The process of signing up for a free webmail account is supposed to be simple and straightforward. And indeed, the process goes smoothly for most of the people who seek to sign up for the free webmail accounts. Occasionally though, some people do encounter challenges while trying to sign up for free web-based email accounts. In this article, we will be looking at some of those challenges, and how one can overcome them.

Where you find that your preferred webmail address has already been taken

This is the most commonly encountered challenge by people who are trying to sign up for free webmail accounts. One easily gets the impression that all the nice webmail addresses have already been taken – especially those that are directly based on common name combinations. One way to go around this challenge is by using one of the alternative email addresses suggested by the webmail system. Alternatively, you can come up with your own alternative address, to see whether it will go through. To increase the chances of the alternate address being one that has not already been taken up, you may need to consider using a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters.

Where the captcha code fails to go through

Free webmail service providers are awake to the fact that some people may try to create numerous accounts using automated software tools (also known as bots). In order to do away with this possibility, and therefore ensure that only ‘real humans’ are able to create accounts, the free webmail service providers usually put in place a captcha code verification mechanism. But some people do at times encounter a challenge where the captcha code verification simply fails to go through. In most cases, starting the account sign up process afresh will resolve this problem.

Where the system demands SMS or phone call verification

Some people encounter a challenge where, towards the tail end of the webmail account sign up process, they are required to provide a phone number for verification purposes. The idea is to have the webmail system either send an SMS (text) or an automated phone call, with digits that one is supposed to enter back into the system in order to complete the sign up process. The way to overcome this challenge is simply by entering a phone number for the verification to go through. A real challenge can, however, come up if even after entering the phone number, no text or automated phone call comes through – meaning that one is therefore unable to enter the required verification details. In such cases, what you may need to do is to restart the webmail account sign up process afresh.

 

Nowadays, there are free webmail services that one can use without paying a dime. Among those are the likes of Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Hotmail. Yet in spite of the availability of the said free webmail services, we still see some people opting to use the email services that have to be paid for. One is bound to pose the question as to why this is the case: that is, why one would opt to pay for email services, yet there are free webmail services that are quite superb. That is the question whose answers we will be looking for in this article.

It emerges that there are five key reasons as to why people opt to pay for email services.

The prestige issue

There are people who feel that the free webmail services are not prestigious enough. They therefore opt to use the email services that have to be paid for, in pursuit of prestige. This way of thinking is particularly common among the people who use email for business communications. There is always this feeling that a free webmail account diminishes the credibility of any person or organization that uses it for business communications.

Suave marketing by subscription email service providers

The providers of the email services that have to be paid for typically employ the services of suave marketers. The role of these marketers is to convince members of the general public that their email services offer some real benefits that are worth paying for. Quite a good number of people buy into the arguments offered by the said marketers – and subsequently end up opting to use the email services that have to be paid for.

Habits die hard

There are people who first started using email in the earliest days, when subscription payments for email services were more commonplace. Such people therefore got into the habit of paying for email services. And they continue doing so out of habit – notwithstanding the fact that nowadays there are free webmail services they can use with ease. In this category, you will often encounter people who have actually never used a free webmail service, and who therefore imagine that the free webmail services are not good enough.

Conspiratorial fears

There are people who believe that there is nothing like a ‘free lunch’ in the world. They believe that the providers of free webmail services can’t just offer the service free of charge – there must be a ‘catch’ somewhere. In order to avoid the ‘catch’ these folks opt to use the email services that have to be paid for.

Avoiding adverts

The nature of the free webmail services is that they are mostly financed using advertising revenue. This is to say that anyone using them has to put up with ads on the sidelines, above and below the email message web pages. Some people find these ads nauseating. And in order to avoid the sometimes obnoxious ads, such people opt to use the ad-free email services. Naturally, subscription fees have to be paid for the ad-free email services.

Symbolically speaking, the key to an email account is the password. It is through the password that you are able to unlock the email account’s door, in order to subsequently access the account. When you think of it that way, you will start appreciating why you need to take great care when creating a password for your email account. And when you think of it that way, you will also be inclined to take proper care of your email account’s password. That will be the case especially when you also consider the fact that anyone who happens to come across your email account’s password can subsequently access and fully control the account. With these background facts in mind, you will find these 7 tips for email account passwords handy.

Always use an email account password that you can remember with ease

You need to always keep it in mind that if you happen to forget the password, you may end up being locked out of your email account – especially if you also can’t remember the answers to the secret questions. If you use a password that is too hard to remember, chances are that you will be tempted to write it down somewhere. That is risky, especially if you write down the password alongside the email account username. In that case, anyone subsequently coming across the note (where you wrote the password and the username) would then be able to use those credentials to access and gain control of your email account. Thus, the best ideal is to use a password that you can remember off-head.

Always use an email account password that is hard for anyone else to guess

You need to avoid using details such as your name, your birthday, your hometown name or other such details that can be easily guessed as your email passwords. This can be a dilemma to some people – combining the first tip where you have to use an email account password that you can easily remember with this second tip where, at the same time, the password has to be one that is hard for anyone else to guess.

Avoid using the ‘common’ email account passwords

Here, we are looking at the likes of ‘123456’ and ‘abcdef’. Your password needs to unique: one that can’t be easily guessed using the software programs that have been developed to track and crack the commonly used passwords.

Avoid giving out your email account password to other people

An email account password should ideally be personal. There is really no reason as to why you would give your passwords to anyone else. If you give your password to anyone, you need to remember that this other person will have gotten the power to access and fully control your email account. That can be disastrous, especially if we are looking at your main email account: the one through which you carry out the bulk of your correspondence, and within which there probably are your most important contacts. These things seem to be too obvious, but we still hear stories of people who share email account passwords.

Don’t allow public computers to ‘remember’ your email account password

If you do this, it means that the next person who uses the computer will be able to access your email account, and take full control of it. Even if you will have ‘signed off’ or ‘logged out’ the computer will still be able to ‘remember’ the email account password. Therefore, when using a public computer, ensure that the checkbox that asks you whether to ‘remember’ your password is not checked. Actually, some experts argue that there is no reason to tell the computer to ‘remember’ your password, even when using a supposedly private computer. Surely, entering a password every time you wish to access the email account isn’t too much work.

Change your email account password from time to time

The objective here would be simply to keep your email account secure.

Use a unique password for each email account you set up

This should actually be extended to say that you need to use a unique password for every service you sign up for. If you use the same password for all your accounts, it means that anyone who happens to come across the password for one of the accounts would be able to access/gain full control of all your other accounts — and possibly mess you up completely.