Alternatives to .mac

[kelly]

11 Free and Low Cost Alternatives to .mac for Email

http://www.lowendmac.com/misc/03/0922.html

[ljocampo]

These aren't really alternatives to dot Mac.  There is a whole lot more to dot Mac than email.  But even if you use just email, as the author does, as the criteria for switching to another service, none of the alternatives he offers can compete with the stability that dot Mac has to offer.

This is one of those cases where you really do get what you pay for.  I had to laugh at some of the choices. The spammers would fill up the offered email box's quota long before my family or friends even got a message to me.  I haven't got one piece of spam at dot Mac in the two years I've had the account.  Apple's dot Mac offers peace of mind, stability, and many other benefits you can get nowhere else.    

[krissel]

Only if you can get to it.

I had no problems with .mac until they went into a pay mode. Immediately following last (year ago) summer's change I lost the ability to access my account. I run 9.1 on a slow dialup and the pages time out before they fully load. I had to go to my folk's house (OSX, faster dialup) to access the page where I could cancel the automatic renewal.
Had I not gone to my .mac mailbox while at my folks I never would have remembered that I checked the auto-renew box last year.  I would have been charged on my credit card and left with the chore of trying to get it removed.

I'm not the only one with this problem as the Apple help site forum is loaded with stories from hundreds of others who have the same problem. But I guess losing a few hundred or even few thousand people doesn't mean that much to them.

 

[kps]

The only reason I renewed...was because I wanted my free copy of the Sims.