Forums | MacLife

i think it is worth it, i'm certainly going to renew mine, plus few if any free companies give you 20mb of e-mail storage  and you can accept a 3mb e-mail, that is way bigger than most other e-mail things, even most isp's when you are paying for it won't let you do that, and the idisk is very good for backing up important files

how much is it to renew. I never used mine, never got a chance to see what it offered. But now I have cable and i'm online alot more.

Your first mistake was asking for opinions. Beyond that, the value of dot-Mac subscriptions depends completely on the individual's tastes and needs.  You don't say -- did you try any of the features? 

I haven't bothered with dot-Mac, the old version for new buyers of Macs was pretty lame and reading the current offerings didn't inspire me at all.
1. Storage in this day & age must be measured in Gigabytes, not Megabytes.
2. Apple's set up for personal websites is really for beginners and then only for those who don't want any say in what they can / cannot build in the way of graphics, frames, etc, etc.
3. Anti-virus protection isn't a significant need for Mac users, we are simply too small a target for the virus propagators to be interested.
4. email apps are "everywhere" and, for my money, I'll take an app that resides on my own hard drive over any out-there-somewhere mail service.
The last I heard, the major providers of email service allow 1 to 3 MB files, some as much as 5 MB.  If you want to send / receive bigger files frequently, you need to go with FTP, or just send / get home-burned CDs.

In other words, other than "wearing the Apple logo" (for which there are Tee-shirts), there's nothing offered in .Mac that's critical, a bargain or otherwise important enough to pay $99 / year for.

That's my humble opinion, and you asked.

My .mac expires in "31 days".  Is it worth to renew it? I dont really use anything it offers except the mail, which is the only email I have, and the free downloads are nice. Are their any mac geeky emails around?

Not sure what to do

---------
Reconsidering in the light of several thoughtful posts by others, I'm changing my opinion as follows:
If you're sole reason for paying for .mac is to have an email account, then you should consider using whatever email service your ISP provides -- or --- do as I suggested and use the email apps that come with (for example) Internet Explorer or Netscape 7.x. 

But .mac DOES provide  a couple of intriguing features, like those downloads referred to elsewhere. 

Even so, you might also consider popping  that $99 toward DSL or Cable Modem ISP service -- I know for example that SBC Yahoo DSL can now be had for (1 year offer) $29.95 /mo., and the email program is as good as any, offering up to 10 MB attachments, and over 150 MB storage.  (The trouble is, not all your intended recipients can RECIEVE 10 MB
attachments.)

Meanwhile, I'm going to light a candle in my Apple Shrine, dedicated to the hope that Apple will come up with affordable broadband service for all people everywhere.  Forever and ever, Amen.

i use FREE e-mail at www.macmail.com

I tried to sign up. I got an "error" page. Bummer.

i use FREE e-mail at www.macmail.com

I tried to sign up. I got an "error" page. Bummer.

Error here too. Is that just webmail?

I didn't get an error.... I use macmail.com, too and I think it's great! First of all, it's 100% free and you can use it as a POP account with Mail.app! I think you get 4MB space on the online storage server... but if you're doing POP, it doesn't really matter how large your storage space is. There is also webmail for it, so you can check it anywhere if you need to, not just at your own computer. I think it's the greatest!

-KW

PS - http://www.macmail.com