OK, True Brit, Scot raised in England, Educated in Wales and in a bizarre twist of fate now living a...
OK, True Brit, Scot raised in England, Educated in Wales and in a bizarre twist of fate now living and working in the Orient.
Member since:26.07.2001
Reviews:56
Members who trust:7
I came across another.com last year, after seeing their name on a number of billboard ads. Their selling point was that you could select your own URLs to go with you e-mail address. As I was getting a bit disenchanted with my previous account with a different provider I decided to join up.
The site provides the standard the standard facilities that you'd expect from a free e-mail provider. You can send and receive emails without any great problems. There's a perfectly functional address book and the facility to create folders to hide your email away in. Sa far, so good.
So onto the main selling point, the alternate domain names. When you set your account up you get a core default e-mail address yourname@another.com. In addition to this though, you can select alternate domain names from a huge list (Thousands I think) and create a new identity to go before it.
So In addition to Yourname@another.com you could have clevername@fbiagent.co.uk, oneshallstand@talldarkandhandsome.co.uk or whatever.
The list of names seem sto be constantly updated, especially true when there's something particularly popular doing the rounds (Such as big-brother - plenty of evict-so&so addresses turned up).
The site as a whole is simply laid out and easy to navigate around, and when you send an email, you only need to select which of your names you want to use. Ok, it doesn't serve any practical purpose, but some of the names are good fun, so using the same account you can have sensible work style addresses and fun ones to use for friends.
They recently introduced a Domain Name service, which allows you to 'buy' your own .co.uk name, which they then host for you. This allows you to use that name for your another.com emails, and you can allow other another.com members of your choice to use it as well. They will also point the domain name at the URL of your choice, so it's an easy way to personalise your website. All this for only £10 a year, a reasonable price compared to the alternatives.
Drawbacks, only a couple. When my mum set up the Domain Name for her site through them (At my recommendation), it took a while before the domain got pointed at her web-space (Longer thna the three hours advertised, anyway). The only other little hassle is that to fully log out, you need to click on a link to one of their sponsors. Not terribly frustrating, but a little distracting.
Addendum:
Well, it turns out that another.com have decided to start charging people to use their service. Admittedly it's only £15 a year, but considering I already have an email account with the dial-up that I pay for, I don't feel the need to pay for another, no matter how cool the domain name options are.
This doesn't alter my opinion on the competence of the service, I just don't feel justified in paying for an on-line service that does what is primarily the same as my dial-up's email account, well, not even that much.
Addendum 2 - The Sequel..
Oh how guilty I feel. As mentioned above, my mum took up their domain name offer. This means that under the terms they used...
1) In order to keep using the name she thought she had bought and paid for...she has to keep using Another.com to access it.
2) Another.com use a conract which means that you can't transfer the domain name you register. When you pay for it, it becomes property of another.com apparently - so if you become disenchanted with the service....hard lines.
A good example of why you should always read the agreements when you sign up for something online.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Hello. I did find this very informative but think I'll stick with my hotmail address. Julia.
VickyVickster 28.01.2004 13:09
some companies are so underhanded....*growls*
Shadowtwinchaos 04.01.2003 18:54
I have to agree with you. It's fun and handy. But I don't see myself paying for it. There are many great sites that I have found and enjoyed only to have them start charging for their services. :( Great op. Peace
Aug 14th, 2001
(Apr 19th, 2003)
very helpful by (97%):
helpful by (3%):
