Entered CNET Catalog: 05/31/2002
SKU: CNETMAILDOTCOM
Manufacturer: Net2Phone, Inc.
CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 07/09/2002
Invasion of the privacy snatchers
For starters, Mail.com digs deeper into your personal life than other free Web e-mailers. When you register, it asks for your name, current e-mail address, and mailing address. On the upside, though, Mail.com lets you choose an e-mail alias with all kinds of phrases for your domain, the part of an address that comes after the @ sign, ranging from the boring mail.com or lawyer.com to the exotic seductive.com or mad.scientist.com.
If you find Yahoo's interface busy-looking, you'll go cross-eyed with Mail.com. So many ads squeeze into the main e-mail window, they squish Mail.com's navigational tools into a small frame at the left of the browser window. Your account's primary interface is only a bit cleaner: ads appear at the left, at the top, and even in the middle of the page. Ugh! However, if you're willing to part with $10, you can buy a year's worth of the ad-free version.
Missing in action
Once you finally reach your in-box, you can compose messages; attach as many as three files per message, totaling no more than 2MB; create folders to organize messages; move messages between folders; and sort mail by column headings, such as subject and date. Mail.com lets you grab mail from up to five POP 3 accounts, but it doesn't integrate with desktop e-mailers, as does Hotmail. By the way, Mail.com keeps your account active for 60 days between log-ins--twice as long as Hotmail does--but it bounces back incoming mail and deletes received messages and contacts in your address book if you don't use the service frequently.
Unfortunately, Mail.com is missing features offered by first-rate Web services such as Yahoo. Need the security of a virus sniffer to make you feel safe downloading attachments? Mail.com doesn't offer one. Like to proof your outgoing mail for typing goofs? Not going to happen here. Mail.com is missing a spelling checker, too. Want to import addresses from desktop clients, such as Eudora? No can do. Yearn to search for a specific message? Don't bother; there's no search tool at Mail.com.
Shoddy spam defense
It gets worse. Mail.com is also vulnerable to junk mail. Its antispam tool only lets you specify senders that you want to block, and you must enter a full address, so you can't stop spam that comes from multiple senders at the same domain. No surprise, then, that Mail.com eliminated exactly 0 percent of our incoming junk mail. Unlike the last time we looked at this service, however, Mail.com now prevents others from using either the Back button on your browser or the History tool to see your mail, assuming that you log out of Mail.com when you're through. Phew.
Thankfully, Mail.com's tech support is adequate. You'll find online help files--but no search tool to make it easier to find answers--as well as an e-mail link on the site to Mail.com's help desk.
Don't settle
Mail.com is the least reliable free e-mail service we tested. The tip-off: the help page entitled "When the Web site is down, will I lose my e-mail?" Mail.com kept us from our in-box once during our two-week, twice-per-day logon tests. That's better than the last time we reviewed the service, when it was down 20 percent of the time, but it's still unnerving.
Despite Mail.com's 10MB storage allowance, its skimpy features and glut of ads aren't palatable. Steer toward Yahoo Mail instead.
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User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
User Rating: 
2/10
Frustrating and often near-useless
Pros: Free. Many usernames are available. Probably because its so bad.
Cons: Doesn't work the majority of the time. Slow when you are lucky enough for it to function.
User Rating: 
1/10
Mail.com is unreliable & loads huge memory using ads
Pros: This is a free internet mail provider with lots of domains.
Cons: S-L-O-W! During peak hours often UNAVAILABLE!
Support neither responsive or effective. Many "file not found" warnings when trying
to open email. Often "server busy try again" warning when sending email - unless user saved the email it will be LOST!
page. I am convinced overloading pages with ads makes using Mail.com too S-L-O-W. Also be wary of the ineffective spam protection. Users must carefully and completely enter addresses on their blacklist. The spammer needs change only one character and their spam gets through. More annoying than the overused advertisements is the frustrating service. Too often warnings (red bordered triangle with black exclamation point) greet a user with "File Not Found" or "System Busy Try Again Later" messages when trying to open and read an email. During peak usage times one may be unable to logon to the website. Sending emails is unreliable. Too many times a user completes an email, clicks "sends" and receives a "System Busy Try Again" warning. Unless the user saved the email it will be LOST. One "bug" is an email may display in the user's "Sent" folder but the email did NOT get sent! I know this because I habitually backcopy important messages to my business email and there are times they don't get delivered or arrive days later. Contacting Mail.com Support is not easy, seldom results in a personal reply, seldom corrects the problem(s) and generates virtually no follow-up. It should be no surprise that contents of the few messages I have received from Mail.com Support makes it clear that priority is given to Premium (paying) clients. I believe that as more subscribers join Mail.com their service deteriorates. I cannot and will not recommend Mail.com to you.
User Rating: 1/10
Load of Crap
Pros: If you like crap, this is for you.
Cons: Everything, from, spam, to downtime.
User Rating: 1/10
Connection is down more than it's running!
Pros: Free. For the peeps, who give this site 2 stars and above...please! You've got to be joking, get back to work. Stop wasting time rating your own company, and get your a*s on the server and in customer service.
Cons: I see comments from 2002 on this site and seems nothings changed in the last 6 years. They're horrible. A lot of downtime and connection failures. No tech support. SUPER slow. Don't say, you weren't already warned! Run, run far away...
User Rating: 1/10
Avoid at all costs
Pros: None that cant be found elsewhere
Cons: A vessel for intrusive advertising and scams
User Rating: 1/10
STAY AWAY from this service - they will lose your e-mail eventualy...they lost my entire inbox!!
Pros: Free...but so are many, many other better services...use those
Cons: They will lose your e-mail/inbox, small inbox, regular outages in accessing your account
User Rating: 
8/10
Strong webmail alternative with excellent domains
Pros: Paid services are excellent, responsive customer service and excellent domain names
Cons: Free service has more ads than other providers
The definite con is that the free service has generally been inundated with a lot of ads, and although pop-ups are frequently reported, the latest version of any browser or toolbar will happily block them without you ever knowing that there were ads in the first place. The webmail interface of the free service.
Mail.com also offers Calendar, Notepads, e-cards, forums, video, chat and a personals section.
User Rating: 1/10
Loaded with Spyware, Trojans, DANGEROUS
Pros: Lots of domains offered
Cons: Spyware, Adware, Trojans, DANGEROUS
KEEP AWAY! There is no way around it, let the user beware!
User Rating: 1/10
Worst you could imagine !!!
Pros: choosing your fancy domain name is the LURE
Cons: popups , adbanners ,infrequently down service
premium service i did try for 2 years is good ads free, but it hurts to pay for email when it is obviously free everywhere else.. you seem to be the only guy paying for his email service.
mail.com did not warn me of this black mail tactics for the first few months i signed up for this cool @dr.com domain name ( couple of other fancy ones avaialble).
later now , when i gave this email id. out i am being coerced into signing up for the paid no - ads service. which unfortunately does not come with the pop3 access( additional charge)
so my advice dont let the fancy domain names fool you.
User Rating: 2/10
very inadequate
Pros: easy to use, good options
Cons: very bad customer service
User Rating: 1/10
MAIL.COM SUCKS
Pros: used to be good once upon a time & convenient domain names
Cons: Now its sucks. Not sure abt the premium service. If ou are looking for something free this is definetely not the one. Too many ads - troublesome popups. A real pain to get to UR mails.
User Rating: 8/10
It's a really good service.
Pros: It's always on. The new calendar feature is nice for busy people like myself. I have never had a problem logging on and checking my email.
Cons: It does have quite a few ads. Considering you get 10MB of free email storage I dont have a problem closing 2 or 3 pop ups.
User Rating: 2/10
Ugly Service
Pros: none
Cons: Alomost none for SPAM filtering (MAIL.COM has a very very poor filter function that is not practicallyt effecive.) Pop-Ads kills the overall performance and bothers duringing navigation uinside Mail.com.
User Rating: 8/10
solid, reliable, premium-service enabled e-mail service
Pros: Distinctly superior to most other free e-mail, while the premium services are generally faultless. Bigger mailbox; very good anti-spam; high speed; efficient layout; a huge choice of domains
Cons: Management doesn't have a clue about marketing the service; occasionally lacking in tech support, though still better than most big-name providers
User Rating: 
9/10
A decent alternative
Pros: Good domain names (best in the industry) Excellent customer service for a free e-mail services, its not the usual automatic stuff. Excellent anti-spam support 10 Megabytes. Good email functionality Good prices for premium services
Cons: Loads of advertising oversimplistic interface lack of new features.
User Rating: 
4/10
If lookin for a web-based e-mail service, go elsewhere
Pros: I started using mail.com six years ago when it worked fine, had no so many ads, and, that's why I choosed it, it was the only webmail that allowed its use through Eudora or any other e-mail client. Although it was a payed service, at that tome nor Yahoo n
Cons: Slow, unreliable, too many ads, no spell checking, no virus checking
User Rating: 
7/10
Mail.com was cool before Net2Phone bought it.
Pros:
Cons: I signed up with Mail.com in early 2000. It seemed to be a great service with a lot of nice features until Net2Phone bought it a year later. It's like Net2Phone wants to run it into the ground.
User Rating: 
3/10
Worst service on the Net
Pros: I have an easy mail address
Cons: Even with their pay service featurs it terrible. They must spend around $5/month for service maintenance. When you do get on, have to deal with an average of three pop ups as soon as you log on, then one or two after every action. Would not trust them wit
User Rating: 3/10
Slow and, full of ads
Pros: Free
Cons: Too many interrupting ads. Ridiculously slow servers. A lot of down time.
User Rating: 3/10
mail.com is slow and I cannot login
Pros: Free
Cons: Slow. The server is down too often. There is no technical support.
User Rating: 1/10
Mail.COM sucks big time!!!
Pros:
Cons: Even if you pay for Premium POP3 service to avoid all the pop up ad's on the web based interface it is too slow to connect except at night or very early in the morning.
User Rating: 3/10
too slow!!!
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User Rating: 8/10
You want a domain, Mail.com has it
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User Rating: 4/10
Today's a bad day to ask..
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User Rating: 
10/10
F****** stupid and not worth a try!
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User Rating: 3/10
Horrible Service
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User Rating: 3/10
very poor customer service, even if you pay them
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User Rating: 
6/10
Desearves 1 out of 10
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