Hotmail
Encyclopedia
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft
as part of its Windows Live
group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia
and Jack Smith
and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first web-based email services. Its original name and capitalization refers to HTML
, the encoding language used by the World Wide Web
. Hotmail was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million, and shortly after it was rebranded as "MSN Hotmail". The current version, "Windows Live Hotmail", was officially announced in 2005 and released worldwide in 2007.
Windows Live Hotmail features unlimited storage, security measures for which patents
have been filed, Ajax technology
, and integration with Windows Live Messenger
, Hotmail Calendar, SkyDrive
and Contacts
. According to comScore
(August 2010) Windows Live Hotmail is the world's largest web-based email service with nearly 364 million users. Second and third are Yahoo! Mail
(280 million) and Gmail
(260 million). It is available in 36 different languages.
The Hotmail development and operations groups are based in Mountain View, California
. When Hotmail Corporation was an independent company, its headquarters were in Sunnyvale, California
.
programming techniques and supports later versions of Internet Explorer
, Firefox, Safari
, and Google Chrome
. Some of its features include keyboard
controls giving the ability to navigate around the page without using the mouse
, the ability to search
the user's messages including structured query syntax such as "from:ebay", message filters, folder-based organization of messages, auto-completion of contact addresses when composing, contact grouping, importing and exporting of contacts as CSV
files, rich text format
ting, rich text signatures, spam filtering and virus
scanning, support for multiple addresses, and different language versions.
In comparison to other webmail services, Hotmail offers the following unique features.
, Flickr
, LinkedIn
, and United States Postal Service
to be viewed directly within the email message. For example, users may view the YouTube video within Hotmail when a user receives an email which contains a link to the video. Other functionalities of Active view include tracking of real time shipping status from United States Postal Service and performing social networking actions on LinkedIn
directly from within the email message.
to allow high fidelity viewing and editing of Microsoft Office
Word
, Excel
, and PowerPoint
documents that are attached to the email messages. Users can directly open attached Office documents within the web browser
, and save them into their Windows Live SkyDrive
. Users can also perform edits to any received Office documents, and directly reply to the sender with the edited version of the document. In addition, users may also send up to 10GB of Office documents (up to 50 MB each) using Hotmail by uploading these documents onto Windows Live SkyDrive
, and share these documents with other users for viewing or collaboration.
list, from group mailing lists or Windows Live Groups
, or from a social networking website. Categoties appear under Quick views for ease of access.
address. (e.g. @hotmail.com and @live.com)
Notes:
and Jack Smith
, and was one of the first webmail services on the Internet along with Four11's RocketMail
(later Yahoo! Mail
). It was commercially launched on July 4, 1996, American Independence Day
, symbolizing "freedom" from ISP-based email and the ability to access a user's inbox from anywhere in the world. The name "Hotmail" was chosen out of many possibilities ending in "-mail" as it included the letters HTML
- the markup language used to create web pages (to emphasize this, the original type casing was "HoTMaiL"). The limit for free storage was 2 MB
. Hotmail was initially backed by venture capital
firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson
. By December 1997, it reported more than 8.5 million subscribers. Hotmail initially ran under Solaris for mail services and Apache on FreeBSD for web services before being converted to Microsoft products.
Hotmail was sold to Microsoft
in December 1997 for a reported $400 million, and it joined the MSN
group of services. Hotmail quickly gained in popularity as it was localized
for different markets around the globe and became the world's largest webmail service, and reported more than 30 million active members by February 1999.
Hotmail originally ran on a mixture of FreeBSD
and Solaris operating system
s. A project was started to move Hotmail to Windows 2000. In June 2001, Microsoft claimed this had been completed; a few days later they retracted and admitted that the DNS functions of the Hotmail system were still reliant on FreeBSD.
Later development saw the service tied with Microsoft's web authentication scheme, Microsoft Passport (now Windows Live ID
), and integration with Microsoft's instant messaging
and social networking programs, MSN Messenger and MSN Spaces (now Windows Live Messenger
and Windows Live Spaces
, respectively). A security issue appeared in Hotmail during this period that permitted anybody to log into any Hotmail account using the password 'eh'; it was at the time called "the most widespread security incident in the history of the Web."
In 2001, the Hotmail service was compromised again by computer hackers who discovered that anyone could log into their Hotmail account and then cull messages from any other Hotmail account by crafting a URL with the second account's username and a valid message number. It was such a simple attack that by the time the patch was made, dozens of newspapers and hundreds of web sites published exact descriptions allowing tens-of-thousands of hackers to run rampant across Hotmail. The exploitable vulnerability exposed millions of accounts to tampering between August 7, 2001 and August 31, 2001.
After a period of technological stagnation, the webmail industry received a significant boost in 2004 when Google
announced its own mail service, Gmail
. Featuring greater storage space, speed, and interface flexibility, this new competitor spurred a wave of innovation in webmail. The main industry heavyweights – Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail
– introduced upgraded versions of their email services with greater speed, security, and advanced features.
The Hotmail brand was planned to be phased-out when Microsoft announced that the new mail system would be called Windows Live Mail, but the developers soon backtracked after beta-testers were confused with the name change and preferred the already well-known Hotmail name, and decided on Windows Live Hotmail. After a period of beta testing, it was officially released to new and existing users in the Netherlands on November 9, 2006, as a pilot market. Development of the beta was finished in April 2007, Windows Live Hotmail was released to new registrations on May 7, 2007, as the 260 million MSN Hotmail accounts worldwide gained access to the new system. The old MSN Hotmail interface was accessible only by users who registered before the Windows Live Hotmail release date and had not chosen to update to the new service. The roll-out to all existing users was completed in October 2007.
Windows Live Hotmail was awarded PC Magazine
s Editor's Choice Award in February 2007, March 2007, and February 2011
It was announced in 2008 on the Windows Live Hotmail website that the service would be updated with focus on improving the speed, increasing the storage space, better user experience, and usability features. It was announced that sign-in and email access speeds will be up to 70 percent faster. The classic and full versions of Windows Live Hotmail are combined in the new release. As a result of user feedback, Hotmail has been updated so that scrolling works for users who have the reading pane turned off. It is also expected that Hotmail team will be moving the advertisement from the top of page to the side, adding more themes, increasing the number of messages on each page, and adding the ability to send instant messages from the user's inbox in future releases.
Support for Firefox in the upgraded Windows Live Hotmail took a few months to complete. Full version support for Google Chrome was also added on November 4, 2008. On October 30, 2008, some account holders using various Linux
based browsers started experiencing read-only access. However, with the use of a user agent switcher to dupe Hotmail into thinking the user is accessing from Windows, normal functionality is restored, which indicates that Windows Live Hotmail is only allowing certain browsers at the moment.
As part of the update, Microsoft also added integrated capability for instant messaging with contacts on the Windows Live Messenger
service. The feature is the realization of a project that began as "Windows Live Web Messenger" in 2007, a replacement for the outdated "MSN Web Messenger" service that was first launched in August 2004. It was noted that the original "Windows Live Web Messenger" featured tabbed conversations in a "conversation workspace", however since its integration with Hotmail this has been removed.
On May 18, 2010, Microsoft unveiled the "Wave 4" update of Hotmail, which offers features such as 1-Click Filters, Active Views, Inbox Sweeping, and 10GB of photos and Microsoft Office documents attachments. It also includes integration with Windows Live SkyDrive
and Windows Live Office, a free version of Microsoft's Office Web Apps
suite. The new version began its gradual release to all Hotmail users on June 15, 2010 and was completely rolled out on August 3, 2010. Exchange ActiveSync
support was enabled to all Hotmail users on August 30, 2010, allowing users to sync their mail, contacts
, calendar and tasks to their mobile devices that supports the protocol. Addition of full-session SSL
was released on November 9, 2010 but it does not support Windows Live Family Safety managed accounts.
Throughout 2011, Microsoft added several new features to Hotmail, such as aliases and speed improvements. In October, Microsoft unveiled a "re-invented Hotmail", and added lots of new features such as Instant Actions, scheduled Sweep, Categories and more, and this update began fully rolling out on November 9 2011.
protocol, which allows emails to be downloaded locally via a desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook Express
or Mozilla Thunderbird
(with the WebMail extension). WebDAV access was originally available to all Hotmail users, but the service was revoked from new free users in 2004. If a Hotmail account was older than 2004, it was still possible for users to freely access their Hotmail account outside of an internet browser with the above-mentioned programs using WebDAV. If users had a newer account, WebDAV access was only available in Hotmail Premium. On June 4, 2009 Microsoft informed that WebDAV would be discontinued on September 1, 2009.
2003, 2007 or 2010, users can download the free Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector. Using the Outlook connector, users can freely access email messages, contacts, and calendars in any Hotmail account, though access to tasks and notes requires a premium subscription. Another alternative for users is to use the Windows Live Mail
desktop client which has built-in support for Hotmail. Both applications, Windows Live Mail
and Microsoft Outlook
, can access Hotmail through the proprietary DeltaSync
protocol. Currently no Mac alternative utilizing DeltaSync exists, as Microsoft Entourage
does not support it. There has been no word from Microsoft Entourage
or Windows Live Hotmail as to whether an "Entourage Connector" will be available in the future.
support to Hotmail, allowing users to synchronise their email, contacts
, and calendar
on any device that supports the Exchange ActiveSync protocol.
or chain mailing
and unwanted marketing, due to wide availability, service popularity, and ease of registration of new accounts. However, Hotmail does not tolerate this practice. It subscribes to Microsoft's service agreement, which states any account engaging in these activities will be terminated without warning.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
as part of its Windows Live
Windows Live
Windows Live is the collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft, part of their software plus services platform. A majority of these services are Web applications, accessible from a browser, but there are also client-side binary applications that require...
group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia
Sabeer Bhatia
Sabeer Bhatia is an Indian American entrepreneur who co-founded the Hotmail email service and Jaxtr.- Background :...
and Jack Smith
Jack Smith (Hotmail)
Jack Smith, along with Sabeer Bhatia, founded the first free web-based email service, Hotmail, in 1995. He has been the CEO of Proximex since 2007.-Career:...
and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first web-based email services. Its original name and capitalization refers to HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, the encoding language used by the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. Hotmail was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million, and shortly after it was rebranded as "MSN Hotmail". The current version, "Windows Live Hotmail", was officially announced in 2005 and released worldwide in 2007.
Windows Live Hotmail features unlimited storage, security measures for which patents
Software patent
Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".In 2005, the European Patent Office...
have been filed, Ajax technology
Ajax (programming)
Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
, and integration with Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
, Hotmail Calendar, SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive, initially called Windows Live Folders, is a free-of-charge file hosting service that allows users to upload files to a cloud storage and then access them from a Web browser...
and Contacts
Windows Live Contacts
Windows Live Contacts is part of Microsoft's Windows Live services. It integrates tightly with Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Profile to provide users access to their contact's profiles and information...
. According to comScore
ComScore
comScore is a Internet marketing research company providing marketing data and services to many of the Internet's largest businesses. comScore tracks all internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior....
(August 2010) Windows Live Hotmail is the world's largest web-based email service with nearly 364 million users. Second and third are Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
(280 million) and Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
(260 million). It is available in 36 different languages.
The Hotmail development and operations groups are based in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
. When Hotmail Corporation was an independent company, its headquarters were in Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the Silicon Valley located in the San Francisco Bay Area...
.
Features
Similar to other major webmail services, Hotmail uses AjaxAjax (programming)
Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
programming techniques and supports later versions of Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
, Firefox, Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
, and Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
. Some of its features include keyboard
Computer keyboard
In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
controls giving the ability to navigate around the page without using the mouse
Mouse (computing)
In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...
, the ability to search
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
the user's messages including structured query syntax such as "from:ebay", message filters, folder-based organization of messages, auto-completion of contact addresses when composing, contact grouping, importing and exporting of contacts as CSV
Comma-separated values
A comma-separated values file stores tabular data in plain-text form. As a result, such a file is easily human-readable ....
files, rich text format
Rich Text Format
The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....
ting, rich text signatures, spam filtering and virus
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
scanning, support for multiple addresses, and different language versions.
In comparison to other webmail services, Hotmail offers the following unique features.
Active view
Hotmail's Active view allows users to interact directly with contents and functionalities within their email message. For example, any photo attachments can be previewed directly using Active view. In addition, Hotmail provides a partner platform which allows contents and functionalities from various websites and services such as YouTubeYouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
, and United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
to be viewed directly within the email message. For example, users may view the YouTube video within Hotmail when a user receives an email which contains a link to the video. Other functionalities of Active view include tracking of real time shipping status from United States Postal Service and performing social networking actions on LinkedIn
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
directly from within the email message.
Office Web Apps integration
Hotmail integrates with Office Web AppsOffice Web Apps
Microsoft Office Web Apps is a web-based version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. It includes the web-based versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote. The web applications allow users to access their documents directly from anywhere within a...
to allow high fidelity viewing and editing of Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
, and PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
documents that are attached to the email messages. Users can directly open attached Office documents within the web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
, and save them into their Windows Live SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive, initially called Windows Live Folders, is a free-of-charge file hosting service that allows users to upload files to a cloud storage and then access them from a Web browser...
. Users can also perform edits to any received Office documents, and directly reply to the sender with the edited version of the document. In addition, users may also send up to 10GB of Office documents (up to 50 MB each) using Hotmail by uploading these documents onto Windows Live SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive, initially called Windows Live Folders, is a free-of-charge file hosting service that allows users to upload files to a cloud storage and then access them from a Web browser...
, and share these documents with other users for viewing or collaboration.
Conversation threading
Hotmail provides the ability to automatically group sent and received emails that are from the same conversation into the same conversation thread, allowing users to quickly browse through all the emails within the same conversation thread. This feature can be turned on or off depending on the user's preferences.Sweep
Hotmail offers a "virtual broom" which allow users to delete or move large amounts emails into specified folders based on the sender's information. Once a "sweep" is performed, the user may choose to configure Hotmail to remember the sweep settings and perform the same move or delete actions for any future emails. Users may also set up custom message rules based on the sender's or recipient's information, the subject of the email, or attachments to the email. There is also an option to delete/move messages that are older than a specified amount of days, or only keep the latest message from a sender.Quick views and one-click filters
Quick views allow users to filter all emails (in all folders) by document attachments, photo attachments, flagged messages, or shipping updates. One-click filters allow users to filter the inbox (or specific folder) based on whether or not the email message is unread, from the Windows Live ContactsWindows Live Contacts
Windows Live Contacts is part of Microsoft's Windows Live services. It integrates tightly with Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Profile to provide users access to their contact's profiles and information...
list, from group mailing lists or Windows Live Groups
Windows Live Groups
Windows Live Groups is an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enable users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination.-Features:...
, or from a social networking website. Categoties appear under Quick views for ease of access.
Aliases
Users can create Hotmail aliases for their Windows Live ID. Once an alias is set up, users can choose to have all email sent to that address go to a specific folder, or to the inbox. Users can send emails from that alias as if it is a normal email address. Up to 5 aliases can be made every year, and up to 15 in total. Aliases are completely different to the user's original addresses, and can be deleted at any time. Aliases are not actual Windows Live IDs, so users can not sign in with them. Users can create up to five aliases per year, and up to fifteen in total, and can remove/create them at any time.Categories
Categories allow users to label messages or senders into a particular group, and those categories will appear under "Quick views" in the sidebar. Some categories are created by default, and some mail is put in those categories by default (e.g. photos, office docs and newsletters). Users can select multiple categories for each piece of mail, have categories applied automatically, and create new ones.Instant Actions
Instant actions are buttons that appear when a user hovers the mouse over a message. Example instant actions are delete, move, sweep and flag, and they are customisable in options.Registration
Upon registration, new users can choose from a Hotmail domainDomain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
address. (e.g. @hotmail.com and @live.com)
Hotmail Plus
| Feature | Hotmail (free version) | Hotmail Plus (paid) |
|---|---|---|
| Initial email storage capacity | 5 GB (growing automatically) | 10 GB (growing automatically) |
| Email attachment limit | 25 MB | 50 MB |
| Account expiry | ||
| POP3 support | colspan = 2 | |
| IMAP support | colspan = 2 | |
| SMTP support | colspan = 2 | |
| DeltaSync support | colspan = 2 | |
| Microsoft Exchange support | colspan = 2 | |
| Ads |
Notes:
- A. 10 GB with SkyDrive
- B. IMAP support is available via IzyMail
Launch of Hotmail
Hotmail service was founded by Sabeer BhatiaSabeer Bhatia
Sabeer Bhatia is an Indian American entrepreneur who co-founded the Hotmail email service and Jaxtr.- Background :...
and Jack Smith
Jack Smith (Hotmail)
Jack Smith, along with Sabeer Bhatia, founded the first free web-based email service, Hotmail, in 1995. He has been the CEO of Proximex since 2007.-Career:...
, and was one of the first webmail services on the Internet along with Four11's RocketMail
Rocketmail
RocketMail was one of the first major, free webmail services. The service was originally a product of Four11 Corporation. For a brief time, RocketMail battled with Hotmail for the number-one spot among free webmail services. Four11, including RocketMail, was acquired by Yahoo! in 1997. Yahoo!...
(later Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
). It was commercially launched on July 4, 1996, American Independence Day
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
, symbolizing "freedom" from ISP-based email and the ability to access a user's inbox from anywhere in the world. The name "Hotmail" was chosen out of many possibilities ending in "-mail" as it included the letters HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
- the markup language used to create web pages (to emphasize this, the original type casing was "HoTMaiL"). The limit for free storage was 2 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
. Hotmail was initially backed by venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with affiliate offices in more than 30 cities around the world and over $7 billion in capital commitments....
. By December 1997, it reported more than 8.5 million subscribers. Hotmail initially ran under Solaris for mail services and Apache on FreeBSD for web services before being converted to Microsoft products.
MSN Hotmail
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
in December 1997 for a reported $400 million, and it joined the MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...
group of services. Hotmail quickly gained in popularity as it was localized
Internationalization and localization
In computing, internationalization and localization are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional differences and technical requirements of a target market...
for different markets around the globe and became the world's largest webmail service, and reported more than 30 million active members by February 1999.
Hotmail originally ran on a mixture of FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
and Solaris operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s. A project was started to move Hotmail to Windows 2000. In June 2001, Microsoft claimed this had been completed; a few days later they retracted and admitted that the DNS functions of the Hotmail system were still reliant on FreeBSD.
Later development saw the service tied with Microsoft's web authentication scheme, Microsoft Passport (now Windows Live ID
Windows Live ID
Windows Live ID is a single sign-on web service developed and provided by Microsoft that allows users to log in to many websites using one account...
), and integration with Microsoft's instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
and social networking programs, MSN Messenger and MSN Spaces (now Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
and Windows Live Spaces
Windows Live Spaces
Windows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging and social networking platform. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking sites, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of community services away from the MSN brand...
, respectively). A security issue appeared in Hotmail during this period that permitted anybody to log into any Hotmail account using the password 'eh'; it was at the time called "the most widespread security incident in the history of the Web."
In 2001, the Hotmail service was compromised again by computer hackers who discovered that anyone could log into their Hotmail account and then cull messages from any other Hotmail account by crafting a URL with the second account's username and a valid message number. It was such a simple attack that by the time the patch was made, dozens of newspapers and hundreds of web sites published exact descriptions allowing tens-of-thousands of hackers to run rampant across Hotmail. The exploitable vulnerability exposed millions of accounts to tampering between August 7, 2001 and August 31, 2001.
After a period of technological stagnation, the webmail industry received a significant boost in 2004 when Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
announced its own mail service, Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
. Featuring greater storage space, speed, and interface flexibility, this new competitor spurred a wave of innovation in webmail. The main industry heavyweights – Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
– introduced upgraded versions of their email services with greater speed, security, and advanced features.
Windows Live Hotmail
Microsoft's new email system was announced on November 1, 2005, under the codename "Kahuna", and a beta version was released to a few thousand testers. Other webmail enthusiasts also wanting to try the beta version could request an invitation granting access. The new service was built from scratch and emphasized three main concepts of being "faster, simpler, and safer". New versions of the beta service were rolled out over the development period, and by the end of 2006 the number of beta testers had reached the millions.The Hotmail brand was planned to be phased-out when Microsoft announced that the new mail system would be called Windows Live Mail, but the developers soon backtracked after beta-testers were confused with the name change and preferred the already well-known Hotmail name, and decided on Windows Live Hotmail. After a period of beta testing, it was officially released to new and existing users in the Netherlands on November 9, 2006, as a pilot market. Development of the beta was finished in April 2007, Windows Live Hotmail was released to new registrations on May 7, 2007, as the 260 million MSN Hotmail accounts worldwide gained access to the new system. The old MSN Hotmail interface was accessible only by users who registered before the Windows Live Hotmail release date and had not chosen to update to the new service. The roll-out to all existing users was completed in October 2007.
Windows Live Hotmail was awarded PC Magazine
PC Magazine
PC Magazine is a computer magazine published by Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009...
s Editor's Choice Award in February 2007, March 2007, and February 2011
It was announced in 2008 on the Windows Live Hotmail website that the service would be updated with focus on improving the speed, increasing the storage space, better user experience, and usability features. It was announced that sign-in and email access speeds will be up to 70 percent faster. The classic and full versions of Windows Live Hotmail are combined in the new release. As a result of user feedback, Hotmail has been updated so that scrolling works for users who have the reading pane turned off. It is also expected that Hotmail team will be moving the advertisement from the top of page to the side, adding more themes, increasing the number of messages on each page, and adding the ability to send instant messages from the user's inbox in future releases.
Support for Firefox in the upgraded Windows Live Hotmail took a few months to complete. Full version support for Google Chrome was also added on November 4, 2008. On October 30, 2008, some account holders using various Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
based browsers started experiencing read-only access. However, with the use of a user agent switcher to dupe Hotmail into thinking the user is accessing from Windows, normal functionality is restored, which indicates that Windows Live Hotmail is only allowing certain browsers at the moment.
As part of the update, Microsoft also added integrated capability for instant messaging with contacts on the Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
service. The feature is the realization of a project that began as "Windows Live Web Messenger" in 2007, a replacement for the outdated "MSN Web Messenger" service that was first launched in August 2004. It was noted that the original "Windows Live Web Messenger" featured tabbed conversations in a "conversation workspace", however since its integration with Hotmail this has been removed.
On May 18, 2010, Microsoft unveiled the "Wave 4" update of Hotmail, which offers features such as 1-Click Filters, Active Views, Inbox Sweeping, and 10GB of photos and Microsoft Office documents attachments. It also includes integration with Windows Live SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive
Windows Live SkyDrive, initially called Windows Live Folders, is a free-of-charge file hosting service that allows users to upload files to a cloud storage and then access them from a Web browser...
and Windows Live Office, a free version of Microsoft's Office Web Apps
Office Web Apps
Microsoft Office Web Apps is a web-based version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. It includes the web-based versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote. The web applications allow users to access their documents directly from anywhere within a...
suite. The new version began its gradual release to all Hotmail users on June 15, 2010 and was completely rolled out on August 3, 2010. Exchange ActiveSync
Exchange ActiveSync
Exchange ActiveSync is an XML-based protocol that communicates over HTTP designed for the synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes from a messaging server to a mobile device...
support was enabled to all Hotmail users on August 30, 2010, allowing users to sync their mail, contacts
Windows Live Contacts
Windows Live Contacts is part of Microsoft's Windows Live services. It integrates tightly with Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Profile to provide users access to their contact's profiles and information...
, calendar and tasks to their mobile devices that supports the protocol. Addition of full-session SSL
Transport Layer Security
Transport Layer Security and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer , are cryptographic protocols that provide communication security over the Internet...
was released on November 9, 2010 but it does not support Windows Live Family Safety managed accounts.
Throughout 2011, Microsoft added several new features to Hotmail, such as aliases and speed improvements. In October, Microsoft unveiled a "re-invented Hotmail", and added lots of new features such as Instant Actions, scheduled Sweep, Categories and more, and this update began fully rolling out on November 9 2011.
POP3
POP3 access is available for all Hotmail accounts as part of the "Wave 3" release, adding support to access Hotmail from any email client – most notably mobile devices.WebDAV
Hotmail was often criticized for allowing only paying subscribers to access it through the WebDAVWebDAV
Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning is a set of methods based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that facilitates collaboration between users in editing and managing documents and files stored on World Wide Web servers...
protocol, which allows emails to be downloaded locally via a desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook Express
Outlook Express
Outlook Express is an email and news client that is included with Internet Explorer versions 4.0 through 6.0. As such, it is also bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 98 to Windows Server 2003, and is available for Windows 3.x, Windows NT 3.51, Windows 95 and Mac OS 9...
or Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
(with the WebMail extension). WebDAV access was originally available to all Hotmail users, but the service was revoked from new free users in 2004. If a Hotmail account was older than 2004, it was still possible for users to freely access their Hotmail account outside of an internet browser with the above-mentioned programs using WebDAV. If users had a newer account, WebDAV access was only available in Hotmail Premium. On June 4, 2009 Microsoft informed that WebDAV would be discontinued on September 1, 2009.
DeltaSync
For access through Microsoft OutlookMicrosoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
2003, 2007 or 2010, users can download the free Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector. Using the Outlook connector, users can freely access email messages, contacts, and calendars in any Hotmail account, though access to tasks and notes requires a premium subscription. Another alternative for users is to use the Windows Live Mail
Windows Live Mail
Windows Live Mail is a free of charge email client from Microsoft's Windows Live set of products. It is intended to be a successor for Outlook Express on Windows XP and Windows Mail on Windows Vista...
desktop client which has built-in support for Hotmail. Both applications, Windows Live Mail
Windows Live Mail
Windows Live Mail is a free of charge email client from Microsoft's Windows Live set of products. It is intended to be a successor for Outlook Express on Windows XP and Windows Mail on Windows Vista...
and Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
, can access Hotmail through the proprietary DeltaSync
DeltaSync
DeltaSync is a proprietary Microsoft communications protocol for synchronizing web services with offline clients. Windows Live Hotmail is exposed to offline clients using DeltaSync, and Outlook Connector and the Windows Live Mail client use it for offline access...
protocol. Currently no Mac alternative utilizing DeltaSync exists, as Microsoft Entourage
Microsoft Entourage
Microsoft Entourage was an e-mail client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8.5 and higher. Microsoft first released Entourage in October 2000 as part of the Microsoft Office 2001 office suite; Office 98, the previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS included...
does not support it. There has been no word from Microsoft Entourage
Microsoft Entourage
Microsoft Entourage was an e-mail client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8.5 and higher. Microsoft first released Entourage in October 2000 as part of the Microsoft Office 2001 office suite; Office 98, the previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS included...
or Windows Live Hotmail as to whether an "Entourage Connector" will be available in the future.
Exchange ActiveSync
As part of Hotmail "Wave 4" release, Microsoft has added Exchange ActiveSyncExchange ActiveSync
Exchange ActiveSync is an XML-based protocol that communicates over HTTP designed for the synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes from a messaging server to a mobile device...
support to Hotmail, allowing users to synchronise their email, contacts
Windows Live Contacts
Windows Live Contacts is part of Microsoft's Windows Live services. It integrates tightly with Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Profile to provide users access to their contact's profiles and information...
, and calendar
Windows Live Calendar
Windows Live Hotmail Calendar is a time-management web application by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live services. It is integrated into Windows Live Hotmail, the way that MSN Calendar was integrated into the MSN Hotmail service...
on any device that supports the Exchange ActiveSync protocol.
Spam policy and filtering
Like many free Webmail services, Hotmail is often used by spammers for illicit purposes such as junkSpam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
or chain mailing
Chain letter
A typical chain letter consists of a message that attempts to the recipient to make a number of copies of the letter and then pass them on to as many recipients as possible...
and unwanted marketing, due to wide availability, service popularity, and ease of registration of new accounts. However, Hotmail does not tolerate this practice. It subscribes to Microsoft's service agreement, which states any account engaging in these activities will be terminated without warning.
See also
- Comparison of webmail providersComparison of webmail providersThe following tables and gallery compare general and technical information for a number of webmail providers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.- General information :...