I don’t need any more convincing that Google rocks! Do you? Everyone, and I mean, everyone should have a Gmail account. It’s more than a free e-mail service, it’s an internet experience. Google is so large and makes so much money, they have the resources to make great web products/experiences and do it all for free. The winner is us, the consumer.

Are you still piddling around with Hotmail? How about Yahoo! or even a local ISP (internet service provider) with a local e-mail account like @comcast.net? The days of the internet revolution are in full swing and the only way to truly enjoy the surfing process to its full extent is to jump up to the best game in town: Google. Yes, Google is on top and let this cartoon depicting the potential Microsoft buyout of Yahoo! say the rest. See AOL in the left corner . . . ?

Google is best known for their search engine. Next, they are mostly known for their free e-mail service. But they do a lot more than that. More about the other features in another blog. For now, it’s e-mail.

Gmail (sign up for a free account here) is, in my opinion, the best e-mail client out there. The spam protection is better than anything else on the web that is free. I’m not sure about all the technical details, but in the two plus years I’ve used Gmail, I can count on one hand the number of spam messages that have made it into my inbox. Google learns with every click of the “this is spam” button. But, better yet, when I empty my spam folder, Google updates the spammer’s address and domain with every single Gmail user, not just me, so Gmail users block spam as a team.

Because the spam blocking is so good, you can feel free to download your e-mail into mail programs like Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook on your computer. I remember when I had a Yahoo! address, I never wanted to download my inbox into Microsoft Outlook because I would get all this spam, and I couldn’t block it once it appeared in Outlook. I would login to Yahoo! Mail and block the ten or twenty spam messages in my inbox and then download my messages. That was a pain, because why check e-mail on a web page and then look at it again on your computer in Outlook or Apple Mail? Many smaller companies use Gmail for their own e-mail system because the spam blocking is so strong. They have their own e-mail accounts, like [email protected], with the Gmail address hidden behind it, allowing Google to do the spam blocking in the background.

Mine works the same way. Laura and I use our names in front of tobylaura.com, but that is because Google is working behind the scenes, for free, and providing us with great spam protection. Free.

Gmail will also give you a huge inbox: 6 gigabytes for each account, and growing! That’s enough to store e-mail for years and years. Google takes the approach that you shouldn’t have to throw any e-mail away. That way, years later, you can search through your messages with the power of a Google search, and find small details you were searching for. I caught a retailer in a lie by simply going back and searching what they had told me. I forwarded their e-mail to them and they admitted their mistake!

Now the best part: IMAP. You can read more about it here. IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP is a setting your set in your mail account. It’s like POP, but better. POP stands for Post Office Protocol and is the familiar system that allows an internet e-mail account like Yahoo! to send the e-mail to your computer in Microsoft Outlook. Anytime you can check your e-mail on your own computer in an e-mail program like Apple Mail or Outlook, you are using POP. POP is nice, but it is old school. Sometimes, retro is cool. In this case, you want to move up to IMAP. IMAP is a “live” connection between your mail program and your e-mail account on the internet. You enable this function in your settings. Then, if you delete an e-mail in Outlook, it deletes it off of the account online in Gmail. If you send a message from your Apple Mail, it shows up as a sent message in your Gmail account. If you check your e-mail from multiple locations, like a PDA or phone, or multiple computers (laptop and desktop) they are all kept up-to-date, instantly. With POP, you’d have to delete a new message on each computer you use, but with IMAP, all is synced and streamlined. In the end, it is efficiency and convenience in Gmail e-mail, for free.

Google offers so many services, all free, and they all work to make your internet, a better internet. I have my own personal e-mail account, for free, because of Google. You can too! Own a business? Want a professional or unique look? Do you want the tools you use on the internet to sync, communicate, and collaborate together seamlessly? Want your blog, web page, e-mail, online calendar, and more all work together? Get Google!

For more, visit TobyLaura.com!