Is BT internet the worst email provider?

[Karen]

After all the whohaa about splitting from Yahoo, our BT email provider now has a service which is s l o w, sporadic, and still full of spam. Unlike Outlook, which is as nifty and spam-free as ever. I just wonder why we are still paying BT a fortune for an inferior service

[Bob]

I'm with BT too and the phishing emails arrive almost on an hourly basis.

[Jim]

I'm with Btconnect and it's better that Freeserve, orange or whatever used to be

[Rosemary (grooving with the Picts)]

I'm with gmail now and get very few spam messages. Yes, Freeserve/orange used to be pretty dire.

My secret yahoo account (which is only used to sign in to certain websites, and not for email purposes) gets more spam.

[Patti (baconater)]

My school account is great. Absolutely no spam. It sometimes blocks important emails too, mind.

I've used yahoo for years n years as my primary account and a couple secondary accounts. I've no complaints.

I've also got Gmail and Hotmail but I don't like them much.

[Elaine]

We used to be with BT until we moved to Sky. The one thing I remember is, that leaving BT really messed around with my Flickr account. For email I always use gmail and don't get any problems at all.

[Karen]

I get a message every time I start logging into our BT emails, 'bt.com is not responding due to a long running script'. So I have to cancel the script (must be 'War & Peace' I think.) then it loads. Really annoying. And every day recently there's a spam email from 'BT' about an upgrade!
I did find I used to get even more spam when BT was with Yahoo, so I'm pleased to have left most of those behind.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

I use gmail and im quite happy with it. Its not perfect, but way better than any other I've used for cutting down spam.

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

When I first got internet I was with AOL and used their email. I'm now with BT and although I've got a BT email account I never use it as I prefer my AOL.

[Simon (Highwayman)]

In the old days we tended to use whatever email came with our Internet provider.

These days not only is that not necessarily but there are advantages in not doing it.

So, I am with virgin media and they have given me an email account blah@virginmedia.com

If I get rid of virgin and go sky my email address is useless. I need to tell everyone my new address. What a pain.

So get a Gmail account. This is free and stays with you regardless of provider. If you get rid of virgin you keep your email address. There are other free email providers of course.

An other option is to buy a domain of your own and point your Gmail account to it. Anyone who knows my full name could guess my email address.

Finally you can buy a domain with email. This will probably have super duper spam filtering but is the most expensive option.

My domain email costs me around £4 a year.

[Patti (baconater)]

you're such a swot, Simon.

[Rosemary (grooving with the Picts)]

Oh I've got one of those too *big sook*

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

I don't pay for my AOL one at all. I thought I'd lose all my old emails and stuff when I left them but it's still there. I only left them because they couldn't connect me at my place 'cos the address wasn't registered or something.

[Michael]

Good advice from Simon there, I changed over to Gmail a couple of years back for that very same reason.

[Simon (Highwayman)]

Vanessa (aka Dumbo) wrote: "I don't pay for my AOL one at all. I thought I'd lose all my old emails and stuff when I left them but it's still there. I only left them because they couldn't connect me at my place 'cos the addre..."

It depends how AOL arrange their emails these days. If they offer email accounts to non subscribers you are probably going to be OK but if it was tied to your Internet subscription you could find it will disappear without notice next time they do housekeeping. AOL used to be the worst for tying you in. They were probably the last company to setup webmail. They still have a dedicated email app I believe.

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

Simon (Highwayman) wrote: "Vanessa (aka Dumbo) wrote: "I don't pay for my AOL one at all. I thought I'd lose all my old emails and stuff when I left them but it's still there. I only left them because they couldn't connect m..."

Well I haven't been with AOL for my internet for about two and a half years although I wanted to stay with them when I moved. When I spoke to them, trying to sort it out about my address not being registered, they said that wasn't my fault. I asked if I could still use my email and they said I could no problem. I think anyone can have AOL email if they want.

[Andy]

I've got a gmail and Outlook account, both of which I use an authenticator app which has this far kept them spam free. The only issue I have with gmail is google's rather nefarious practice of scanning your emails for advertising purposes but it seems fairly speedy and such.

[Patti (baconater)]

Yeah, I keep getting ads for hotels in Istanbul now.

[Andy]

Could be worse, Patti:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/...

[Bookworm]

I started with AOL, then changed to yahoo. Now for the last few years it's been Hotmail, and just recently I have a Gmail account to connect with my kids, who all have Gmail accounts.