Google Mail

The original promise of Google Mail was that you need never delete or file an email again, with its huge capacity (currently over 7GB and increasing all the time) and superb search replacing the need for those tiresome chores. Emails can still have labels applied, and the links to these act a little like folders, but it takes a while to get used to. As with GMX, you can add external email accounts but are limited to just five. The interface has changed little over the years, and isn’t as intuitive as the other services reviewed here. But its smartest trick is to group messages into conversations, so you can always find an entire discourse at a glance.

The spam filtering is good but is not configurable and only attachments are scanned. You can access your email using POP or IMAP, but the auto responder is either on or off, with no expiration option. Integrated Google Talk lets you chat online and make internet calls, though it’s likely that only fellow Google Mail users will be found using it. Despite a comparatively dated interface, Google Mail is still an excellent service, but it needs to step up to start competing with GMX.

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