Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail features - Free and Hotmail plus accounts

Windows Live Hotmail from Microsoft is probably the second most popular web based email service in the world - right after Yahoo! Mail (check Gmail usage statistics for details). It offers both free and paid (Hotmail Plus) email accounts. Simply known as "Hotmail" when it was launched in July 1996, it was acquired by Microsoft in December 1997 with its 8.5 million subscribers for a huge sum of $400 million. Under Microsoft, the email service got a tremendous boost and became the number one provider. Now, however, things have been kind of tight for Windows Live Hotmail (as it is now called) with stiff competition from Yahoo! Mail and the entrance of Gmail with its 1GB free email accounts and tons of free features.

Hotmail free email account features

The following is the list of some of the important features of the free email accounts from Windows Live Hotmail service.

• Storage Space: 5GB. Still lesser than 7.2GB of Gmail. Yahoo! Mail accounts users now enjoy unlimited inbox space.
• Attachment size: 10MB which half of Gmail's 20MB.
• Forwarding: Emails can be forwarded to accounts in the Microsoft domain like others accounts at Hotmail.com or Live.com.
• POP access: There has been a mention of providing POP access to all free accounts but till date nothing has come out of it. However, you can download Hotmail emails directly in Windows Live Mail email program or in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and 2007 through Microsoft Office Outlook Connector. In contrast, all Gmail accounts come with free POP3 and IMAP access.
  Update: Free Hotmail POP is available in some countries. The feature is being rolled out gradually.
• Email client access: You can set up Hotmail accounts on Windows Live Mail and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and 2007 email programs. The last two require Microsoft Office Outlook Connector application. Support for adding and configuring Hotmail on Outlook Express and Windows Mail (Vista email client) has probably been discontinued.
• Virus scanning and security: Any online email service worth its salt scans all incoming email and attachments for viruses and worms. Windows Live Hotmail uses Trend Micro virus scanning.
• Spam filter: All email accounts attract spam. And Hotmail's spam filer does a decent job. It puts all potential spam into the Junk folder.
• Languages available: 35
• Account expiration: Free accounts expire after 120 days of non-activity.
• Advertisements: Ads are no longer displayed on Hotmail free email accounts - no flashy banners, no text ads ... nothing! Gmail displays relevant unobtrusive text ads. Ads in Hotmail are, however, attached to the bottom of all outgoing email messages.
  Some users have reported seeing ads in on their Hotmail accounts. This does not seem to be applicable on all accounts though.
• Folders: You can create folders in Hotmail to manage your email messages. This feature is missing in Gmail.
• Themes: Change the colors and images in the account interface to suit your mood. Personalize and customize your Hotmail account.
• Email composition: Emails can be composed using rich text that offers basic formatting of the message like changing the color, font size, font weight etc of text.
• Spell checker: Spell checker is included so you have no excuse for sending emails full for spelling errors.

Hotmail Plus features

The paid Hotmail accounts cost $19.95 per year and come with added features absent from the free accounts.

• POP access: Download Hotmail emails in any email program that uses POP.
• Storage space: 10GB - double that of the free account.
• Email attachment size: 20MB - again double that of the free account.
• Account expiration: Never, as long as its paid for.
• Advertisements: No sort of advertisements at all.