14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft wants to provide the users of its free e-mail service with the same features offered by Outlook and Outlook Express. Aside from changing the interface, Hotmail will also offer options like previewing e-mails, antiphishing features and the possibility to block and unblock certain senders.
Together with the new interface, Hotmail will also increase the storage space to 2 GB.
This announcement marks ending of the battle for storing space. After the 2GB amount became the industry's standard, all players are orienting now towards increasing the quality.
The changes announced by Microsoft for the Hotmail service come only one month after Yahoo announced that it's testing a new version of its web mail client, which is based on the DHTML technology bought by Yahoo from Oddpost.
Google has also introduced an html editor into its e-mail editor, Gmail, which allows formatting the text of an e-mail.
AOL also has an e-mail service that offers 2GB of storage space, but its interface is not much different from a classic web mail.
The new services offered by Hotmail are just in the testing stage and one the most interesting features is the antiphishing service through which Hotmail will no longer display the message and it will announce that it might be a fraud attempt.
All these services are still in the testing stage and just as Yahoo, an official date for their release has not been announced.