Why Free Email Accounts?

I suggest that everyone get at least two FREE PERMANENT email addresses that are accessible from any browser, on any machine that has an Internet connection. You should ONLY use the email address from your internet provider to correspond with them. One of the main reasons for this is to virtually eliminate SPAM (unwanted junk mail) on the REAL email account you actually use all the time.

The FIRST account is a "DUMMY!"
You will not use this account except to correspond with companies who may send you junk mail or distribute your email address. DO use this account as your return address to apply for any service, such as ICQ, download a file, put on a web page or purchase products over the Internet. You will likely get a lot of junk mail on this account but that won't bother you because you will expect it there. I check my dummy account every few weeks and delete the SPAM. When you apply for this account, you can tell the supplier that this address may be available if someone wants to search for you.

The SECOND account IS your REAL email account. Give it out only to close friends and people you want to receive mail from. Never use it as a return email address when posting to the Newsgroups or when corresponding with anyone except a close friend. This should totally prevent SPAM on that account. IMPORTANT: When you apply for this account don't give the supplier any information about your interests and don't tell them that you want the email address listed so people may search for you.

When you select your user name, make sure that it is not something that a SPAMMER may be able to guess. For example, my name is Vic Evans and I think it would be unwise to choose vevans, evansv or anything similar. It is possible, but unlikely that a spammer could send millions of email to a major provider with all common names with each letter of the alphabet added to them.

THE ADVANTAGES OF THIS SYSTEM ARE:

1. Your email address is PERMANENT and will not change if you change providers.
2. These FREE accounts are web-based so you can access them anywhere you can get access to a PC with an Internet connection and a browser. If you travel try a library or a computer store. Most will let you online long enough to check your mail.
3. For security reasons, you may not want people to know where you work or live.
4. You may not want your boss to see correspondence about your job search.
5. You can keep certain email OFF you computer. It is stored, and read, at the web site.
6. If you have roommates, with one Internet connection, you can each have your own private email account.
7. Sometimes Internet providers profiles' tell too much information about you.
8. While you can not be totally anonymous these accounts do shield your identity to some extent.
9. You can have an interesting email address like marmalade_man@hotmail.com
10. You can get different account for different reasons: businesses, activities, posting to newsgroups etc.
11. Use an account as safe keeping for important documents. Email them to yourself and you won't have to worry about a hard drive crash.
12. I do PC training and can send email to my clients during training with the same machine but different accounts.
13. Can't remember passwords for some services - email them to yourself.
14. Formating your hard drive and don't want to loose bookmarks/favourites, just send them to yourself.
15. Use a different machine in a different location and want your favourite links (same as above). Actually it would be better to get a free home page but I will deal with that in another article.