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Hotmail Yahoo!

Hotmail Yahoo! logos Hotmail Yahoo! — Windows Live Hotmail is the first or second most popular webmail service in the world; Yahoo! is one of the most visited website worldwide, and Yahoo! Mail is Hotmail's main competitor in the free email providing arena. Usage stats suggest that Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are neck-and-neck for the top spot. Hotmail Yahoo! are two services worth considering when choosing an online mail service. Yahoo! Mail fully integrates with the remaining Yahoo! properties (including the main Yahoo! website, and the My Yahoo! portal), while Hotmail is tightly integrated with other Microsoft online services, including the MSN website, and other Windows Live properties (the Hotmail chat/IM client Windows Live Messenger, the Live.com profiles and community, etc.) This tutorial will attempt to clarify the best choice between Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, considering also the Hotmail Yahoo! ecosystem you will find yourself in once you have made your choice.

Hotmail Yahoo: Preliminary Clarification

Hotmail is a free webmail service provided and supported by the Windows Live team, a group at Microsoft. Yahoo! Mail, on the other hand, is the Hotmail counterpart created by the company Yahoo! - so, when we talk about Hotmail Yahoo! comparisons, we are referring to benchmarks between Microsoft and Yahoo! as companies on one side, and Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail on the other for competing free online webmail services.

This out of the way, let's start our Hotmail Yahoo! overview:

Hotmail Yahoo! price comparison

Both Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are free webmail services, at least when it comes to basic email functionality; but both Microsoft and Yahoo! offer a paid version of their email service, which adds features on top of existing functionality, and -perhaps most importantly- permanently removes, or hides, the ads: these two paid services are respectively called Hotmail Plus and Yahoo! Mail Plus.

Otherwise, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail cost the same thing, which is "nothing" - you will enjoy both email services as long as you want, without paying a dime. Note, however, that both Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail do delete unused email accounts on a regular basis: if you do not log in to your Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail account for an extended period of time, your email address will be canceled, and released back as available when new users come to sign up for their Hotmail/Yahoo! email address. So, whichever service you choose, make sure to use it at least once a month.

Hotmail Yahoo! Mail — and your operating system

Both Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are webmail services, but their emails can also be checked from regular desktop email clients like Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Mac Mail, or Mozilla Thunderbird. This leads to the following question: should you pick Hotmail over Yahoo! Mail (or the reverse) based on your operating system (Windows/Mac/Linux)?

Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail from a desktop email program

The answer is "no" - while Hotmail is created by the same company that makes Windows XP/Vista/7, you do not need to be on Windows to use Hotmail: but you do need to be on Windows if you want to use the free Windows Live Mail email program created by Microsoft for Windows users. Windows Live Mail is designed to specifically integrate with Hotmail, something less straightforward to do with other non-Windows email programs. (Note that you also get that kind of tight integration by using the free Outlook Connector with Microsoft Outlook 2003, or Outlook 2007).

By the same token, should you be on a specific operating system when using Yahoo! Mail? The answer is "no" here again: you can check your Yahoo! Mail account emails from any email program you like (Windows/Mac/Linux). Both Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail have changed the email protocols they support over the years, and the conditions under which you can check your Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail emails. (Restrictions placed on whether or not you are currently paying a Hotmail Plus or Yahoo! Mail Plus subscription, for example.)

Hotmail Yahoo! Mail free vs. paid version of the service

As Gmail gained popularity, both Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail have added features, and brought to the free Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail services features that used to belong to paid subscribers only (like the ability to check your emails from an desktop email program in some circumstances). Nowadays, under the growing threat of Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! have started becoming much more competitive with the free version of their webmail service. (Think, for example, of Hotmail's "Ever Growing" storage - a few years ago, the free version of Hotmail had limited storage space, as did Yahoo! Mail at the time and earlier.)

Given how much storage and functionality you get with the free version of Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, we don't think that upgrading to Hotmail Plus or Yahoo! Mail Plus is such a compelling proposition anymore. But we do subscribe to both Hotmail Plus and Yahoo! Mail Plus simply because the paid service removes the ads: this means that you can check your emails without any slow-loading pages (because of graphical ad banners), or distracting flashing graphics next to the text of the email you are trying to read.

Hotmail Yahoo! and the ecosystem

Are you currently using "My Yahoo!"? Or your Live.com profile? Since Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are such close competitors in terms of offerings, we think that your best move will be to use the webmail service of the company whose other products you use most. Again, not thinking of whether or not you use Windows or Mac or Linux, just which websites to you use most often - My Yahoo! is a great way to aggregate all your RSS feeds in a single place (What is RSS?) In sum, Hotmail Yahoo! is too close a call to make without your other preferences!

This concludes our brief Hotmail Yahoo! Mail tutorial, which hopefully shed some light on the similarities and differences of the two services to help you make a decision.

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