Yahoo bumps up free email space

Yahoo Mail users will be pleasantly surprised to find their email storage capacity increased from 4MB to a hefty 100MB from today.

At the same time as overhauling its free email service, Yahoo Mail Extra Storage subscribers have been upgraded to a 2GB mailbox for £11.99 a year, with a la carte services like POP email forwarding bundled in, and the subscription cost reduced.

Yahoo spokesman Brad Garlinghouse said competition was a key factor in the decision, and a desire to "make email storage a non-issue."

Only last month Lycos relaunched its Mail Personal service, with 1GB storage, an ad-free environment, anti-spam and anti-virus software and a free SMS
service for £3.49 per month, and

This follows Google’s test launch of Gmail in April, a free email service offering 1GB storage, though controversially it offers text advertising alongside emails that fit with keywords in the users’ emails, causing outrage from privacy campaigners.

Yahoo’s other changes to its service are largely cosmetic, with an emphasis on making the service work faster and better – such as an upgraded mail search
facilities, not to serve personalised advertisements, but to let users hunt for that essential piece of buried correspondence.