Gmail, an abbreviation for “Google mail” is a free, Web-based email service, similar to Yahoo Mail or Hotmail that is part of Google’s larger suite of Web services. Gmail provides its users 15 gigabytes of free storage. Gmail was first introduced by Google in 2004 and then limited test accounts were made available in 2005. According to Statista, Google’s Gmail service has had 900 million active users worldwide (Jan-May, 2015).
Gmail has been increasing in popularity since 2004 with the decline of Yahoo!, AOL, and Hotmail, more and more people are moving to Google’s services.
In the past, having a free account made home businesses look unprofessional, but Gmail is different and why many entrepreneurs have switched or include Gmail as one of their email providers.
Gmail Features
What helps make Gmail unique is the ability to store several gigabytes of e-mail data, which means most users don’t have to worry about not getting e-mail due to exceeding their available storage. Another defining trait of the www.gmail.com service is that it allows users to be inactive for up to nine months. Many similar services that require a login at least once every 30 days to keep an account active. Finally, Gmail has one of the best if not the best spam detections available which means almost all spams are filtered into spam folder, so you don’t have to read it.
Like many other Google’s services, Google mail has some features as below:
Very good spam filtering and virus protection.
Generous free mail storage (over 15 GB as of this writing)
Access to email via mobile devices.
Built-in chat capabilities,
Customizable tabs to help you organize your email inbox,
Themes to change the look of Gmail
Video calls.
Ability to view attachments within the email (as opposed to downloading)
Ability to send money.
Google Mail
