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Article ID: 10477
Title: Choosing a Free E-mail Service
By: Dachary Carey

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Choosing a Free E-mail Service

Internet-10

If you’re looking for a free e-mail service, you have a ton of options at your fingertips. Hundreds of providers offer free e-mail, because advertising in e-mail is a big source of revenue for many providers.

The difference between free e-mail and paid e-mail is advertising. Free e-mail providers place banners in the software, or send e-mails to users that contain links to sponsors’ products and services. Because there are so many competing services, providers offer a range of features to entice users to sign up. These features may include increased storage space, spam filtering, the ability to combine existing e-mail services and the ability to use external e-mail software, such as Microsoft Outlook, to access your account. Many Web hosting providers offer free e-mail as part of a Web hosting package, giving you the option to create one or many e-mail accounts with specialized domain names. You can also get a free account from many Internet service providers, such as Comcast.

Advertising Supported
Free e-mail services get their revenue by advertising in your Inbox. Some services feature several advertising banners, including large banners at the top of the screen and wide banners on either side of the screen. Sometimes these banners expand to fill your screen until you click a designated spot, or force you to watch an advertisement before allowing you to access your e-mail. Other free e-mail providers feature small text advertisements that are much less obtrusive than overwhelming Flash banners.

Google e-mail, or Gmail, is a great example of an unobtrusive provider because the advertising consists of only a small text banner at the top of the screen or a text-based side panel next to the e-mails that you read. Gmail uses contextual advertising that uses keywords in what you’re reading to decide which ads to display. Gmail’s advertising services can actually be a great way to find useful information.