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Net Gains (May 28, 99) |
We've all used a free web-based email
service - come on admit it. In fact there are hundreds of free
web-based email services today with everyone and his pet dog offering
you a chance to sign up with them. So is there any use of yet
another free web-based email service? Well, if it does offer some
unique features, not offered by anyone else, definitely yes. And
a unique feature is what's making HushMail the hottest new entrant
into this market.
HushMail
(www.hushmail.com) offers a Web-based email service that uses
a Java applet to encrypt and decrypt messages on senders' and
recipients' computers. Translating that into plain English, it
just means that email to date (be it web-based or POP3 or VSNL-like
email) has been largely non-secure. Your email messages are typed,
sent and received "as-is" - there is no encryption to
prevent peeping eyes from reading the content of the email. So
if you store your mail on HotMail or VSNL, that mail can technically
be read by someone who gets into the system. Is this a problem?
Not a very big one today, since email is by and large safe as
it is. However, if you need to send confidential information,
a good policy is to encrypt and send it, so the receiver can de-crypt
and read it. That way, it's almost impossible for anyone along
the way to read that email. And programs like Pretty Good Privacy
(PGP) allows you to do just that. But it involves a few more steps
and not usually worth the effort.
Enter HushMail which simplifies the
process and makes it just like sending normal email. The only
problem is that users can only send encrypted messages to other
HushMail accounts. Just like ICQ - you can keep in touch with
someone over ICQ only if the two of you both have ICQ. Will HushMail
be a big hit? Not unless everyone sends only confidential information
via email. But it will have its set of users. HushMail is still
ahead of its time for most of us in India, but our nuclear scientists
may just have a new toy to play with now! However, our Mac user
readers (Shammiji being one), HushMail does not have a Mac version
as yet, but hang in there!
The iMac created waves when it was
introduced. However, one drawback that people kept pointing out
was the absence of a floppy drive to save your work on. How would
users transfer information from one iMac to another? Here's where
the Internet was put to an innovative use, and iMacFloppy was
launched.
iMacFloppy
(www.imacfloppy.com) is like a virtual floppy - you can sign up
and use the service within a few minutes and it offers you 3 Mb
of space to store your files. All you need is a TCP/IP connection
and a browser, and you've got your own virtual floppy in cyberspace.
And like most Macintosh products, this service is PC friendly
too - so even PC users can make vasool of it.
A slightly more advanced version of
virtual storage is IFloppy (www.ifloppy.net) which allows
you to upload files (10 Mb free). But the advantage is that you
can create separate sections to allow restricted upload, download,
and modifying of files among a group of people. As the administrator,
of course, you have all rights over your files. Great for a group
of people working virtually on a project. And the basic service
is for free, while more storage requires you to pay.
And finally this week, we have Click2Send
(www.click2send.com), which allows you to transfer files over
the Internet to people anywhere in the world. When you sign up
(for free), you get a secure click2send Safe Deposit Box™,
which stores your files securely and which only you control. When
you send a file, you can designate recipients. Each of these recipients
will receive e-mail telling them they have a file to pick-up and
giving them a link (URL) that will take them directly to the box
and the file for them to download. You are allotted 120 Mb space
with single files not exceeding 50MB each. A very useful service
since email attachments are usually restricted to 1 Mb.
Long live the four lettered word that
rules the Net - FREE!