Bluebottle Email

Like many of us, I've got a number of "extra" email addresses, more than I can really keep straight. I've got the official email address provided to me by my feckless Internet Service Provider, StupidISP.com. I've got the email address that came with my personal website, paulburgess.org. I've got Hotmail, I've got Yahoo Mail, I've got Google's Gmail, I've got Lycos mail. I've even still got the very first email address I ever signed up for almost ten years ago with Excite.

However, over the past three years I've been using an email service which has long since become my "regular" email address, my main email address, my daily workhorse email address. I'm talking about Bluebottle Email.

If you haven't gotten to know Bluebottle already, maybe you should.

You can use Bluebottle with Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird, just like the email address you got from your ISP. And that's how I usually use Bluebottle— as POP mail. Or you can also use Bluebottle through a secure webmail interface, just like Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, which means you can access Bluebottle from anywhere. (Come to think of it, Bluebottle's POP mail connection can also be set up to be secured and encrypted.)

Bluebottle has all sorts of nifty features— among other things, it's spam-free. Honestly. A simple challenge-response system is transparent to my regular correspondents, accessible to a first-timer who wants to reach me, and I have full control over who I'll let through, and bye-bye spam.

Best of all, Bluebottle is free! Or rather, all these features and more are available in the Bluebottle Free service. If you wish, you can pay for Bluebottle Access or Bluebottle Premium, which come with even more cool features. I've been a Bluebottle Premium user now for almost two years. Hey, you can try it out for free, for as long as you want, and if you like it you can always upgrade to Access or Premium.

In the interest of full disclosure, Bluebottle did have some technical rough sledding (to put it mildly) when they first rolled out their pay services at the beginning of 2006. But they've long since worked that out, and I've seen nary a hiccup in their service in well over a year now. Unlike a lot of email services out there, they really do try and they really do care. Yes, this is a business, but for its developers Bluebottle is also a labor of love. Like I say, you can always try them out for free, and then upgrade if you wish. They sure beat the alleged email service provided to me by my small local one-horse ISP, StupidISP.com.

Plus, Bluebottle is just a funky name. Your name at bluebottle dot com, it has a nice ring to it. Funky. Bluebottle. Check them out.