Advantages over Google Gmail

[User034249]

I see that the web interface to Verizon Email has the ability to hide advertising. This is a nice advantage over the Google Gmail web interface. Are there any other advantages to using Verizon.net Email over Google Gmail?

In addition, are there any documents describing the technical details such as supported protocols and features of Verizon Email?

[gs0b · Accepted solution]

Yes, there are lots of advantages to using Verizon.net over gmail.  Here are some:

• SPAM:  Unlike gmail, Verizon's SPAM filters are much better at letting SPAM reach your inbox.  Your inbox will be graced with lots of useful messages about auto-loans, health insurance, male enhancement products, women who want to  date you and Nigerian attorneys who need your help relocating large sums of money.
• ISP lock in: Verizon email service is excellent at helping you decide to stay with Verizon Internet services.  If you were to switch Internet services, Verizon will require you to pay a fee to keep your email.  This fee will cause you to re-consider changing ISPs, thus helping you remain a Verizon customer.  Contrast this with gmail, which is not tied to any ISP and will not remind you to rethink any ISP changes.
• POP connection: Verizon email uses the much older "Post Office Protocol" (POP) to connect email clients to the server.  gmail uses "Internet Message Access Protocol" (IMAP) instead.  Unlike the IMAP, POP makes it easy to have multiple devices access the same email server and maintain separate, completely un-synchronized copies of emails.  With POP, users have the advantage that email deleted on one device is still visible on all other devices.  Deletions must be carried out on each device, thus allowing you to confirm multiple times that you want to delete that important email from the Nigerian attorney.  Further. unlike IMAP, POP eliminates the confusion of moving email into folders for categorization and automatically maintaining synchronization of folders across all email clients/devices.  In short, Verizon's choice of POP spares you from the ease of using an advanced email management protocol across multiple devices/clients.

Hopefully this will help you better understand the advantages of Verizon email over gmail.

Enjoy!

[User034249]

Headers in messages sent from Verizon.net Webmail indicate that the service is an instance of "Oracle Communications Messaging Server 7.0.5.32.0 64bit (built Jul 16 2014)." The product page for Oracle Communications Messaging Server describes features of the base product. Oracle's documentation indicates that the product includes support for IMAP4 and Lemonade Profile. Therefore, it seems that the service has the potential to be more useful. Hopefully Verizon will stop disabiling these features some day. For now though, it does appear that the instance is too crippled to provide advantages over Gmail or most other free email services. Obviously, many people are using Verizon.net Email instead of those services and I wonder why that is.