Best e-mail service: Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook?

Free Storage

Gmail provides 15GB of free space to its users. But if users need extra space then they will have to pay $2 per month for 100 GB upto $300 per month for 30 TB of space.

Yahoo provides 1 TB of free space to its users. We think that this is more than enough space that any user would want. It does not have any monthy plans of storage as Gmail or Microsoft.

Outlook claims that the storage space increases as more and more data is stored in the email account. But the reality is that you can store only upto 5 GB of data in your Outlook account. Large attachments can be stored in OneDrive where you need to pay $2 per month for 100 GB extra space or $4 for 200 GB of extra storage.

Gmail offers SSL (Secure Socket Layer )encryption as well as TLS (Transport Layer Security) which adds security to Gmail. Additionally, Gmail also has a feature for Suspicious Activity Checkwhich is absent in Yahoo and Outlook.

Yahoo provides only SSL (Secure Socket Layer ) encryption but does not provide TLS (Transport Layer Security) which is provided by Gmail.

Outlook also has SSL (Secure Socket Layer ) encryption. It lacks TLS (Transport Layer Security).

Gmail’s interface is good but at times can be very confusing for the end user. For example, if a user wants to see his contacts, he first needs to click on button labelled Gmail and then select contacts.

Of the three interfaces, Yahoo provides the best interface which is non-confusing to the end user. All the fields are clearly marked and you can hover mouse on icons to for tool tip

Outlook’s interface is different than Yahoo or Gmail. In terms of usability, it’s interface is worse than Yahoo and Gmail.

You have many features in Gmail that are highly useful such as providing labels. Gmail also tries to automatically categorise each email as Primary, Promotions, Social etc. There are many other important features in Gmail which organises your work which are absent in Yahoo and Hotmail (Microsoft Outlook).

Yahoo does not have feature of labels but you can create folders instead of labels. One disadvantage of using folders instead of label is that when an email is sent to a folder, it is removed from your inbox.

Outlook uses a hybrid of labels and folders, giving users the advantages of both labels and folders. Other filters that Outlook provide is very basic and is present in both Yahoo and Gmail.

In Gmail, you will only be shown advertisement in the form of text at the top of your emails. There is no vertical banner ads displayed to the user which provides a greater user experience.

In Yahoo, you will be loaded with advertisements, you will have vertical banners of adson the right, text adds at the top of email and a smaller advertisement on the left hand just below the folder labels.

In Outlook, there is a vertical advertisement banner but is less prominent than Yahoo. In Outlook, the user experience is greater than that of Yahoo but less than Gmail because of ads.

In our experience that we have used, Gmail is the fastest of all the email providers.

Yahoo is the slowest among the three email providers. Sometimes, users are not even able to print the email due to slow speed of Yahoo.

Outlook has a moderate speed. It is faster than Yahoo but little slower than Gmail.

According to most of the surveys, Gmail has the highest no. of users.

Yahoo has the least number of users if we compare among Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.

Among the three email providers, Hotmail (Microsoft Outlook) has the second highest number of users around the world.