pretty much the way things work everywhere. Not just the Internet. It might seem intrusive but being on the Internet at all is giving away a lot. Signed in or not the Internet by design is not a private atmosphere. All free services are not totally free. Advertising is how we avoid paying. It's a necessary evil and I would trust Google before I would a no-name.com company. Especially with my email.

Anyway. I have an account but have never used it. Opera Web Mail might be closer to what your looking for.

 

Try gmx http://gmx.com/

As far as yahoo email - you need some sort of adblocker not to see some of the items.

I use yahoo classic; I've had my yahoo account for about 11 years and I notice they keep adding more unwanted things that I can't remove either. Like the right pane that says get updates from and includes email addresses of people I've removed or have only written to once or twice in the past 2 or 3 years. I can't figure out how to kill that unwanted "feature".

 

plodr, Have you used GMX? It looks good but there's some horror stories on this review site:

http://email.about.com/u/r/od/freeemailreviews/gr/gmx_mail.htm

 

I am using Thunderbird with 3 different systems. Juno, Gmail, and Yahoo. All working well.
I just do not get any spam since I started using thunderbird.

 

Yes, I've been using gmx since sometime in 2008.
This is where I sign in http://mail-us.gmx.com/

I haven't been problem free but I have been able to go to the forum and get help.
I also was careful to write down my customer ID so I assume if I needed to email support, I'd include that.

For my needs, I would not consider Thunderbird simply because I do not want any email downloaded to my computer.
I used to use PocoMail but eventually decided that I'd rather use all webmail so I have not configured any email client since PocoMail.

 

About how often do you have a problem with GMX? Once a week? Once a month? Twice a year?

 

It isn't an email address that I check daily so my problems may not be a reflection of someone who uses it hard.
I'd say I had about 3 problems since 2008.
One of the problems was of my own causing. I could not get gmx to load, on one computer and could not figure out why. I solved it by disabling AdMuncher. I then determined what I needed to allow and it has been working on that computer since.

Also I had trouble logging in at times and complained in the forum. Enough people must have complained and gmx looked at what was happening and gave the above us link to sign it. Since then, I haven't had a problem logging in.

It is worth trying and if you aren't happy, then try another free email service.

 

My experiences with gmx.com have been many and varied over quite a while.

It was not programmed to run with Opera originally so I had to load and use Firefox (not what I wanted to do).

It now runs on Opera (so they say) but I could not get it to work.
Have not bothered to try and fix this. Life is too short.

It works well bringing more than 1 email address to a common place for review.

My gmx.com suddenly reverted to changing everything to German. Numerous attempts by gmx to fix it. They even did a dual monitoring of my emails to see if they could find the problem. Nothing worked. Then I took a few months off the Net due to illness and when I came back on, voila it worked in English again.

I am stll using it. It has the annoying habit of marking your topmost email as read even though you haven't read it. It also, when I click on my Google alerts, is a 2 stage step to read the article reported by Google, instead of what should be a single step IMO.

I think if I bothered to settle down and try and solve my various annoyances with them, they could be fixed.

Bazza