Like Microsoft, Hotmail users need to understand security concepts to keep their accounts safe. To support their users, Microsoft has created a short list of tips to protect the account. The list includes the following security tips:

• Create a strong password
• Use antivirus software
• Add security information to your account
• Don’t sign in on a computer you don’t trust
• Don’t share your password
• Check the address that appears in the address bar when you sign in

Microsoft has identified a shift in the strategy of hijackers, who in the past used newly created accounts for spamming purposes. Better recognition cut down on the effectiveness of those methods, which is why hijackers have started to target legit email accounts as well.

With today’s release, we are taking a step forward by detecting compromised email accounts, those co-owned by the legitimate user and the hijacker. We detect them with high confidence using heuristics based on login and account activity, and stop the abuse by locking the hijacker out and closing back doors they may have set up, like using vacation auto reply messages to send spam. At the same time, we begin working with the rightful owner to reclaim the account, recognizing the urgency of the issue.

Hotmail is now able to detect accounts that have been hijacked, and makes use of automatic routines to lock the hijacker out of the account, and work with the account owner to restore the account. Up until now, account owners were able to use an alternative email address that they setup or the answer to a security question to restore an account. From today on, two additional proofs are available for account recovery:

“Trusted PC” is a unique new proof that lets you link your Hotmail account with one or more of your personal computers. Then, if you ever need to regain control of your account by resetting your password, you simply need to be using your computer and we will know you are the legitimate owner.

The second new proof option is your cell phone number, where Hotmail will send a secret code via SMS that can be used to reset your password and reclaim your account.

hotmail security

Both new proofs can be configured in the Account overview window. To avoid the changing of those proofs by hijackers, changes to them users now need to access one existing proof to do so. A hijacker therefor would need access to the security answer, secondary email account, mobile phone or trusted PC to change the proofs.

Email providers like Hotmail do good to improve the security of their services, considering that they really missed out on those improvements over the past years.

This question might have become insignificant in recent years as all three email providers have started to follow suite if one of them raised a limit or introduced a new service. But not everything is equal and some email users might be surprised if they take a look at the differences between these email providers.

Did you for instance know that a free Yahoo Mail account expires after four months of inactivity but is the only one to offer free unlimited storage space?

Gmail on the other hand is the only email service that is not expiring the account after a certain time of inactivity. It is on the other hand the email service that is offering the least amount of free storage space if you take Microsoft by the word that they increase the Windows Live Hotmail storage space automatically if the limit of 5000 Megabytes is reached.

Take a look at the following chart to see how the three email providers compare.

The chart should be up to date. If you spot an error let me know and I fix it asap.

Back to the original question: Which email provider are you using primarily and why? Here is my answer..

I mainly use email accounts that have been created for my web projects. I also use a Gmail account; Primarily because it is linked to other Google services that I need to use. I do have a Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Live Hotmail account but I barely use them. Mostly for services that require such an account.

The mailto links in the format mailto:email@example.com are launched with the default application that has been set in the Firefox web browser. To change that one needs to open the options of the web browser. Windows users go to Tools > Options to open the Firefox options.

Users then need to locate the applications tab and filter for the term mailto. The menu should then look pretty much like the menu in the screenshot above. They then need to click on the pulldown menu on the right side to change the default email client in Firefox. Displayed are the current email client, the web based email clients Yahoo Mail and Gmail, the option to always ask the user and to select another email client not on the list.

The last option opens the file browser which makes it possible to select an executable on the computer system. It is therefor possible to select installed and portable email clients on the local computer system. It does feel a bit strange that neither Windows Live Mail nor Aol Mail are available from the menu.

Gmail, Google’s popular email service, has recently raised the attachment limit from 20 Megabytes to 25. This could be interesting for users who regularly send emails with large attachments but also for Gmail users who like to backup files by sending them to their Gmail account. The attachment limit is obviously working in both ways which means that it is possible to send emails with a size of up to 25 Megabytes but also to receive emails that stay below that limit.

The new Gmail attachment limit seems to be enabled on all Gmail accounts already unlike other changes to the email service that usually get rolled out over time. It should also be noted that users need to make sure that the recipients can retrieve emails of that size. It can happen that the email provider refuses these emails as they might be over the size limit of that email service.

There his however a simple method to enable POP3 access in Hotmail right away independently from where you are accessing Hotmail. Microsoft is checking the location stored in the Hotmail account to determine if a account should have POP3 access. All that needs to be done to enable both POP3 is therefor to change that location in the Hotmail account profile.

To do that select More Options by hovering the mouse over Options in Hotmail. Select View and edit your personal information in Manage your account and click on Registered Information. Information about the location should appear. Edit those information so that they are in a country that currently supports Hotmail POP3. You can later change it back if POP3 support is added for your country as well.

One easy way to find an address is to search for hotels in London using a search engine and copy their information into Hotmail. Make sure you change the postal code, timezone and country in the menu. You can for instance use that postal code for London: SW1V 4BN

Now that you have enabled POP3 access you need to configure your email client to access Hotmail this way.

Incoming Server: pop3.live.com
Incoming Port: 995
SSL Encryption: yes

Outgoing Server: smtp.live.com
outgoing port: 25
Authentication: yes
TLS Or SSL: yes

The username and password are the same that are used to log into the Hotmail site

Disposable email addresses can be created at a wide variety of services. Yopmail is one of the newer services. The disposable email address service does not require a signup and provides access to any email address in the form @yopmail.com.

A user who wants to signup for a service that requires an email address – maybe for verification – can select any desired username for the yopmail.com domain, for example ghacks@yopmail.com. The email account can then be checked by the user and anyone else who is choosing or guessing the username.

Emails that are listed in the email account can be read and deleted. There is no way of answering an email using the disposable email address service. Mails will stay for a period of five days in the account unless they are deleted in that time by a user.

Yopmail provides a plugin for Internet Explorer, an add-on for Firefox and a widget for Opera which should please the majority of Internet users. Many other disposable email services display the emails as text messages only. Yopmail can switch to HTML emails and display the mail headers as well which is great for analyzing the contents.

Another interesting option is the ability to forward mails to another email account. That comes in handy if the email contains account specific information like usernames, passwords or security questions.

This requires some explanation. The user signs up and picks a username during the setup. The domain for his email is then created automatically using the formula @username.otherinbox.com. Every email alias that is put in front of the @ will automatically create a new filter and folder for that alias.

This effectively means unlimited email addresses for every user which are harder to guess than those from similar services such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail. This does however mean that every email will reach the inbox and that a new folder and filter will be created for them automatically.

Otherinbox can be used to send emails from the available or newly created aliases as well. The real question is if someone would really need Otherinbox. It is not a problem to create a new webmail account and create filters for marketing and networking websites. The only difference is that Otherinbox provides automatic filter generation while they have to be created manually using the other webmail services.

Is that enough to make the service worthwhile? That’s up for you decide. The Otherinbox team provided Ghacks readers with 25 email addresses. Just head over to http://beta.otherinbox.com/signup/ghacksnet and signup. The first 25 to signup get the beta account.

The user would create an Akapost email account at their website and link it to one of his real email accounts. Whenever he wanted to signup on a site he would use the Akapost email account which would forward all incoming mails to his account.

Mails that he wanted to send could be send to Akapost first which would forward them to the email recipient. This effectively means that no sender or website is able to uncover the real email address of the user. Akapost featured a few additional options, just read my initial article if you are curious.

Free accounts can be created at Akapost which are good for one email link. I had a chat with the guys at Akapost and they told me that they would give me five free account upgrades to Akapost Plus which is good for 5 Akapost email addresses and 10 links.

The service usually costs $22.95 per year but five lucky Ghacks readers pay nothing to get it. You need to have an Akapost username. If you want to upgrade your account let me know in the comments. I pick five commenters in the coming days who will get the free upgrade. Regular commenters and visitors will be precedented.

The recipient will only see the Akapost email address and reply to that which in turn will exchange the received emails to the right address and send them on their way.

Two other uses for Akapost Email services are listed on the homepage of the Email provider. It can be first used to unify email addresses by connecting all your email addresses with one outgoing Akapost email address. Akapost furthermore supports custom email addresses which are great for businesses who want to mask employee email addresses.

Another possibility would be to create dummy email addresses for signups and the like. The basic Akapost email service is free and allows you to protect one email address.