this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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No real reason to be using a hotmail account in this day and age, even less so if you're a developer of a direct competitor for Microsoft.
Eh, that's the problem with email - it's much harder to change and migrate, because you can't guarantee others will use your new email, much less find out who somehow still has the old email to send messages to and expects a reply from.
This is an argument for having your own domain for emails. There is an annual cost but at least your address isn't locked to a specific provider sokcd you can change some DNS settings to point at a different mail server.
I’ve been with Tuta mail for years now and it just keeps getting better. It’s not free, but I believe that that’s why it’s a good choice. They’ve add the calendar app and are expanding to cloud storage.
It's also an argument for not having your own domain for emails, because you may one day loose that domain too, and someone could poach the domain to impersonate you.
Yep, it's a great idea
Unless you own the domain. Then switching providers is a simple DNS/MX/DKIM/DMARC update.
Eh, that's when you just turn on auto-reply/forwarding and abandon it.
But of course they need to be able to access it to enable auto-reply. :)
This. Don’t ever delete the account because someone will scoop it up and impersonate you. Just set auto reply and log out. Check the terms, you may need to log in every 6 months though. Do that a couple of times at least.
This is what I did. I set up autoresponse giving out an address that redirects to my new email address. My parents called me to see if I was hacked. Everyone else just started using the new address.
Also you can get locked out of other services that use email for 2FA and password resets
compared to what? much easier than phone numbers
What alternative do you recommend that won't be blocked by Google and Microsoft? I hate Microsoft, but I can't even sign up for a Google account, and everywhere else I've tried is blocked by Google, Microsoft, or both.
I self-hosted my email from 2006-2021, and do not have the stamina to do that any more.
If your concern is being blocked, the best advice is to avoid any free email service and pony up for a paid one.
ProtonMail used to be the big one, but IIRC they had some controversy recently:
https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/proton-mail-exposing-activists-info-showed-the-limits-of-encryption/
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/the-intercept-proton-mail-says-it-s-politically-neutral-while-praising-republican-party/24456
Other commenter already mentioned Zoho, but also mailbox.org.
Zoho works well for me with my own domain (though I am on the old free plan that allows IMAP, while today the free plan only supports webmail or their own app). I also know someone who uses Tuta without problems sending to Google and Microsoft.
I use posteo.de
Do they even still issue them? Like prior to ~2007 Hotmail was THE free email to have before Google, like, did it better. But aren't they issuing outlook.com addresses now?
Dunno... the last time I dealt with it was someone trying to reach my mom and couldn't.
I asked them to verify the address...
@hotmale.com
Oh, well there's your problem!
Or is it?
-yup, it is :-/
When MS ditched the Hotmail name, they went to their "Live" branding. I have an account with that domain, in addition to my old Hotmail account.
I wish I held onto my old Yahoo account, but it got so full of spam that it became completely unusable; so I deleted it 🫤
Yahoo still exists. Somehow. Apparently the brand is extremely popular in Japan, Yahoo Japan is on the list of top 50 visited websites. IIRC the brand was bought by Verizon, and I have no idea if Yahoo even offers web search anymore.
Apparently Yahoo uses Microsoft Bing for their search backend.
How the hell are we down to two meaningful web engines and two meaningful search engines?
There's Firefox and everyone else, and everyone else uses Chrome.
There's Google and everyone else, and everyone else uses Bing.
Because complacency. That's all I can think of.
I stopped using Hotmail when gmail launched and I was given one of the early invites from a tech relative. I have the welcome email from '04.
But now I'm looking at moving my emails to a self hosted solution because they have used everything in my >20year email history for Ai and I don’t want that to continue into the future.
I just don't really value email accounts much. I have several and only rarely check them.