Recently I have been moving a lot of my customers to Gmail when they start having problems with their traditional email programs on their computer (outlook, outlook express, windows mail , etc..). The main problems with the traditional email programs seem to occur when the user collects to many emails in their database. Many of these email clients were not designed to handle the volume or size of emails the average user is receiving today. Here are the pros and cons of moving to a web based email:
Pros:
- Access the same email from any computer or device (ipad/iphone/etc).
- Does not take up any space on your computer, gmail will give you 8GB of data for free.
- Operates at the same speed no matter how many emails are in your inbox.
- If you upgrade to a new computer you do not have to transfer your email.
- If you switch internet providers, say from telus to shaw, you do not need to give up your email address.
- Gmail will filter your messages for viruses and spam.
- Gmail has many great organizational features such as grouping replies in one view so you can see an entire conversation at once.
Cons:
- Security, many people worry that because their emails are not on their computer that someone else may have access to them. I think the security at google is much stronger then the average computer and they are constantly monitoring their security. There is also now a two step login feature that will send you a text message to your phone before it allows you to login. This way if anyone knows your password they will not be able to login without access to your cell phone.
- Old emails, I can upload your contacts to gmail but cannot upload any existing messages from your old client. You will still be able to refer to them and you could forward them to your new address, but any new messages will goto gmail.
Yes you can keep your existing email address. When I create a new gmail account I will setup email forwarding so all emails sent to your old address will automatically be sent to your new gmail address. You can also change your outgoing address to your old email address. This way no one will know your using a new address. With your google account you will also have access to google calendar and google docs.
Feel free t0 contact me with any questions regarding an upgrade to gmail.
Thanks,
Trevor.