Good free safe email provider

[migrant]

As I move toward retirement I am reviewing many of my costs.

For ease of use I have kept my AOL account for e-mail, along with my company e-mail.

The company one will end, and I want to cut the $18usd/month AOL account.

So my question to my knowledgable fellow forum members is, what is a good, free, safe e-mail provider that I can set up, and use, here in the states and Thailand?

Thanks

[Bamboo Grove]

You will probably get many answers. For me, whether in Thailand/Vietnam/Chile or Finland, gmail.com has always worked out well.

[pharvey]

I'm sure several will disagree (due to the dreaded GOOGLE), but I would go with a "gmail" account. Have held (a free) one for many years, with zero problems. The company email is also gmail based, but obviously not free.....



[EDIT] Sorry - missed BG's post.

[Ginjaninja]

I've used Yahoo for years. Doesn't cost me anything and I would even consider upgrading to the 'ad-free' version (£29.99/year) but I can handle the ads for now

GN.

[GLCQuantum]

Not everyone's favourite, but in ten years I've never had a problem with Yahoo. Free's free. I've never cleaned it out once either ( ) so have about 8000 unread emails on there from various sites I use and still runs fine. Never been hacked. Never had people on my contact list get weird emails from me. Spam gets sent to spam so I never see it.

Works for me, but depends what kinda emails ya gonna be using it for I'm sure. I've never really understood the reason to pay for an email service providing you're not sending top secret data. Some email providers will charge if you want to to be able to attach/receive large files but, if it's not a frequent thing, you can just use another site for that... for free.

[pdm3547]

A vote for Gmail from me

[Jose]

gmail for me for both private and business

[dtaai-maai]

As I move toward retirement I am reviewing many of my costs.

For ease of use I have kept my AOL account for e-mail, along with my company e-mail.

The company one will end, and I want to cut the $18usd/month AOL account.

So my question to my knowledgable fellow forum members is, what is a good, free, safe e-mail provider that I can set up, and use, here in the states and Thailand?

Thanks

For ease of use (i.e. not going through the hassle of changing your email address), you might want to explore with AOL the possibility of converting to a free account while retaining the same email address.

I had an AOL account when I first started using the Internet in the mid-late 90s. Although I later created a Yahoo account in c. 2005, I never cancelled the AOL account and at some point the direct debit simply stopped. I still have the AOL account, which I only use occasionally.

I cancelled the Yahoo account after it was hacked and have had gmail as my main email provider since. I'm very happy with that service.

[Big Boy]

I wanted something reliable when I was in the same situation as the OP. I arranged a 'paid for' service and STRUGGLED on with it for over 2 years. I had just paid my third years subscription when it completely failed - support was minimal.

This became extremely stressful because my life was built around it. I finally decided to write off my subscription and go with gmail - never had an e-mail problem since.

Problem is, if you make a bad decision as I did, it takes months to rectify it. You will find that inadvertantly your e-mail address becomes your log on/security for many things. Some you don't use for a long time, and when you do, you suddenly realise you no longer have access when you need it. Rectification can be very difficult/time consuming.

Whatever you decide, keep an accurate record of where that address is used so that you can undo things if it goes wrong.

[buksida]

Would also recommend Gmail - avoid Hotmail and Yahoo unless you want half of your genuine mail going into the spam folder every time.

Gmail can also be used with email clients such as Thunderbird and setup on smartphones.

[migrant]

Thanks All! My son uses Gmail and likes it. Never thought aol has a free service, will have to look into it, good idea!

[Roel]

Gmail

[Dannie Boy]

I also support what most of the replies have recommended - gmail.

[caller]

I have three providers for different email addresses used for various different reasons. They include Hotmail and yahoo and I have never experienced problems with any of them, although the ads on yahoo irked at first!

[kendo]

I use multiple email accounts for business and other reasons. Two Yahoo accounts have been hacked over the years But Gmail has never given me a single issue.
Gmail also is well recognized when setting up Android applications.