Like probably most people here I have about a dozen email addresses, one of which is a Yahoo account. As some of you might know, recently Yahoo! decided that free email doesn't make money (took them long enough!) and made the POP3 retrieval a pay-only service (web mail is still free.)

Well I hate web mail, and apparently I'm not alone. I recently came across a program called YahooPops which is a little tiny POP3 daemon that sits in your tray and, when your email client connects, goes and gets your mail from Yahoo via the webmail interface and deposits it in your POP3 client's inbox. You set up your client to use localhost as your POP3 server, but it actually goes out to Yahoo and acts as a POP3->webmail bridge. It seems to be working very well for me, and I wanted to share the link for anyone else who still uses a Yahoo email account.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/yahoopops/

I'm guessing it could be subject to Yahoo's lawyers cease and desisting them at some point, and certainly Yahoo could try to shake them by changing the web page layouts, etc. (kinda like AOL did with Instant messenger to try to thwart Trillian users)... But until that happens, this little app will save me a lot of time.

Yeah, I have Hotmail and in order to grub even more money they made POP3 a pay-only service too. Damnit! I had Hotmail when it was a mere baby. When it was free from the corruption (spam) of the world (MS). Now it's grown up to be one ugly adult.

I don't understand what the complaint is about. Hotmail has to pay people, and pay for its operations and costs. If everything gets it for nothing.... then eventually there will be nothing.... (I'm paying for Hotmail).

Calvin

Just so there's no confusion, I have no problem with email providers charging for certain services, but I also have no problem with using a gateway program like this to get my webmail via POP3. Just taking information from one medium and transferring it to another medium that I happen to prefer. They can go after the authors of the software if they think it's cutting into their ability to sell their service, but until then, I'm enjoying the POP3 access.

Well think about it. By forcing non-paying users through their web interface, they can splash them with advertisements. So in effect, paying for use of the service. If you sidestep the advertisements, then you're *completely* freeloading. So given that, they made a compromise and allow you to pay for the service of avoiding all the ads and using POP3. What's wrong with that?

If you have no problem paying for "certain services" well, in my mind's eye, this looks like a service worth paying for.

Calvin

You misread my statement. I said I have no problem with email providers charging for certain services. I didn't say I didn't have a problem with *me* paying for them, because, well, I'm not going to pay for email when I get it through my ISP already.

My Yahoo! mail account is simply a convenience because I have so many other places (incl. this BBS) where I've used it, and it keeps the spam away from my ISP's account and my permanent forwarding address, which I try not to give out. I don't mind them charging, but if I can find a way to avoid the charges, and it's legal, I'm all about it. I'll let the scholars debate whether it's ethical, but from a technical standpoint, all it's doing is translating information from the webmail interface to your POP3 inbox. I could write a script to do the same thing. This POP3 server is just a much more convenient way to do it.

My complaint is completely valid. I don't see why it shouldn't be. I can complain to my heart's content about having a feature taken away from me by a provider that has fallen miles in their service already.

Hotmail has to make quite a bit of cash off of the ads on their site. I can't imagine that the 5 (*edit* scratch that, about 15) banner ads and 2 pop-ups I get a session don't pay for my <2MB of space. I also can't imagine that POP3 access costs them very much. I still have my 2MB of space and just filling it with different email.

So what else is this move other than a way to get extra dough from people? I'm open to a reasonable explanation.


Plus, if you'll notice, most of my own post was complaining about their overall lousy service. I recently signed someone up for a Hotmail account, and the very first time I checked their inbox, they had a welcome letter from MSN and 2 or 3 spam messages. That's inexcusable. Plus, their filters are useless.

All Hotmail is now for me is merely an address used for online forms.

Yahoo started charging, unless you use the service mentioned above, but the charge is only 20 bucks a year... How much is Hotmail's?

Hotmail's is also $20 I think. However, I own a domain name and I pay for hosting all for $100 a year. My host recently added webmail for nothing extra.

I consider this a far greater value than these Hotmail and Yahoo services because you have all the control, and you can add a number of addresses (my girlfriend has one at my domain as well).

Hotmail, I know for sure, is not worth it.

When USA.Net went to charge only, my friend and I decided to just get a domain name and deal with that fee each year for our e-mail. I simply host it off my server at home, and have a backup server on the RioCar.Org server. So for the price of a domain a year, we have unlimited storage e-mail accounts, with as many aliases we want. I use a trick on my e-mail address now on forms where I toss in an _sitename after my username, and so if it starts getting spam, I simply toss the address into a file to watch it die. I don't have to do anything to create it, it just works.

Hotmail and other free accounts were great when they started. The idea of not having to change addresses with ISPs, etc... But unfortunatly the dot bomb occured, and with it went decent service. Now almost all "free" e-mail accounts are spam buckets.

Remember kids - POPping your free yahoo account is piracy.

Now almost all "free" e-mail accounts are spam buckets.

Or spam factories...

I used to have a hotmail account that I created before I found fetchmail so I never used it and never gave it out.
No big surprise here, I STILL got it full to my mailbox limit of spam.
It it still there now, I have no clue what the password is.