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May 24, 2005
Mailblocks Revisited
I should have paid better attention when AOL bought Mailblocks. I've been using Mailblocks for well over a year, and was really liking the clean interface and disposable email addresses, though I'd given up using their challenge-response system. (People just figured the challenge email was more spam, and almost never responded.) But for the last few months, I was getting annoyed about the space limit of 15 meg on my basic (paid) account, when Gmail was offering 2 gig, free of charge.
I also found it odd that no new features had been added to Mailblocks for some time. And I took note when Genie Tyburski reported the difficulty in getting technical support when she experienced blocking of email from Mailblocks by certain services, such as, ironically enough, AOL. But I was sending to AOL members just fine, so I wasn't concerned.
Duh. After all, what did I think AOL was going to do with a web email service? They're quite clear in the press release, which I probably should have read before now! They purchased Mailblocks to get their award-winning spam-battling technology for AOL members, which would not be me.
So when technical troubles hit Mailblocks last week, getting them fixed was probably a low priority for the folks at AOL. That's when I checked the web site and realized they weren't taking new customers, which I must say made me question their commitment to the original Mailblocks product. Oh well, obviously time for me to move on.
Okay then, I've been meaning to try Gmail for some time, now's my chance! I'll report on my impressions of Gmail soon.
Comments
You should check out Spam Arrest ( http://spamarrest.com ). They're a challenge/response service like Mailblocks, but even if you turn off the challenge/response, which they now let you do, they're still a great webmail system, and you can use it to aggregate up to 5 other accounts.
I've been using them for almost 2 years now. They've really improved a lot in the past 6 months, with tons of new features and (finally) decent customer service. I'm guessing they're getting all of the customers who can't signup for mailblocks anymore.
They also give you 1GB of storage, which I've heard isn't enforced.
Posted by: dan at July 11, 2005 05:22 PM
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