Lynn I will be happy to help you when the time comes with the McAfee to Avast switch I have recently done it and have all the appropriate links and directions on how to do it.

I can not help you with the AOL aspect since I have nothing aol ever.

for email clients the ones I like and use are Hotmail, Gmail, Inbox.com and GMX.com

I would suggest you take a look at all of them and their various features.
I have been very impressed with GMX.com, they are actively adding so many good features and they give you a really nice size account free, larger than even Gmail. One thing I did not like was that when I would go there it would open an entirely new window on my firefox, I do not like that, many people asked for the option to NOT do that and they asap gave us that new option to open in a tab instead, also I prefer a log in and the entire session to be under https rather than http for safety reasons, again we asked for this in the forum there and asap they gave us a new option on the log in page for that also. They are very responsive to the needs and wants. Their forum is actually a forum with the company members. Oh and they offer the option to check many other email accounts and bring all your email from those accounts to your GMX inbox.

I also like Gmail and the fact I can use it with my Thunderbird so easily. They are set up quite a bit differently than most email accounts so it does take a little getting used to.

Hotmail has been my primary email account for years and years. I started out on msn dialup and this is my original email address so I hang on to it and really like it and have never had much of a problem, what I don't like is that most of the email clients that can fetch other email for you can not easily fetch your hotmail, the new version with live.com is supposed to be easier to do that.

Inbox is another nice large one that I have had for years, one issue I had with them was that if you do not use it really frequently they may delete your account which is not a good thing.
My yahoo account I only keep because I occasionally use the yahoo IM through my Kopete IM on my linux box.

I know that there are some firefox add-0ns for gmail, you can go look at those on the firefox site, I don't use any of them. I did use the gmail notifier for a while.

Some places will allow you a forward period no idea about aol. There are services that will supposedly send out notices to all your contacts for you informing them of your change, I just do that myself that way I know it was done.

Lynn,

When I got DSL I switched my AOL account over to a free one and continued to use the AOL software. AOL doesn't offer the capability to automatically forward mails. There was a free program before for changing AOL email/Personal Filing Cabinet files/emails/address book/favorites to another file compatible with Outlook Express but I've been unable to find it again. There is one that costs $24.95 at the link below.
I think the problem with embedded images is because the clickable link doesn't match the underlying html coding. AOL will not show those to prevent phishing. Hope this helps a little bit.

Terry

Here is a link that might be useful: ePreserver

Terry,

This may be the programme that you were thinking of - I saved it from a forum several years ago (possibly this one!).

I have no idea if it will work with later versions of AOL but it contains a link to the author so it might be a source of information.

Colin

Here is a link that might be useful: AOL Leave

Lynn, I have several e-mail accounts set up with GMail. You can use the GMail online, or you can configure it to download into Outlook Express if you prefer. The nice thing about several accounts is that you can set up one for personal and family use, another for business, another for sign-up on various forums, shopping, etc. I just use a different user name for each one. I hardly ever visit the GMail site except to check occasionally for any messages that might have been put in the spam folder by their over-zealous filters. Just some ideas to consider.

You can use AOL as a free email. Just go to www.aol.com and sign in. You don't need to use their software. I have email addresses with AOL and gmail, hotmail and use Outlook with my Cable provider. I like gmail and it picks up AOL mail and AOL picks up my gmail (I have no idea why, I never set that up.) I get photos in emails with my free AOL account and also use their radio. I've never like Hotmail because of all the flashy ads. But gmail is easy to use and you can open multiple accounts. Gmail has many features which I haven't even explored. I do like their calender. Many people don't like their ads which link to your email content. I actually find it very handy. It is very easy to use although I haven't figured out how to save emails. They have an archive feature, but I can't find any emails I've archived. I haven't spent time learning how to use it, but it works well for email.

Jane

This is a lot to sort through. I appreciate everyone's help. I did check out that AOLeave link and have written to the author to see if he has anything current.

Jane - I know I can use AOL as free email. In a way, I've wound up doing that by going through firefox. But there are limitations. In some ways, using AOL mail through other browsers is less handy (2 steps to delete mail instead of one, doesn't search mail as efficiently, etc). And even the free AOL mail has limitations about not allowing some embedded image and html (not that I really understand what html is).

Archiving emails is very important to me. I don't want to lose the ones I've already archived. I'm sure there are hundreds. Until Firefox this August, I didn't know anything about bookmarks - and the way I saved everything I wanted was to email it to myself and file it in AOL folders. Even now that I use bookmarks, I often want to file saved emails under relevant categories.

So I guess I'm saying 2 things. I don't want to lose the information I've saved in AOL email folders. (I suppose I could go through the cumbersome task of opening each one and copying and pasting text - and bookmarking links). And I want my new email account to have easy saving and sorting features.

I don't even know what outlook does, but I wonder if I should get it. I send out emails from my personal and work accounts. But lately, I also send out emails from a non-profit that I'm on the Board of. We send things out from vertical response - or our website. I also have a personal website for my psychology practice - and I get emails from that forwarded to me - and send emails to prospective and ongoing clients.

I think I'll want to continue to access my email through a tab on Firefox (boy I'm loving that firefox - thanks to this forum).

Ravencajun - gmx.com sounds good - but I correspond with so many tech-phobic people that I don't want to give them another reason to mess up sending an email - but using an email client they don't recognize. I know that on my Board, our secretary and members often mistype an email address if the email client isn't familiar. And then emails get bounced back and not delivered. But I'm open to being convinced I'm wrong. I was certainly wrong about Firefox being too techy for me.

Thanks.
Lynn.

My husband is a Psychiatrist and I use a gmail account for sending simple appointment reminders or general information. I find it works very well and is so easy (much easier than AOL) for searching emails. It also copies mail from AOL so I don't even need to go there to read something. Google seems to have it down pat!

As I said, I also use the free AOL and save any important emails in their Saved Mail Folders. Years ago when I used AOL as a browser (pre-cable ISP), I uninstalled AOL and used their free email. All my old folders were still there and accessible as was my address book, etc. I didn't loose anything. I don't know how the AOL you are using works. When I need to delete something, I check the box and hit delete. I'm not sure what other steps you mean. I don't use it as a browser. If I want to go to a link, I copy it and paste it in FF. I don't like AOL as a browser.

Jane

Hi, Jane. I'm glad to hear that gmail is even easier to search. Do you have to go to Google to access your email or can you open gmail in firefox?

In effect, the AOL email I'm using on firefox also has my saved mail folders. But when I search for old, deleted emails, it doesn't retrieve many past the last couple of months - whereas, when I go through my AOL software, I can sometimes pull up emails from over a year ago. Once in a while, I deleted an email and only realize much later I'd like access to it. A year ago my daughter sold some of her toys to someone. Once we were done with the sale, I didn't keep the old emails. And then recently I found some extra pieces that went with the set. I was able to retrieve that old email through the AOL software. And the AOL software searches old mail well. The free AOL mail I open on firefox is close to useless for searching.

As for ease of deleting, this sounds very lazy - but with the AOl software I don't have to click the box and then click delete. AOL automatically highlights an email, I can just hit delete - then it highlights the one below in the list, and I then hit delete. I can go through a whole bunch of email I don't need very quickly - without moving the cursor back and forth. (Yes I know I can select many boxes - and then hit delete for all of them - but that' still moving the cursor to each box and clicking. Maybe I'm just not that good with the mouse - but that step is cumbersome to me).

I definitely don't like AOL as a browser. I'm hooked on Firefox now. Maybe gmail is the way to go.

Thanks.
Lynn.

an easy way to select many to delete in most cases this will work is to click on the first one in the list you want to delete then hold down the shift key and go to the last one in the list you want to delete and while holding the shift key click on that email, that should hilight the whole block then just hit delete and it deletes all those hilighted.

One of the reasons I like gmx is that it is so easy only 3 letters same with inbox.com

there are many gmail addons for firefox and since gmail is very popular no doubt it will be around and there will be more stuff made to go along with it and add to it. My one complaint about my gmail is I get a ton of spam there and have rarely given out that address, it does filter them pretty well though and put them in the spam area but I always like to look through those to make sure something good did not get stuck in there by mistake and when there are hundreds of them it is a pain so I usually just hit the delete all button.

Ravencajun - thanks for that easy way to delete emails. I'll have to try that. You make some good points about gmx only being three letters - and inbox is easy to grasp - people won't be misspelling it.

Gmail having lots of firefox addons is another plus. I'm not sure how I feel about the spam issue. AOL seems to do a pretty good job filtering spam - but it may be overzealous in rejecting emails I'd like to receive - esp. when I've made inquiries through etailers, craigslist and ebay sellers - and AOL doesn't recognize the sender. I don't mind looking through spam folders - I'd rather have the option to decide for myself rather than the email client rejecting emails I want. But perhaps if I had gmail I'd get inundated as well.

Okay - so here I am 2 months later and I've been exploring emails. I was all set to use gmail, but the screenname I like was taken - and in the end, that may be a dealbreaker. I was able to get a gmail account for my professional email.

My screenname - which I'd like to keep - was taken on yahoo (including ymail and rocketmail addresses, hotmail, and gmail). I wanted gmail because of the IMAP (which I admit to barely understanding, but I think will be useful) and good archiving/organizing features. But I'm not sure I want to switch to a username that isn't as recognizeable to my friends and correspondents. Most of my emailing is personal, and not professional.

So I looked at GMX - and it looks good and I was able to get all the email addresses I want - my personal one, my professional one, and one for my daughter - with the screenames we have already been using.

I figure I'll play around with them and decide if I want to officially cut the cord with AOL and use gmx. Maybe I'll decide that gmail is so useful, I'll switch screennames (but I don't think so).

One question I have is how inconvenient would it be to use different email providers. Using gmail for professional and gmx (or even keeping AOL through their free AIM) for personal. AIM is getting rated very highly - just below gmail- so I'm having a hard time remembering why I've dislike it so much. perhaps it's more the AOL browswer than the email program.

I want to be able to open my email in a firefox tab. Ravencajun - I'm glad you mentioned gmx added this option, bc. when I first signed up, I thought I didn't like a separate window.

So given that I want to save and sort emails (esp. the personal ones), is one email provider better than another.

I also don't understand much about outlook, thunderbird, etc and what they would do for me. Would thunderbird allow me to organize and retrieve my emails from various accounts all in one place. Or can I do this easily without that extra layer and program. Would using a program like thunderbird effect which email program is most desirable?

I'm barely grasping the questions I'm asking, but the more I stick with this, the more I'll get it. Thanks.

Lynn.

Okay - so here I am 2 months later and I've been exploring emails. I was all set to use gmail, but the screenname I like was taken - and in the end, that may be a dealbreaker. I was able to get a gmail account for my professional email.

My screenname - which I'd like to keep - was taken on yahoo (including ymail and rocketmail addresses, hotmail, and gmail). I wanted gmail because of the IMAP (which I admit to barely understanding, but I think will be useful) and good archiving/organizing features. But I'm not sure I want to switch to a username that isn't as recognizeable to my friends and correspondents. Most of my emailing is personal, and not professional.

So I looked at GMX - and it looks good and I was able to get all the email addresses I want - my personal one, my professional one, and one for my daughter - with the screenames we have already been using.

I figure I'll play around with them and decide if I want to officially cut the cord with AOL and use gmx. Maybe I'll decide that gmail is so useful, I'll switch screennames (but I don't think so).

One question I have is how inconvenient would it be to use different email providers. Using gmail for professional and gmx (or even keeping AOL through their free AIM) for personal. AIM is getting rated very highly - just below gmail- so I'm having a hard time remembering why I've dislike it so much. perhaps it's more the AOL browswer than the email program.

I want to be able to open my email in a firefox tab. Ravencajun - I'm glad you mentioned gmx added this option, bc. when I first signed up, I thought I didn't like a separate window.

So given that I want to save and sort emails (esp. the personal ones), is one email provider better than another.

I also don't understand much about outlook, thunderbird, etc and what they would do for me. Would thunderbird allow me to organize and retrieve my emails from various accounts all in one place. Or can I do this easily without that extra layer and program. Would using a program like thunderbird effect which email program is most desirable?

I'm barely grasping the questions I'm asking, but the more I stick with this, the more I'll get it. Thanks.

Lynn.

Lynn, I have four different e-mail accounts: one with Wild Blue (which I'll soon discontinue using), one with myrealbox.com, and two with gmail.com. With both myrealbox and gmail I had the choice of IMAP or POP3 and I chose POP3. Now don't ask my why. At any rate, I have all configured to download into Outlook Express (I'm using XP) so that all my e-mail is available in one place. Each one gives directions for doing this; just follow the directions exactly.

lynn one thing I like with gmx is that it will fetch your email from many various accounts and display them all in your gmx, many will do that some only do certain ones.
Thunderbird is a program you install on your pc much like outlook express which lets you retrieve your email using Thunderbird, I have one of my computers set up with Thunderbird and it fetches my gmail for me and a few others. One benefit to having your webmail do that for you is that no matter where you are you have access to that where as with Thunderbird it is on your pc.
If you have not visited the gmx forums give it a try they are quite helpful.

have you considered for your user name just adding something to it some will let you add say a tilde ~ in front of your name and one behind it ~
~lynn~ Or *lynn* even $Lynn$ that way you can get your user name with just a simple addition or add a number to it some do their birth year.

One thing I didn't like about gmail is that you can't have multiple screennames/email addresses under one account. I like having all my AOL addresses under one account - but perhaps that's not so important to ease of use and time-saving.

Ravencajun - thanks for your explanation. Now I finally understand the concept of thunderbird/outlook. And I would want to access my emails when away from my desktop - so perhaps that would make gmx a better option. Is there an advantage to a pc-based program like thunderbird over just web-based?

There are 2 potential benefits I can imagine, but really have no idea if these are functions of pc-based email programs. The first is being able to organize, file in folders (and tag, perhaps) emails and save them on my pc. I don't know if Thunderbird does that - and perhaps gmx does that. Or is there a way with any web-based program to specify and save an email on my pc as well.

The other function I'd like (not sure if I'd need pc-based program for it), is to have one email address (provider) open - and be able to send an email from any of my email addresses (whether different addresses all on gmx - or even from a gmail address or AOL address) without having to log into the other email address (and provider). I'm not sure I stated that clearly. But sometimes I'm in my personal email account (on AOL), and I want to send a work email. Now I have to log into my work email address to send it. It would be nice to be able to read all my emails - and send messages from any of the addresses - without having to log into different places. It seems vaguely familiar to me that I've seen this function listed somewhere - but cannot begin to remember the provider or program. Anyone know which email programs let you do this - if any?

The second best solution to this is that if I can have the different email programs on different tabs in Firefox, it's almost as convenient to just switch tabs to send an email from another account/email address.

Ravencajun - I don't like adding a symbol or letter or number before or after the name. While people would recognize me if I wrote to them, they would not remember my email (I can never remember those addresses that have additional numbers or letter added) - and those addresses are frequently mistyped by people. I'm trying to make this transition with as few changes as possible - just a change to @gmx.com or @gmail.com rather than @aol.com is as much as I trust my contacts to handle. I'm not good with technology, but most of the people I correspond with on email are way worse than I am. This needs to be simple.

I know that for my daughter, the few times she and are friends tell each other their email addresses, her friends remember hers bc. it's just her first and middle name - no extraneous letters or numbers that don't make sense to them. Some of my adult correspondents are not much more sophisticated than my daughter's 9 yo friends. (I know this my tech anxiety as well, but I'd prefer to keep my name without extraneous symbols.)

I'll poke around on the gmx forums as well.

Thanks.
Lynn.

Upon further exploration, I decided the searching/organizing features of gmail were so compelling, that I did get a personal email. i took my old email address and add dc at the end (since i'm in DC - and most people I correspond with will know that). is this too much information from a safety perspective. My address is my first and middle name, with dc at the end. Is that safe?

Thanks.
Lynn.

I've been struggling with how to test out these new email services without taking the plunge and notifying all my contacts that I have a new email address. But I don't want to do that until I've experimented and seen which one I like the most.

And then - at 5:30am (and that is hours before I get up on a Saturday), I had an Aha moment. I can change my email addres on forums and listservs to the new gmail address and try it that way. I get a fair amount of my emails from listservs and forums - and those are the main ones I want to be able to archive and organize most easily. So this way, I can really get a feel for gmail before notifying contacts.

So, just now, I switched my notification email address to the gmail address - at gardenweb and listservs (neighborhood, my daughter's school, etc). When people have done that, do they find that the changes happens immediately, or does it take time and there are glitches where postings still get sent to the old address?

I'm going to try the gmail first for 2 reasons. From what I've read, they have the superior organizing and searching features (although I'll have to read some tutorials/instructions to learn them) - and my little bit of time on gmx yesterday was that it was so slow to load. Don't know if that's typical - or if speed varies among these email providers.

Lynn.

A "FWIW" comment..

Another option (for any who would be considering such things) would be to purchase one's own domain at someplace like GoDaddy or Namecheap. Many can be bought for less than $10/yr. One doesn't have to use the domain to have a website. You can use it only for email if you wish. I bought a domain recently through Namecheap ($8.99/yr) and host my email FREE at Google Apps. It's relatively easy to get the Namecheap domain records set up to work with Google.

Using Google Apps means I have Gmail as my email interface and it uses my domain, so I can have whatever username I wish.

Just food for thought, though I realize it may be intimidating to some to go this route.

Why can't you just keep your AOL account through their free mail? I have my old AOL address plus gmail, outlook, etc. I have 4 accounts with gmail, two in Outlook and my old address in AOL. Just use the free email and don't use AOL as a browser.

Jane

Jane - good question. I know I can use AOL free mail. It seems to me that this summer/early fall, I kept finding issues with AOL email - and several web-savvy people (like my web designer, etc. suggested that AOL is very troublesome in it's efforts to be helpful. Now I'm having trouble remembering why I was getting so frustrated with AOL.

This is what I do recall. Not always being able to view embedded images (including an email blast from a non-profit I'm on the Board of). Difficulty formatting emails - if I cut and paste word documents in the email, it gets deliverd with all kinds of extraneous punctuation and symbols. I've had neighborhood listservs reject some of my postings bc. AOL sent so much gibberish with it. I had to rewrite it to get it sent to these neighborhood yahoo-group listservs in a format that was clear. I think (I could remember this wrong), that if I use AOL's fonts, colors, formatting - it may not get delivered that way.

Now I'm opening AOL mail through the firefox browser and not using AOL software. I have found that the search function is vastly inferior to the search function if I opened AOl software. Having AOL email open in Firefox, the searching for emails is highly inaccurate - to the point of being almost useless. This is probably the single biggest frustration I have with AOL (now that I"m not using their software). I don't know that it would work any better if I used the free AIM instead of opening my AOL mail in Firefox. Not quite sure if and how AIM is different.

Using AOL mail via Firefox - it just handles my emails badly. It will place emails in my old folder when I've marked them as save as new. I seem to have less control over where I save my emails. It seems to almost randomly decide whether it keeps the email in the new inbox - or places it in the old folder (where it eventually disappears). And I can only access old emails for a short period before they're deleted. And the recently deleted seem available for a tiny, tiny time compared with the AOL software.

Jane - if your experience with AOL mail is different, please let me know. I know that it's just been very cumbersome and un-useful since I switched to Firefox this summer.

Another problem -which may not be AOL, but could be firefox - or who knows what else. If I'm looking on craigslist and I want to inquire about an item for sale, I can't manage to reply to the poster. I hit the "reply to" button, it places that poster's anonymous contact info in the to: field - but when I hit send, it says that I can't send mail with parenthesis in the BCC field. I have not added anything in the BCC field - and if I click bcc field and delete everything in it, it still insists there are parenthese in the field and won't send the email.

Gee - now that I start thinking about it, I guess I can recall all the frustrations I've been having with AOL (not using the AOL software). The reason I haven't cancelled my paid AOL account is bc. I still need to resort to going through AOL software to reliably access and search old emails.

I will keep a free AOL account with my current email address - just so I can be reached by anyone I forgot to inform about my new address. And for those who forget and send to the old. I still want to receive those emails. But my hope is to use it less and less often bc. it's troublesome now.

A different reason for not using AOL for my professional email is that it just doesn't look professional. (I presume that's one reason your husband using gmail for his professional correspondence - it's just more professional and less amateurish seeming to clients/customers.)

not2bright- I appreciate the FWIW addition. It's a little over my head - but not completely. I do have a professional website - which my webdesigner set up to forward my emails to me. I'm not quite ready for setting up my personal email like this, but the more I hang out on this forum, the more I'm willing to attempt things that I once thought were not possible.

Lynn.

I do have a professional website - which my webdesigner set up to forward my emails to me. I'm not quite ready for setting up my personal email like this, but the more I hang out on this forum, the more I'm willing to attempt things that I once thought were not possible.

Check with whoever you use to carry your web site, you will have at least 5 emails, possibly 10 available that you can set up. Look through the FAQS rather then use your web designer as I imagine he/she charges for everything done.

I have 1and1 as a webhost. I think they do have at least 5 email options. I know my account hosts up to 3 websites (I add my non-profit's in there and had thoughts of using the third for things I want to sell - and a beach apartment we rent. I may never get to that, however).

I had assumed all the email addresses there would all need to be something @mydomain.com. And I don't want to use my full professional name for some of the email correspondence I do. However, if i can pick any domain name at all, that may be worthwhile. I have the login information somewhere - but I've honestly never done it. Another bit of tech-dread I'll need to tackle some day.

Lynn.

After everyone's wonderful advice, I thought I'd post back to say that I'm loving gmail. I've got all my work and listserv/forum mail going there. The filters are great to presort mail into folders without ever going into the inbox and cluttering it up. Also having labels is a useful way of organizing them.

I had trouble loading gmx several times, so I stopped trying. Spending a day not being able to access my email program would be very frustrating.

Lynn.