Gmail vs Yahoo! Mail

GMail from Google and Yahoo! Mail from Yahoo! Inc are two of the most popular e-mail service providers in the world. Both companies offer great free email accounts now, but there still are many differences between the two.

Yahoo! Mail is a free e-mail service offered by the American search engine company Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 310 million users as of October 2011, and the most popular webmail service in the United States.

Currently, Yahoo! offers three versions of Yahoo! Mail. The traditional “Yahoo! Mail Classic” continues the availability of the original interface introduced in 1997. A new version introduced in 2005 included a new Ajax interface, drag-and-drop, improved search functionality, keyboard shortcuts, address auto-complete, tabs, and more. In October 2010, Yahoo! released a new beta version of Yahoo! Mail, which included a new design, improved performance, improved search functionality, and improved Facebook integration. In May 2011, beta testing for the new version stopped, and it became the default interface for Yahoo! Mail.

Yahoo! Mail plus Features

• 25 megabytes of email storage

• 10 megabyte message size limit

• Ability to send up to 10 attachments per email

• POP Access and Forwarding

• Archiving of email messages to a hard drive for offline access

• Ability to send messages from Yahoo! Mail using other email domains

• 200 blocked addresses and 50 filters to help screen unsolicited emails

• No promotional taglines in messages

• No account expiration.

Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well as via POP3 or IMAP4 protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though still in beta status at that time. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps suite.
With an initial storage capacity offer of 1 GB per user, Gmail significantly increased the webmail standard for free storage from the 2 to 4 MB its competitors such as Hotmail offered at that time. Individual Gmail messages, including attachments, may be up to 25 MB, which is larger than many other mail services support. Gmail has a search-oriented interface and a “conversation view” similar to an Internet forum. Gmail is noted by web developers for its pioneering use of Ajax. Gmail runs on Google GFE/2.0 on Linux. As of June 2012, it has 425 million active users worldwide.

Gmail Features

• The Gmail service currently provides more than 10 GB of free storage per account.

• The Gmail Labs feature, allows users to test new or experimental features of Gmail, such as bookmarking of important email messages or custom keyboard shortcuts.

• Users may tune the system to allow mail marked as spam to be handled in particular ways.

• Gmail Mobile is a version of Google’s Gmail email service. It is a free service. Users have the ability to compose, read, archive, reply, forward, mark unread, add a star, add custom labels or trash email messages.

• Gmail has the integrated search function that resembles Google Search but only searches a user’s Gmail account.
• A security feature that protect users from state-sponsored attacks.

• The Gmail user interface differs from other Webmail systems with its focus on search and its “conversation view” of email, grouping several replies onto a single page.

• Gmail Autopilot by CADIE is the service purported to automatically read and respond to emails for the user