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Hotmail (officially Windows Live Hotmail) is a free webmail service of the Windows Live brand provided by Microsoft. It originates from Hotmail, originally founded by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia and launched in 1996. It was one of the first free webmail services. Hotmail was acquired in 1997 by Microsoft.

The current version was officially announced on November 1, 2005 as an update to Microsoft’s existing MSN Hotmail service. After a period of beta testing, it was officially released to new and existing users in The Netherlands on November 9, 2006 as a pilot market. The world wide release was on May 7, 2007, and roll-out to all existing users was completed in October 2007.

It features 5 GB of storage, patented security measures, Ajax technology, and integration with Windows Live Messenger, Spaces, Calendar and Contacts. It has over 260 million users worldwide and is available in 35 different languages.

Overview

Overview	Information
Address	www.hotmail.com
Company	Microsoft
Overall score
POP
IMAP
SMTP
Mobile
Fully Web 2.0 (Ajax)
Antivirus
Antispam
SSL (Web / https)
SSL-POP
SSL-IMAP
SSL-SMTP
Search capability	Sender, Recipient, Subject
Sorting
Free ads
Storage	5 GB
Attachment size	10 MB
From login page to inbox	3 steps
Address book

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