A post on Mashable has described what looks like a bug in Gmail, seeming to affect thousands of Gmail users since a few days ago. Not sure if it is a bug or a real problem with Gmail, but it’s worrying, not least because Gmail was starting to grow on many new users, who were getting hooked with its myriad high tech features.
Although not affecting millions, there are likely thousands of Gmail users who had their Gmail accounts “shut down” for seemingly no reason. Most of the cases were, however involving new accounts,. This doesn’t explain why some old accounts more than a year old were also affected.
That’s the problem with free webmail – They are not 100% reliable. Although I love Gmail, I always bear in mind it’s still labelled as, “beta.” I split my emails between Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail. I never ever use one email account for all my stuff. Still, there’s definitely a lot of stuff in my “unlimited” Gmail account. It’s worrisome, because I’ve been with Gmail ever since they came out, lost an account, forgot about it, and got it back. My Gmail never had problems like these.
I also maintain some email accounts in Yahoo stretching back nearly a decade now, so that is a testament to Yahoo Mail’s reliability. Although Gmail is probably the most advanced free email now, it’s still in “beta,” which generally means – bugs happen. So in terms of relative reliability, it looks like Yahoo Mail still has that track record.
Windows Live Hotmail isn’t so great either. The new version is still slightly buggy. I find it often doesn’t render properly upon logging in, displaying instead the HTML code, and can only be corrected by refreshing the page!
If you are still a stickler for free email accounts, but don’t want to use those provided by the search engines, there are good alternatives around. They mostly lack in terms of storage space, or IMAP access, etc, but some make up for that by being fast loading, and virtually spam proof with captcha challenges.
Still, be forewarned, those small, independent free webmail services can go bust ANYTIME. Here are a few relatively reliable ones: