myownemail.com

Myownemail.com is yet another free online email provider, however I feel that they have a slight edge over all the others such as Hotmail. I came across them after hearing about them through a friend and decided to try them after getting thoroughly pissed off with my hotmail account. Although having a personal email that I use from home, I find having an online one useful if giving out an email address to people I don't know or things online as it ...
...but I certainly know that myownemail.com will still get you there.*

Once you have chosen a username and domain, you go on to the next page where you are asked to fill in a password, name, gender, the usual stuff but you are never asked for your address which I particularly like as I always fill out a fake address on these things anyway. Paranoid, moi? You are asked for a primary email address as well in case you forget your password, ... more

Myownemail.com is yet another free online email provider, however I feel that they have a slight edge over all the others such as Hotmail. I came across them after hearing about them through a friend and decided to try them after getting thoroughly pissed off with my hotmail account. Although having a personal email that I use from home, I find having an online one useful if giving out an email address to people I don't know or things online as it saves me from having to download a load of spam (and possibly viruses!) onto my poor ickle 'puter. In saying that, I have my personal email on my ciao profile, but then I know what a lovely bunch of trustworthy people all you ciaoers are. (slight sniggering :) )

Anyway, back to myownemail.com. The main appeal of this email over other ones is that it has a choice of hundreds of domain names to choose from, so you're not just stuck with the name of the provider such as @hotmail or @yahoo.co.uk. Also, the site is very fast, a great advantage over hotmail although I've never tried yahoo mail so I can't comment on that.

To register with them you choose a username (anything you want) and then pick of the many domain names that they have available under certain categories. The categories include attitude, funny, internet, miscellaneous, sexy, music, etc, etc. You really will be spoilt for choice and this is a lot cheaper than registering your own domain!

I'll tell you some of the domain names that in my opinion are the best just so you get a feel for what is on offer: @somethingorother.com, @quackquack.com, @itookmyprozac.com. @ilovechocolate.com, @mr-potatohead.com, @dazedandconfused.com @mydotcomaddress, @baldandsexy.com (one for you Dave!) The list really goes on for ages and I won't put any more down, although it would be an easy way of writing a really long op! :)

The possibilities are quite interesting. I know someone who has the wonderful address of myname@somethingorother.com! All the domain names work as URL's to get to the site. Well I think they do I mean I haven't actually been through and checked every single one, my dedication to ciao does NOT extend that far!

*Quick update just to say that all the domains do NOT automatically take you to myownemail.com. I think they used to but recently, when I've been trying to go to somethingorother.com, I have been taken to a page that says "Owned By NixLight of Latin Root" (?????) I have no idea what is going on or how many of the domains will still take you to where you want to go, but I certainly know that myownemail.com will still get you there.*

Once you have chosen a username and domain, you go on to the next page where you are asked to fill in a password, name, gender, the usual stuff but you are never asked for your address which I particularly like as I always fill out a fake address on these things anyway. Paranoid, moi? You are asked for a primary email address as well in case you forget your password, but this is not compulsory. The only compulsory step is of course the password

Your account is then activated immediately, yippee!!

Right, now you've got your account up and running, what's it like?

Well, on the front page you need to log in and you can get your browser to remember your email address by ticking the appropriate box on the page. My browser doesn't remember my password, but I use a weird one so others like Internet Explorer or Netscape might do. Once you're logged in you come to your inbox with a list of links down the side: Inbox, Compose, Folders, Addresses, Options, Search, Help, Logout, Friends, Jobs and Shopping.

The first three are all fairly self explanatory but it is the options that is another reason why I prefer this to other free email. In the options you can do all the obvious things such as change password, details, close account (something which I cannot find on my hotmail account), modify auto reply, modify signature etc. But the one I like the best is modify colours! You can actually tailor the colours of your account to your own liking, which I think is a great idea. Mine is currently black and luminous green. You can either choose from one of the 11 themes available or completely make up your own colour scheme. Hours of fun await you!

Sorry, just a small update 'cause I remembered something else good about this paricular email service. In addition to all the wonderful things I've said already, it also has the ability to spell chack your email you write which I think is fantastic. However, as it is an American site, I would imagine that it uses American spelling.

The search facility allows you to search your email for text in any part of the email e.g. 'from', 'subject', 'to', or you can just search through everything using 'all'. I've never actually used this myself but I can see how it could come in very handy at times. Another feature not available at any other places (as far as I'm aware, I could be completely wrong!) Help and Logout are also self explanatory.

Friends opens up a new window and takes you to myownfriends.com. This is a service for finding people, but not people you know, people you'd like to meet. It is run by the same people/company as myownemail.com and describes itself as a friend finder for people looking for that "someone special or perhaps just a new friend or penpal." Bizarre.

Jobs and Shopping both open up new windows which take you to jobsonline.com (basically, a recruitment agency) and dealtime.com (an online shopping facility where you search for what you want and it tells you where you can buy it. A bit pointless to us Brits as it seems to operate only within the US) I can only assume that these are by the same company that does myownemail.com or that they get some sort of commission whenever they direct someone.

Anyway, on to the bad points. I can only really think of one and that is that every time I log in I get a pop up advert distracting me, but I feel it is a small price to pay for a great email service.

I've never had any problems with their server being down or not being able to get access to my account and it seems very efficient overall.

If you're fed up with your online account, whatever it is, then check out his site, even if only just for the funky domain names! 

...less