POP3 or Webmail?

I am writing this more as a review and a short story rather than a survey, despite the question mark in the title. Along the years, I was put in the position of using many mail software applications, from the early versions of the classic Outlook Express to the useless-featured IncrediMail. However, I had a computer at that time that was the best source of troubles I have ever seen. Everything was going down so fast, and despite my backups, I was losing my e-mails, contacts and important information. I was living in an era when CD-RW’s were highly expensive, and my internet connection was dial-upped. My ISP was providing a 1MB e-mail address and I thought that’s more than enough for what I needed. Anyway, enough with the story. I’m trying to evidence the ups and downs of the POP3 compared to the webmail.

If I would have been asked this years back, I would have taken a strong moral stand in favor of POP3 because it seemed like the best option, unlimited space (I had most of my HDD to extend to), offline browsing (dial-up access was a luxury) and I could customize my client just the way I liked it. I had about 20 filters against spam, even if I was receiving about 5 e-mails/week and just a few more spam messages. Like I was saying, despite of the fact that I was losing my mails regularly due formatting, viruses and such, I still was a fan of OE and other POP3 applications.

On the other hand, today, when you are subscribed to so many forums, registered on so many websites and talking on so many e-mailing lists, the 1MB storage space would have been too little. Luckily, they all realized that and increased the storage space over time. Another important aspect is mobility and I got to realize that as soon as I needed to access the Internet from somewhere else (work, school, friends), but I also needed my e-mails. *poof*. Suddenly, the whole webmail alternative wasn’t looking so bad.
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