I’ve said this a lot of times in my previous posts. E-mail is one of those web technologies that we use the most. From personal to official correspondences, E-mail is the go-to solution for all our communication needs. That’s why, it is really important that we choose an E-mail service that works the way we want it to, and eases up our workflow instead of messing it up. That’s why I can’t stress the importance of E-mail enough. A nicely designed E-mail service goes a long way in increasing our productivity. While the big names like AoL, Outlook etc. work just fine, why not use better alternatives if they exist?? Besides, it’s always good to try out something new. Technology is no exception. In my previous blog post, I reviewed a great Russian E-mail service Mail.Ru, detailing why it’s a really good non-US alternatives that you should consider trying out. Think you’ve had enough of Russian E-mail goodness already? Read on!
Yandex Mail: A Great free Russian E-mail service provider, with tons of nice features:
Mail.ru is a really nice alternative to those sick of Gmail and the crap that it keeps shoving in users’ faces with each so called, feature. In this article, I’ll be reviewing Yandex Mail in a little more detail, outlining its major features and why it’s a nice contender for your primary E-mail service.
Who owns Yandex Mail?
Well isn’t that the most obvious question. And it’s perfectly alright to ask. To clarify, Yandex is a major Russian Internet services company that operates the largest (Yeah, you heard that right, Largest – Take that Google!) search engine in Russia, with more than 60% market share. It provides a host of Internet based services and products. According to reports, Yandex is the 4th largest search engine in the world, handling more than 150 million searches per day (as per the official Wikipedia page). To sum it all up, Yandex is quite a big name in technology services.
Even though it’s a Russian company, it operates its major services in English. Yippee!
That’s right folks. In my previous review of Mail.Ru, I addressed a concern that could make first time users apprehensive about jumping to the service – The Russian Webmail UI. Well, that’s no longer the problem with Yandex mail. The Entire webmail UI has English as its default language. The search engine is also offered in English, apart from the regular Russian portal. So, no more messing with Email clients if you guys just want to use the Webmail UI. So without further ado, let’s jump to the service.
Signing up for, usage, and a visual overview of the major aspects of Yandex Mail’s Web UI
Although the signup form can be accessed here, you can jump to this link too, to save yourself a few extra clicks.
The signup page looks like the screenshot below. As with any E-mail service, it asks you to provide the regular information. Just fill up the information and hit CREATE ACCOUNT. That’s all it takes!!
As it’s obvious from the above screenshot, just like Outlook, Gmail etc., Yandex also offers your phone number as a secondary medium of password recovery, besides the regular option of providing a secondary Email address.
The Default Inbox View: The screenshot below shows the default inbox view, and also a quick glimpse at the myriad themes provided by the service.
The Compose Box: Supporting basic and rich e-mail composition capabilities. Checking the screenshot, two features of Yandex Mail become evident. The two buttons at the right of the compose box allow you to Spell Check and Translate your E-mail on the fly, without leaving your inbox. Cool, isn’t it?
Select CARD from the three options at the top of the compose UI, and the E-mail instantly converts to an E-card greeting with a host of predefined templates available for inclusion. Now that’s really good. The third tab (video), allows you to instantly record a message from your Machine’s Webcam, and send it as a video message. How cool is that?
Another screenshot, illustrating an opened Email in Yandex Mail. Notice the conversation manager pane at the right. This pane groups all the correspondences from a single contact into an increasing list, accessible by just clicking through the snippets.
The Yandex Mail settings UI. Everything from Setting up Labels to adding other Email accounts to be fetched (Like Gmail’s POP Fetcher), from Tasks to RSS feeds, from Filters to changing Themes and from adding Signatures to changing Personal Profile can be managed here.
But wait, there’s more:
I know by now, you guys must be drooling over the goodies that Yandex Mail offers for free. But there’s another nifty addition to it. Yandex offers you Free Cloud Storage through the integrated Yandex Disk. It provides you 3 GB of free storage, that can be expanded to 10 GB by completing simple tasks (like installing the cloud app to your system and uploading a file or two). The screenshot shows how the Cloud Storage Web UI looks like.
Yandex Mail Features Summarized:
- Unlimited Email storage.
- Massive Attachment Size (200 MB), which is expandable to 10 GB if the attachment is shared via Yandex Disk.
- Built in, E-mail translator and spell checker.
- 10 GB (3 GB initially) of Cloud storage (Yandex Disk) included with every free account
- Absolutely NO ADS in the interface.
- Message Filters, and domain and address Whitelisting/Blacklisting.
- Ability to pull Email from other Email accounts (All major providers supported).
- Built in E-card templates and Video messaging capability.
- POP/IMAP/SMTP Supported
- SSL/TLS based Incoming/Outgoing Mail Encryption
- Audible Incoming message alert.
Conclusion:
For most of the casual users, the well known trio of Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo! is sufficient. But sometimes, little known services provide an insane amount of features over the competition. Yandex Mail outscores major Email providers by providing a host of innovative features, all for free. The Russian E-mail service works the way you want it to, and you can’t help but like it once you start using it. Personally, I use Yandex for all my Important E-mailing needs and totally recommend it over its competitors.
What do you guys think about Yandex Mail? Do you plan on giving it a try? Or do you already use it? And what features of the service detailed in this review entice you the most? Do let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.