... When I first got an account, you had to log into it by going to freeserve.com and type in your e-mail address and change the ending box(eg. fsmail.net). Now, you simply go to fsmail.net and type in your address and password and you are logged in.
Registration is very simple and easy, ... Read review
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A review by thespurs on freeserve.com September 23rd, 2004
Author's product rating:
Layout & Design
Excellent
Navigation
Excellent
How fast is this website?
Satisfactory
MB Capacity
Good
Features
Excellent
Server Reliability
Excellent
Advantages:
Free, well set out and well maintained
Disadvantages:
Perhaps a little slow
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I have a couple of e-mail accounts with Wanadoo, formerly Freeserve, for quite a while now. Freeserve/Wanadoo is the first e-mail service that I have ever used since having regular of the internet. I still use their e-mail, but it is much easier to have my Hotmail account as my main address. This is because my MSN shows the number of new messages in my inbox. In this review of fsmail.net, I will try and give as detailed an account of what the service entails as possible.
As I was an inexperienced surfer of the net, I didn't know about Hotmail. In my search for a free e-mail service, I came across this one whilst signing up for my Freeserve internet subscription. The registering and setting up of the account has changed since then, but it is still very fast and easy to do. When I first got an account, you had to log into it by going to freeserve.com and type in your e-mail address and change the ending box(eg. fsmail.net). Now, you simply go to fsmail.net and type in your address and password and you are logged in.
Registration is very simple and easy, you just complete these simple stages -
Stage 1 - You can create your own e-mail address, e.g. dooyoo@fsmail.net. However, if somebody else already has that name you will have to choose another one. You then enter as password and answer a security question in case you forget your password. You then type in the numbers and digits that appear on the screen, a security feature that Wanadoo has. Then you enter your personal details, such as name and address.
Stage 2 - The next page, gives you advice and tips on how to use your account to its maximum potential. For most people, this is fairly basic and you may choose to skip it. For those who are novices, it is really helpful and well organised advice. I found it very helpful when I had first signed up.
Stage 3 - This is just a simple phase, which asks you to read the terms and conditions of the service. Just simply click that you agree and move on to the last step.
Stage 4 - You are now a fully subscribed user of the Wanadoo mailing service. On the page, your key details are displayed and you are then invited to start making use of your account. Just a couple of minutes to sign-up and now you have the world of communication at your feet and it was all for free.
The basic Wanadoo e-mail package gives you, the user, the following benifits and services: Free Webmail service - this is fairly obvious because this is what you actuallywant, an e-mail account
Anti Spam and Anti Virus - this is a control that stops dodgy messages that may contain a virus, reaching your inbox
Advanced junk mail filtering - this is another good feature that will stop those annoying adverts and promotions from reaching your main mailbox, instead that will be filtered and placed in the junk-mail folder
Email blocking feature - you can choose to block e-mails that are sent from certain addresses so that you aren't continuously bombarded with usless and time-wasting information
Folders to organise your mail - there are a number of different folders provided, so that you can move your messages around. They are: the inbox which is self explanitory; the sent mail folder which stores your outgoing messages; draft mail area so that you can store unfinished e-mails; the deleted mail folder which will store those messages that you have deleted, for a short time after. You can also add folders to the existing list. You may want to a create a folder entitled 'friends' or one that is for your business dealings.
Address book - this is a very handy feature for storing all your contacts details, so that you can get faster access to their e-mail address. They are stored alphabetically and you can click on a letter tab to bring up, for example, all those whose names begin with the letter 'F'
Options - there are a number of different options and settings that you can change accordingly to suit your needs. They are there to ensure that you get the most out of your experience of sending and recieving e-mails. The one that I like best, is the facility which allows you to add a 'Signature' to you messages. This is like your own unique id that everyone you know should recognise. You can also change the junk mail filter and anti-spam settings to allow some e-mails that Wanadoo class as being junk or spam.
Once you have entered your log-in details, and they have been confirmed, you reach your e-mail inbox. Here, all of your recieved messages are displayed in a list form. They new or unread messages have a grey background and a letter symbol to the left hand side of them. There is a blue bar underneath the message at the bottom of the page. There is a drop down box that allows you to set how many e-mails are shown, the maximum is 100. There is also a search box which gives you the power to find an e-mail much faster. The e-mails are displayed in date order, either the latest at the top or at the bottom, whichever you prefer. Each message has details of the sender, the subject, the message size and whether or not there is an attachment. There is also an indicator in the top left of the screen which shows how full your e-mail is. This service gives you 5MB of storage.
I would certainly reccomend this service, primarily because it is free of charge. It is also well maintained and updated by Wanadoo, because they are constantly added more and more bogus and annoying addresses to their e-mail filters. If however you want a little bit more convenience and a much faster service then I would point you in the direction of Hotmail for your needs. As I have said, I still do use my fsmail address because some people still contact me via it.
Advantages: used to be very good Disadvantages: currently malfunctioning
...I am not impressed.
Freeserve.com is their site online, which gives you access to information about joining up, and a place to go when things go wrong. The site is reasonable to get around, although not utterly brilliant - there's lots of information that isn't there. They are also trying to act as a portal - like AOL do. Not that impressed - its ok I guess, but I'd rather use a search engine like google to get around the net because they only have ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: good for current freeserve users Disadvantages: only offers e-mail
The reason why I chose to use Freeserve as my ISP is because it was the first disc that I could lay my hands on. The service has always been quite good, the connection speeds were resonable and in general the e-mail service that I used was quite good.
For a long time I used hotmail.com, when I was at work or University as I wanted an e-mail account that I could access from anywhere. As hotmail.com is probably about the most well known web based ... ...ago I stumbled accross fsmail.net, a site which Freeserve were developing. This was a web based e-mail service much like hotmail, but thge advantage that this service had is if you already have an e-mail account set-uo with Freeserve you can view your mail. When you access this at home again the e-mail gets downloaded and your inbox on the web based site will be cleared. I have found this service to be extremly useful because I can now have only ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: free internet access Disadvantages: ignore customer service values
This was a wonderful company until I changed my banking details. I emailed them to let them know - they ignored me. I rang them - they sent me an email telling me to ring their customer service line again.
I was basically ignored until they tried to take a payment from my old bank account - which was obviously rejected. I then got cancellation orders via email, telling me to ring customer services. I did and got told that I would have to start the ... ...I had changed banks - but was told the same thing - oh and I had to log on before 8am else I wouldn't get the service I required!
I also found that I was sitting for long periods of time in front of the computer whilst all the lines were busy due to too many people logging on.
I gave up in the end - surely with 2 seperate means of communication they could have got this right - the rude emails I received furthered my belief that they are not interested ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Free. Solid. Disadvantages: Prone to being too busy
Freeserve was not the first free ISP. Freeserve was the first free ISP to make it big, it opened the flood gates that held the British public back from the Internet and for that we should thank it. Freeserve had two big advantages at the start;
1) The free Freeserve CD being handed out with every computer bought at a wide range of established computer retailers around the country.
2) The support and backing of a big company that eliminated the ... ...logged in.
Despite the backing from the parent company, Freeserve operates on a razor edge of a budget. It operates there very well but you can tell when things are starting to get scary. Freeserve was swamped due to its initial success. It simply did not have the capacity to cope with all the users. Quickly enough (But too slow for some) it rallied and installed larger modem racks. Freeserve is still prone to these overflows of capacity. When a ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: cheaper than other services on the market Disadvantages: Frequent dinconnections
I joined Freeserve a few months back as it was an offer one couln't refuse.However, the service gets disconnected very frequently, and it
it is alomst impossible to get connected some evenings. Guess what happened the first time I was doing this report!!! I am sure FREESERVE can do better with BT help as it is joint venture. Our previous ISP BT CLICKFREE was inordinately expensive though very reliable.It is more frustrating to be cut off the internet ...
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