Common Questions
$Provider Questions
Do you send spam or support spammers?
Will I ever have to pay for this service?
Will you ever advertise in my outgoing messages?
Service Questions
Do you offer IMAP or webmail access?
Should I use IMAP or POP?
I’ve lost my password, how do I reset it?
What are the size, bandwidth and quantity limits on incoming and outgoing mail?
How do I close my account?
Technical Questions
How are you connected to the Internet and through whom?
Do you support encryption?
What web standards do you support?
How is your server configured?
$Provider services use a custom built e-mail server. This custom server uses open source libraries and runs well on inexpensive hardware. Because of this, $Provider has managed to keep its costs very low. Low costs coupled with the revenue generated from premium accounts and advertising enable us to provide services for free. The profits haven’t bought any of the founders a tropical island or an Italian sports car, but they are enough to keep the servers connected to the Internet—and cover the cost of an occasional late night pizza.
Do you send spam, or support spammers?
We don’t send any unsolicited commercial e-mail—AKA spam. People often think that because a spam message they receive mentions a $Provider.com address, we’re responsible. The truth is, our staff doesn’t send any e-mail unless replying to someone, or notifying our members of a critical outage.
It’s also important to note that we limit all of our accounts to 256 to 768 outgoing messages a day. These limits are designed to discourage spammers from relaying spam through our servers. The limits don’t always discourage spam, but they do limit the damage a handful of rogue users can do.
If you encounter a spam message that mentions $Provider, please use our contact page to let us know. Please be sure to always include the e-mail headers. The $Provider Abuse Team can use those headers to determine if a message passed through our network (usually not the case), and if not, complain to the appropriate ISP.
Do you offer IMAP or webmail access?
Yes we offer access to your account via POP3, IMAP and Webmail. Complete information is available on our settings page.
Should I use IMAP or POP?
The main difference between IMAP and POP is that IMAP leaves a copy of your message on the server where as POP deletes the message after downloading it. Therefore, IMAP lets you sync multiple computers and devices with your $Provider account and POP you will only work well with one computer or device.
I’ve lost my password, how do I reset it?
Unfortunately, because of the encryption methods we use at $Provider, it’s impossible for our administrators to change an account password without knowing the existing password. If you’re in the habit of forgetting passwords, take a minute to write it down and store it in a safe place.
What are the size, bandwidth and quantity limits on incoming and outgoing mail?
We have no bandwidth restrictions on our accounts. Size and quantity limits vary according to a user's plan. Please visit our plans page to see the specific limits that apply. If you require limits higher than what is currently available please contact us. While such requests are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, increases are generally available to users on paid plans or users who have been actively using $Provider for an extended period of time.
For outgoing messages, we limit accounts to between 256 and 768 messages in a rolling 24-hour period. We do this to prevent spammers from abusing our service and ruining things for the rest of our users. Our limits aren’t perfect though. If you have a legitimate need and have been an active user of $Provider for an extended period of time, you’re welcome to contact us to request a higher limit. We review and approve these requests on a case by case basis. $Provider’s free e-mail service isn’t intended for commercial use, and we won’t grant requests based on a commercial need. If your business needs to send more messages please consider one of our corporate accounts.
Message size limits are also based on the account plan, and range from 32 MB for our Basic plan up to 128 MB for our Premium plan.
All of the limits mentioned are maximums. Most of these limits can also be changed by users in the preferences portal.
How do I close my account?
To close your account visit the account locker where you will need to provide your username and password. The system will also automatically lock any account that goes unchecked for 120 days.
Do you support encryption?
Yes, we support encryption and encourage our users to enable encryption in their e-mail client. We support POP3 over SSL on port 995 and SMTP over SSL on port 465. We also support using the STARTTLS command. Our SSL certificate has been granted by the Comodo Group.
What web standards do you support?
We make an effort to support web standards. The Internet only functions because everyone agrees to play by the same rules. If you find an area of our site or functionality of our software that deviates from a documented standard, please contact us. We support web standards because standards give individuals using assistive software easier access to our content. See our accessibility page for details on the efforts we’ve made to accommodate assistive technologies. You can also look at our XHTML and CSS validation pages to verify that our site has been built with standards in mind.