Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide you with an email address. It’s usually how you log into their website to access your account information, pay bills online, etc, so it makes sense that they do this.
I offer the following advice:
Don’t use your ISP’s email address as your primary email address.
Switching ISPs
I hear you asking “Why not?” There are several reasons:-
You may need to change ISPs at some point in the future. If you switch ISPs, what happens to your old ISP email account when you stop paying the ISP for your internet service? Some ISPs might let you keep it, but it’s not in their best interest to provide that email service when you’re no longer paying them every month.
ISPs are getting out of the email business
Sometimes ISPs close, go out of business, or are acquired by another ISP. Tiscali was taken over and was asking users to pay to keep their email open.
Click here. Or here. Or here.
Some ISPs (VM, Sky) are no longer providing email addresses for new customers. It doesn’t seem they have a long-term commitment to provide email services. I understand that one ISP is proposing to close its email service whilst continuing as an ISP.
Click Here
Changing email providers
As anyone who has done it can attest, it’s not easy to change your email address. Think of the hundreds of friends, family, websites, retailers, etc. that use your email address to communicate with you. Do you really remember every important website or service with which you registered your email address? They probably include your bank, utilities, social networks, shopping websites like Amazon, entertainment services like iTunes, iPlayer and Netflix, your school, your employer, various reward/loyalty clubs for stores, ticketing websites, and the list continues. If you switch ISPs, you’ve got to log in to each account and update your email address. What a pain!
The email address change process will also take a long time.
Feature Limitations
An ISP’s email service cannot match the feature set of top email services like Gmail or Outlook. There are advantages and disadvantages to using any email provider – let us look at some issues:
Email Integrity
Are the contents of the email you send or receive secure from prying eyes? Be aware that email is generally considered to be quite insecure.
Consider this scenario: You email some sensitive data to several people. Where does this data reside now? On your email provider’s servers and on the servers of the several recipients’ email providers. And you have no way to manage where that data is or who has access, and you have no way to remove it. There are new email services that encrypt the data – these are much more secure.
IMAP vs POP3
Email services from many ISPs only support the POP3 standard instead of the IMAP standard. IMAP allows you to sync your email across multiple devices, such as your smartphone, desktop PC, laptop, tablet, etc. Any change you make on one device, such as deleting a message, will be reflected on all of the other devices. It also supports most email functions, like moving messages into folders.
POP3 is more limited; it simply downloads a copy of an email when you open it on a device and either delete it from the server (so it is only accessible on the device you first viewed it on) or leaves a copy on the server (so when you delete it from the device you viewed it on, it will actually still be on the server and all of your other devices). POP3 is not a secure protocol.
Additional Features and Services
Does your ISP’s email service offer automatic message labelling/sorting, lightning-fast search and filtering, or value-adds like cloud storage, a calendar, or a task list? Does your provider do a good job at identifying and sorting spam emails? Look for an email provider that offers you features you can use to your advantage.
Past Performance
Yahoo’s services had multiple security breaches a few years ago, affecting millions of users. This makes me very unsure about using it as my primary email account. Other email providers have experienced various issues. See here
Virgin Media users suffered several multi-day email outages in 2023-25
– see here and here
A user’s experience with Virgin Media (2024)
Yesterday I got a spam email; it went to all my contacts. Then my emails were blocked. Today, I phoned Virgin Media; 3 hours on the phone – I kept getting transferred to different people.
Now, I’ve got a new email address and I have had to notify all my contacts – it’s taken 9 hours today. Absolute nightmare. My old one was with NTL, the old Virgin Media one, I’d had it for years. I think they are discontinuing it. Been very stressful
Advertising
Some email providers rely on advertising for revenue and interrupt your email experience with unwanted advertising. All free email service providers are using you as their source of revenue, usually so they can advertise to you. The better email providers do not put advertising into their web-based email solutions or their email applications.
Better Email Solutions
What’s the alternative? The alternative is to use a free email service like Gmail, or Outlook. There are alternatives, but both Gmail and Outlook continue to add features that make managing email easier and faster. These email services also come with secure online storage for files – Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Both offer online word-processing and spreadsheet applications (Google Docs, Microsoft Office365) that provide office application functionality, with co-authoring and file-sharing capabilities.
Be aware that free email services usually don’t offer any customer service. This means if you have a problem, you’ll get little help from the email provider. However, these providers have hundreds of millions of customers and there is plenty of advice and guidance available online.
Gmail
The obvious next question is what email address should you use? Gmail has the advantage of being a familiar name, being free, and offering lots of storage for attachments. But it’s also hard to get the email address you want, and you do sign away significant chunks of your privacy.
Outlook
If you can cope with an Outlook.com address then this would be my preference, although the same caveats about privacy apply. Outlook offers all the benefits of Gmail. Microsoft’s Hotmail email service has been incorporated into Outlook.
Users of Apple products may wish to remain faithful to Apple and use iCloud.
Email Security
Email is not at all secure. Email can be made more secure by encrypting the content, but this is complex and not for the average user. If you want a secure email service, there are a few providers of email services with enhanced security, notably Proton Mail.
Email applications
There are plenty of email applications for Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and iPhone. These offer plenty of features and are often more feature-rich than the standard web-based application. Use an email application (such as Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) by all means if they offer you what you want.
Email service providers to avoid
Avoid any email provider whose primary activity is being an ISP, eg:- ntlworld, virginmedia, btinternet, talk21, talktalk, sky, vodafone, tiscali, ee, o2, plusnet.
Most popular email services
- Gmail – 1,500 million users – 36%
- iCloud – 850 million users – 18%
- Outlook – 400 million users – 9%
- Yahoo – 230 million users – 4%
Multi-Factor Authentication
What is MFA? Two-factor authentication (2FA) or Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) is a way of strengthening the login security of your online accounts. It’s similar to how an ATM works. You need both your debit card (first factor) and your PIN (second factor) to access your account and withdraw cash. The main objective is better security. If your card is stolen, they still need your PIN. If your PIN is stolen, they still need your card. Enabling MFA will help to stop hackers from getting into your accounts, even if they have your password. If you are using an email service that does not offer MFA, please consider switching to an email provider that does. And make use of MFA.
How do I enable MFA on my accounts? Here are links you can use to enable MFA on some of the most popular online services and apps:
An independent review of free email services can be found here – Jan 2023
For more of the government’s latest advice on how to stay secure online, visit the Cyber Aware website: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberaware
End-to-End Encryption of email
The email system was not designed to be secure. Although some email providers use encrypted transport, email content is stored unencrypted. There are ways to encrypt the email content. There are also a few providers making secure email available to all by using end-to-end encryption. It should be noted that when the email is sent to an email provider that does not use end-to-end encryption, then the secure nature of the email will be lost.
If the security of the content of your email is key to you, then you may wish to use one of these providers. Proton Mail is just one example of a secure email provider. A list of secure email providers is available here
Passwords
Most important of all, your password is key to the security of your email.
– Change your passwords regularly
– Use MFA if it’s available
– Be sure your password is complex and not easy to guess
– Be sure you can remember your passwords
– Consider using a password manager
– Don’t use the same password for everything
Summary
I recommend not using email addresses provided by ISPs but using the email services provided by Microsoft, Google, or Apple. However, if you can’t stand the thought of not using your old and familiar ISP’s email service, then relegate it to the purpose of signing up for services and websites that you think might send a lot of spam. Then, if and when you decide the website or service is OK, you can update your account with your primary email address.
By all means, use more than one email address; in practice, it’s a good idea to have several email addresses. You can set up your email application and your web-based email reader (Gmail or Outlook) to read the emails of several addresses.
You may want to use one email address for higher security use (eg: online banking); another for online retail (eg: Amazon, eBay), and yet another for social media use, etc.
Read about a survey which claims that fear of Email Loss stops 2 Million UK Homes Switching ISP
