Email Client - Webmail

Webmail

In addition to the fat client email clients and small email clients, there are also Web-based email applications called webmail. Webmail has several advantages, including an ability to send and receive email away from the user's normal base using a web browser, thus eliminating the need for an email client.

Some websites are dedicated to providing email services, including Hotmail, Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo; but there are many internet service providers which provide webmail services as part of their internet service package. The main limitations of webmail are that user interactions are subject to the website's operating system and the general inability to download email messages and compose or work on the messages offline, although Gmail does offer Offline Gmail through the installation of Gears and there are also other tools to integrate parts of the webmail functionality into the OS (e.g. creating messages directly from third party applications via MAPI). The advantage of webmail provided by a regular mail server is that email remains on the mail server until the user can return to the base computer, when they can be downloaded. Users may be able to choose whether to leave a copy of the email on the server for a backup.

A major disadvantage of webmail is that the hosting corporation or institution retains control over the individual's email as it is performing a storage function in addition to the service function. Since the sole storage location is hosted and controlled by the corporation or institution the individual does not "have" their email but only has "access" to it and that access is under the sole control of the corporation or institution. This becomes a problem when users loses their email account through hacking or malice and are unable to retrieve the only copies of their stored email. Webmail will also be affected by the speed and quality of the internet connection and this may be a problem for dial-up connection users. A major advantage of webmail is that the individual's email is available everywhere there is an internet connection and a browser and the individual does not need a computer with their mail application installed in it. With webmail the users' email is usually backed up with multiple redundancy and corporations and institutions usually provide extremely reliable service as well as excellent spam filtering services. Privacy concerns have been raised about webmail as corporations are storing large amounts of personal information.