You Probably Use Gmail Now

[Voulan]

I have both - but I only created a gmail account because it was required to download EBooks.

I think I've only used it the one time to make sure it was working. I should check it out at some point. Hotmail I've been using since 2007 or something ridiculous, and it's one I got with my full name that I use for official things, so there's no way I'm switching my main accounts around. Through uni and work, and also through a hotmail I made for internet friends and gaming things, I've already got 4 email accounts to keep track of.

So you can strike one of that 287.9 million off the list. Ha ha!

Captcha: Game over.

Exactly. It's not really a victory if you're forcing people to use the service in the first place.

 

[Toilet]

Hotmail doesn't work properly on Opera and it was always overloaded with spam.

 

[Dimitriov]

I was one of those people who got into Gmail back in 2004. Because someone walked into the IT department in Job Corps with an account and invites. That means Gmail because the unofficial official email for us Cisco kids.

And we all loved it because it was bigger and better than anyone else. I remember an often repeated question being: "You mean we EACH get a gigabyte?".

Similar story for me (been using GMail for nearly 8 years now) except I started using it back in high school. The benefits of hanging out in the 3d animation and engineering-club computer lab I guess.

But at the time the amount of storage was a real godsend! Boy do I ever remember getting furious at not being able to send stuff because it was too big, or having to delete attachments because I couldn't afford the storage space!

 

[Not Matt]

No I do not. I am still using my email address at yahoo and I see no reason to change that. Yahoo gives me the services I need (the ability to read my email and maybe press a link) why change?

 

[Pebkio]

Similar story for me (been using GMail for nearly 8 years now) except I started using it back in high school. The benefits of hanging out in the 3d animation and engineering-club computer lab I guess.

But at the time the amount of storage was a real godsend! Boy do I ever remember getting furious at not being able to send stuff because it was too big, or having to delete attachments because I couldn't afford the storage space!

Well, the storage space was really a curiosity for us, although it was nice to have a backup for our important files. For transfer, there was this other thing that was big at the time: ICQ. ICQ had this great setting for which we got to use the intranet connection instead of having to go through an outside server... so... 5000kb/s transfers!

 

[Zyst]

My gmail account is my central account for sure, been using it since the 'elitist' invite only days, I have a couple of GMX accounts and another gmail account that all forward through POP3 to my main account. This way I keep work, fun, social accounts, sign ups, etc... completely separate. I just find I enjoy it a lot more that way.

With people who are concerned with the tie in between gmail/youtube/g+ etc.. Honestly I really enjoy that, it just feels very centralized and a one-stop hub, not hey sign up here, and here, and here... Anyhow, I really like it.

 

[Anti-Robot Man]

It's scary that Yahoo is still dominant in the States.

Hotmail is a lot better than it's reputation, and in my experience is better at filtering out spam than Gmail. I keep accounts with both, but I do tend to use gmail a little more these days since I switched from Firefox to Chrome (over the last year or two Firefox went really downhill, while Chrome is now living up to its reputation - when I first tried it it was somehow slower than Explorer).

The numbers of reported users by any of these companies are going to be really inflated, because any sensible person will maintain multiple email accounts.

 

[Dave Melloy]

I use my Hotmail for what it was made for entering an email into dubious sites that will give you spam.

And like most people [email protected] doesn't look very good on a Resume as (first name).(last name)@gmail.com does.

 

[Arakasi]

Both education mail (in some areas) and youtube accounts use Gmail accounts.
As such, for mail itself, merely counting accounts is not an accurate measure of mail users.

 

[cyber95]

I still use hotmail. I can check my hotmail instantly and it updates all the time thanks to the email app of windows 8.

Hopefully google will come up with something similar and then i will switch

This lovely little red icon perched up at the top of Google Chrome is a nice little addon I downloaded. Whenever I have unread emails, it displays a number, telling me how many there are.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I made my gmail account on 21/01/2008 and I have never looked back, spam is a thing of the past, filters are fantastic and the integration with google plus is fantastic.

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

You see, I might have used Gmail, but my Youtube account, and it's subscriptions and accumulated history, are more important to me than my email-server provider. So, that I can't be logged into my Youtube account and my Gmail account at the same time, is a deal breaker for me. It's all about ease of use, and I can be logged in by cookie to Hotmail and Youtube at the same time. Google pissed me off something awful when they wouldn't let me have a Gmail account not automatically bound to Youtube.

Unfortunately my professional email is Gmail, so I'm going to have to go about setting up a third-party email client like Thunderbird soon. I'll probably still use Hotmail for as long as I am able however, due to how integrated it is into my internet presence now.

 

[Metalrocks]

i have been using gmail for many years now and im very happy with it. my wife uses yahoo and every now and then she has some complaints that it dint send off or attachments dint work. but very rarely.
but last week she also got her self a gmail account and she is very happy with it.

 

[The Lugz]

Honestly, this is hardly surprising

Microsoft don't care how messenger fares anymore because they bought skype, and are merging messenger customers into skype ones and phasing out messenger

so panic not you'll still be M$ ruled one way or another.

 

[Akytalusia]

nope. i'll keep mad.scientist.com until it breaks. then i'll find another custom, and i'll keep doing that. i'll never touch yahoo/gmail/hotmail or any other generic host as long as i'm able.

 

[I.Muir]

I do indeed use gmail
Might be the lack of spam, junk, viruses and other nonsense from people attempting to use my friends emails or at least the names of my contacts.
Oh and people trying to get my wow account details with horrible spelling, It was amusing for a little while sending abusive messages back but I got bored.

 

[Strazdas]

well i used Splius, inbox, hotmail and then gmail. i still got all 4 accounts. Gmail is the best one out of 4, and hotmail i use for "spam mail" because ever since microsoft took over MSN.com it went to shiat.

and how much of it is Googles stupid branding that practically makes gmail a ness. evil with things like Youtube (which google ruined) and Android Marketplace.

yep the bastards have took my youtube account and merged it with gmail account evne though the email i used for youtube was specifically created for the purpose of youtube. i wrote multiple petitions to google staff but their responses were robotic generated messadges, bastards. i stopped using youtube because of this.

Microsoft don't care how messenger fares anymore because they bought skype, and are merging messenger customers into skype ones and phasing out messenger

so panic not you'll still be M$ ruled one way or another.

that is implying we use skype, how dare you!

 

[TheEndlessGrey]

This is probably in part due to them forcing people who want to make a youtube account also make a gmail account to register.

Or use the Play store on their Android phone/tablet, which is where you have to go for even the free apps. (Sure, you can copy the install package after connecting your device to a PC with USB cable, but if you think the average consumer is going to be bothered with that...)

 

[Olas]

I have a Gmail account out there somewhere that I never use because Youtube forced me to make one to log into my youtube account. Way to not make yourself look imposing and oppressive google.

My main email is still Yahoo just because why the hell not? I don't really care too much about email anyway.

 

[Dularn]

A lot of people who switched from hotmail to gmail all those years ago might still check hotmail from time to time effectively inflating 'active user' numbers for the service.

For example, I still use my hotmail address to sign up for most sites/promos to avoid excessive spam and newsletters clogging up my main gmail account. I log in occasionally to check it(or if I need to reset a password) but it is definitely secondary to gmail for me.

Furthermore, if the Comscore stats only look at 'unique users' you have to wonder how many of these are old inactive accounts. I imagine the gap is bigger in reality.