Need advice on changing email address

[OakLeaf]

I prefer gmail (and I have both). If you want to access free Yahoo! mail via a POP server, it has to get forwarded to a "real" email address. Gmail forwards directly, and it uses a different network port, so that when the rest of your mail isn't working, you can often send and receive via gmail. If you prefer webmail, gmail has a nice threaded browsing format and a lot of sorting features, but I really never use that. Basically, my gmail address is the one my BFF's have - my Yahoo! address is the one I give out to potential spammers

As far as Big Brother watching you, for the most part they don't need ISP cooperation (actually they don't need it at all, it just makes it easier and more likely to be admissible in Court) - and to the extent that they ask for cooperation, it's really all about the ISP and not about the email address. Unless you have a very small local ISP (pretty rare these days), don't imagine you have any privacy at all online, and even then, don't imagine you have very much. They don't have the resources to read every single email, so unless they're targeting you personally, they just scan for certain keywords.

That said - if it bothers you to have corporate marketers scanning your email in addition to the government - then you're best to stick with non-advertiser supported email addresses, because the advertiser supported accounts are pretty explicit that it's your information that pays the bills. Just like the websites you visit in your browser, when you use an advertiser-supported email account, all your mail is scanned so that they can send you targeted advertising. It's all automated, and they claim that no personal information is provided to third parties, but still ya know.

Bottom line, if you really care about privacy, use snailmail via a private courier and use a tamper evident seal on your envelopes - not paranoid, just realistic. The other way of looking at it is the one most people adopt - just get used to it

[snapdragen]

As much as I dislike gmail (I know, I'm in a minority...) I would go with them. The spam filter is hundreds of times superior to Yahoo.

[kelownagirl]

I have an ISP and gmail. I use gmail for anything that might get spam. Only my close friends and family use my ISP. I like gmail and I actually set it up to forward to my ISP so I don't actually have to even log in to gmail if I don't want to. I can send and receive gmail from my regular mail account if I want to.

[RoadRaven]

My daughter has recently changed to gMail and loves it for all the reasons others have listed above.

She has about 7 emails with both ISP and non-ISP - gMail means everything comes to one place, she doesn't loose anything and the spam-filter is one of the best about.

[Tuckervill]

gmail gmail gmail! Love it. I never check any of my others, because they go to gmail.

The advertising cracks me up some times. When I go to the spam folder, I get recipes for Spam dishes. lol.

Karen

[Grog]

I have always been wary of free email services. Email is so important to me that I feel that it's a service I want to pay for, and not depend on someone else's business for.

The domain name corresponding to my last name has been bought by netidentity.com (a service of Tucows.com, a Canadian company). So I pay about $20 a year for myfirstname@mylastname.com . For another $25 I get myfirstname.mylastname.com which I am not really using but 10 years ago I had a blog and I like the archive to remain accessible somehow.

I access it through POP or through a web interface.

Overall it's been pretty good, and I hardly receive any spam. However these last few months they have had a series of technical issues, including one recently that lasted three days. I thought that sucked pretty badly, but the same happened to my university last year. Tucows gave me a 2-month credit and apologized profusely. Oh well. So I don't know if I really want to recommend them, but you can be aware they're out there. You can check if they have your last name by just typing: www.yourlastname.com or .net and see what happens.

I've had this address for over 5 years I think.

[Chile Pepper]

The domain name corresponding to my last name has been bought by netidentity.com (a service of Tucows.com, a Canadian company).

I am so glad you cleared that up. I couldn't figure out who owned me! It made no sense at all--but now I see the netidentity logo. Case solved.