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iOpus' list of the TOP 5 BEST free POP3 & SMTP Email providers
Why only five listings? Because we want to list only the best free email services on the web which we tested ourselves. Besides, even the listed TOP 5 email services are already four more than one really needs :-)
All listed free email providers offer as a minimum free POP3 and SMTP services which means you can receive and send email with your favorite email software (like Microsoft Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Email and many others).
Note: Times are changing! When we created this in list in 1999 we intended to help users to select the BEST service from hundreds of good and FREE email providers. Meanwhile most free email services have stopped operating or started charging a fee even for their most basic email accounts. As our users tell us, this has made this list more important than ever: We list the few remaining email providers that offer at least a basic FREE POP/SMTP account.
In order to provide you with the best possible selection of free email accounts, we no longer restrict our selection to providers with an English user interface. In fact, our current No. 2(3) free email service is GMX, a German company. They provide an excellent free email account once you struggled through their German registration dialogs. |
| TOP |
Name |
Description |
| 1 |
GMail
http://gmail.google.com |
GMail offers POP/SMTP/IMAP access to its email and is extremely fast and reliable. Also Gmail offers the best Anti-Spam filter of all tested solutions.
Tip1: The free Mozilla Thunderbird email client includes built-in support for Gmail, this makes setting up an account very easy.
Tip 2: You have your own email server? Then use GMail as hosted SPAM Filter.
Here are the settings:
POP server: pop.gmail.com, Port: 995 (SSL)
SMTP: smtp.gmail.com, Port: 465 (SSL)
User name: your Gmail email address.
Google GMail setup tutorials
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| 2 |
No second place
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Gmail is so much better than any of the other free email services we tested that we decided the leave the second place empty to visually show the gap between Gmail and the other winners.
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| 3 |
GMX
http://www.gmx.com |
GMX is a very good and RELIABLE email provider. Since GMX is the biggest provider of free email in Germany it is for sure here to stay. Note: Unfortunately GMX discontinued their English language service lately. They now only maintain the German user interface. Tip: You can use a free Online translation services or a dictionary for help with the German sign-up form. We think that GMX is so good, it is worth the sign-up trouble!
Recent change as of November 2007: John from UK reports: Hi, I just wanted to let you know, EU members can now once again sign up for GNX using their own choice of password and user name, simply by going to http://www.gmx.com and the system should automatically detect where you are located and offer the correct page.
POP3: pop.gmx.net
SMTP: mail.gmx.net |
| 4 |
HotPoP
http://www.HotPOP.com
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Easy setup and works ok - and that is more than you can expect with most free email services. Note that the free account has a 500 KB size limit for email messages.
POP3: pop.hotpop.com,
SMTP: mail.hotpop.com |
| 5 |
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Want to suggest a service? Please let us know here.
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Attention, Security Tip: You are using the Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Most security experts recommend Firefox:
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You think you know an EVEN BETTER free email account provider ? Please let us know about it and WHY do you think it is better. If we choose to take it into our TOP 5 list you will receive a FREE registration of an iOpus utility of your choice (rsp. your money back if you are are already a registered user.) The most crucial point we look for in an email service is reliability, i. e. it should be available 24h a day and 365 days a year.
Here is a list of services that were suggested to us lately and that are queued for testing:
Want to suggest a service? Please let us know here.
And here is a list of email services that we tested recently already and rejected them, i. e. they did not make it into the "iOpus' TOP 5 List of free SMTP / POP3 email providers" or they were removed from it (like ZXMAIL) because their service got worse. Please note that these rejected services might still be good and useful. They simply did not make it into our "TOP 5" list, i. e. they are - according to our opinion and tests - not better than any of the 5 free email providers in the IOPUS's TOP 5 list.
- http://www.bluebottle.com - Discontinued free SMTP in 6/2008.
- http://www.nettaxi.com - Discontinued SMTP service
- http://www.MailAndNews.com - not accepting new users
- http://www.crosswinds.net - no longer free SMTP & POP3
- http://www.bluehome.net - unreliable
- http://www.hempseed.net - unreliable
- http://www.web.de - good, but restricted to Europe
- http://www.zxmail.com - no longer free SMTP & POP3
- http://www.ematic.com - unreliable
- http://www.forfree.at - not accepting new users
- http://www.atlas.cz - unreliable
- http://www.pplmail.com - unreliable
- http://www.geocities.com - no more SMTP & POP3
- http://www.hotmail.com - no SMTP & POP3
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