What Is Webmail? The Pros And Cons of Using Webmail
As I’m writing this I’m excited to have new members join our hosting team. However, with new members often comes new responsibilities. As such, over the last month I have been trying to bring everyone to speed on what we do in the domain and hosting department. One particular question that I keep receiving, from the new members as well my client is, “What exactly is webmail and what does it have to do with my emails?
Here’s what I tell them.
What Is Webmail?
Webmail is the short form of web-based email. A web application running on a web server that is able to implement an email client is a webmail. An email client is computer program that is able to manage user emails. Email clients fall under the groupware computer environment. The emails get transmitted over the internet and eventually stored on the server. These servers mainly belong to webmail provider companies such as gmail, internet service providers such as e.g tomcast and web hosting servers such as Namecheap. On the server, is where the email is collected, stored and deleted when you need to. There are several webmail providers in the internet, examples include AOL Email, Outlook.com and Yahoo.
The Simpler Explanation of Webmail
Webmail are web-based email accounts. These are usually free email accounts that are operated from a website. Examples include Hotmail, GMail and Yahoo Mail. Webmail allows you to access your emails as long as you have access to an Internet connection and a web browser. This also means that you cannot read an old email or draft a new email offline.
3 Major Benefits of Using Webmail
What is webmail?
- Convenience
Mary can access it from any location using a computer that has internet connection. This means that while Mary uses xplorato.com to travel around the world, she has also remote access to her emails. All she has to do is login.
- Cost
Most webmail service providers offers the service for free. These services are also included for free by web hosting companies such as Legibra.hosting, hostgator and godaddy as it come already incorporated in the domain and hosting price.
- Storage
Unlike using premium services such as Google for Business (G Suite) which have limited storage depending on the premium subscription you are, webmail provider services are free of charge
3 Reasons why clients may reconsider using webmail
This question was very easy to answer to Mary. Comparing webmail and G Suite for Business is like comparing a Mercedes and a Toyota. No offence to Toyota drivers though.
- Personal Name
It’s not easy to get a number plate of your choice, for that to happen you will have to pay more otherwise you will get whatever Kenya Revenue Authority has in store for the public domain. This explains why you cannot get an email of your preference in google mail, yahoo mail and so on. This is where premium email services comes in handy. With GSuite and webmail from Web host providers you can create an email client in regards to your preference such as mary@legibra.com and not what gmail generates for you such as mary08484@gmail.com.
- Ads
These free webmail providers still have to make some revenue, if not they will close business. You will have to put up with banners and also personalized advertisements in your email which you will never experience in premium webmail services where you get what you want.
- More and more and more spam
Spammers will always target this free webmail platforms because of the large customer base they have. Hence with this, Mary will have to cope with viruses and also virus infected links sent to her inbox.
I hope you learned something new about what is webmail, my colleagues definitely did 🙂