PUBLIC MARKS with tags email & web-based

Mac is more than just an e-mail service, it’s an entire package from Apple. For $99 a year, you’ll net yourself an e-mail address that ends in “@mac.com”. If this cool moniker isn’t enough to turn you over to the side of Jobs, the additional features of this service will. You can publish photos for everyone to see, have a personal webpage hosted for you without the need to worry about bandwidth, keep multiple Macs in sync with each other, have blogging capabilities, get free storage with iDisk for backing up files, and a whole lot more. Though $99 may seem a bit expensive at first glance, remember what you’ll be getting with it. This e-mail service is not recommended for Windows users since you won’t be able to take full advantage of the .Mac services offered.

If security is your thing, you may want to give Hushmail a try. Hushmail encrypts all of your e-mails and automatically scans for viruses and SPAM. It’s free to sign up and get an account, but you can add lots of features to your account for a relatively low cost. You can even use Hushmail with your website to make sure e-mail is secure from any address you use. Hushmail also encrypts files when sending them through e-mail so you’ll never have to worry about someone discovering your data again.

Sometimes we all see a promotion online that looks too good to be true. We give a company our e-mail address and a week later we have 1,200 new SPAM e-mails a day. Save yourself the hassle by using a disposable, anonymous e-mail address. MyTrashMail provides a great service for free that lets you use an anonymous address very quickly, with no password or sign-up needed. It’s perfect for things like e-mail verification, signing up for promotions, and dealing with people you’re not fond of.

Yet another company that has been around for awhile, Lycos also offers free e-mail with some great features. You’ll be glad to know you’re heavily guarded from SPAM and phishing attacks and can block domains and e-mail addresses that you don’t want to receive messages from. Disk storage is upgradeable so that if you need more room, you can easily obtain it for a decent cost. You’ll also be able to compose e-mails with HTML which will give you the ability to make your messages look pretty and make them a little more personal. Their Lycos Mail Plus service allows POP3 access, no ads, and 125MB of storage. Don’t expect to be sending files left and right with Lycos, but their service is pretty decent for free e-mail.

With a domain name like mail.com, you’d expect it to be the king of all e-mail. It’s not, but Mail does have a lot to offer you. Their free e-mail service includes the usual anti-virus and SPAM protection you’d expect by now. In addition, you also get some pretty handy features like a notepad, calendar, address book, and more. They’re also offering their Mail.com instant messenger, which lets you use services like AIM, ICQ, and MSN all in one client. Not too bad for a free service. They also offer a list of domains to choose from so that you can get an address that you like, just in case “@mail.com” is a little too plain for you.

Not everyone needs a feature-rich e-mail service. MuchoMail is a very simple web-based e-mail service that will most likely suit your needs. Storage is lacking, though, with only 25MB of space available for users of the free service and 1GB for premium users. You get SPAM protection, anti-virus, folders, and a few other basic e-mail features like attachments and an address book. Not everyone needs the power of Gmail or the security of Hushmail, so if you know someone looking for a very simple to use, free, robust e-mail service, tell them to try out MuchoMail. Sometimes having no frills can be a good thing.