Comcast XFINITY → [Rant] Comcast - worst web e-mail on market bar none - WHY

Why does Comcast offer such 3rd rate email services?

I was just typing a response to an email using Comcast email. And, as usual, Comcast lost everything. No warning until the Send is selected. Then everything is gone.
Not just at home, not on one computer... it happens all the time.
It is just Comcast. The Yahoo, Gmail, and MSN never have a problem. Comcast, it is every day.

Comcast can't say it ever checks or test its Email. It is just such a junky design in the huge world of e-mails.
And, for a Paid email account, Comcast is more concerned about downloading streaming advertisements than it is providing e-mail service. The Comcast e-mail survey even claims that the paid Comcast e-mail advertisement is "necessary".
One of the Comcast sponsored Invite services my wife used for a preschool event instantlly resulted in pornographic information sent to ever single receiptent with in hours. It stopped only after all the e-mails were removed. Everyone at the school witnessed Comcast concern about this.

I have called Comcast and listened to the 40 recording of "we care about quality".

Comcast email and services will be the reason I search for an alternative in 2012. With city run restrictions on choices, it will be hard. But, this constant irritation and overpriced 3rd rate services make it a priority.

Why? WhY? WHY? is Comcast not addressing the 3rd rate e-mail service?

I've never had any problem with Comcast's e-mail, because I've never used their crappy web based e-mail set up.

Go download Mozilla Thunderbird and use that instead.

»www.mozilla.org/en-US/th ··· derbird/

incoming mail server: mail.comcast.net
outgoing server: smtp.comcast.net

I currently use an IMAP4 cloud-based email client, but used an @comcast.net email prior to switching. The main reason I switched was to get an IMAP4 email system. I used my own email client program. I rarely used the web-based system to check my emails; I only did that when I needed to on another computer.

As far as what you're saying, it did seem a little unstable when I used it. It was saving a draft every minute, but sometimes the "draft saved" box would not disappear for a while. And the advertisements all over the place are annoying. But overall, I did not have any issue with my Comcast email. My family also uses an @comcast.net email, and they've had no problems.

Also, to think about switching simply because of email problems on Comcast's web interface seems to be a little overboard! If you enjoy the Comcast services you are subscribing to, I would just stick with them and complain about it by writing to them. By switching to another provider, your email may be working the way you want it to, but the services themselves could go down a notch!

If you want your complaint to be heard, I would send them a professional letter, and if enough people do it, they may very well look into it.

Also, I have wondered why Comcast hasn't taken the time to update the look of their guide for their TV/box services. It looks like it came out of the Windows XP era, and is not in HD!

There are standalone e-mail clients that support both POP3 and IMAP4 - Outlook 2007 and later is a perfect example. I've used Outlook (Windows and OS X) as my preferred e-mail client both with Comcast and GMail (which uses IMAP4 by default) since I first got a GMail account (while GMail also supports POP3, which I in fact, set up, the default is IMAP4 - which Outlook 2010 for Windows and 2011 for OS X picked up *correctly*).

From what I've seen with the two mail systems, each has its quirks.

It's a package they bought from Zimbra - it's not something that Comcast developed itself.

The strange thing is that the Zimbra package that *Zimbra* supports on its own website itself is day-and-night better than the one Comcast uses. It's as if Comcast licensed it in 2004 and hasn't updated it since.

The Zimbra client (not the Comcast web) is actually fairly powerful. But like I said, Comcast seems to be stuck in the version that was released 5-6 years ago.

I only use the webmail when I can't get my laptop up and running quickly enough (like at an internet cafe or the library)

This is POP, right? Unlike everyone else in the world, I don't think that Comcast provides IMAP support. POP is kind of useless if you use folders, since POP can only see your Inbox.

Again, the difference is *online vs. offline* - and the only widely-prevalent IMAP4-based service (which also offers POP3/SMTP, by the way) is that of Google/GMail.

The web-based client that Comcast (and other ISPs- including Yahoo, which also uses Zimbra - which was, in fact, originally a Yahoo-owned company) deploys is a *convenience* - it was never intended to be the default for anybody. Colleges and universities deploy IMAP4 primarily due to price/cost compared to POP3/SMTP - especially if they also run their own mail servers.

Lastly, one thing about IMAP4 - there's no such thing as *offline* when it comes to IMAP4; all messages remain on the server until you delete them. Folders are all stored on the server as well - while you can manage the folder layout on the client, it doesn't store either the folders themselves, or their contents locally. (The big advantage of IMAP4 for users is, in fact, that everything remains on the server by design *and* by default - HDD-constrained clients, especially thin clients, are therefore great fans of IMAP4, which lacks a local-storage option.)

Local users that desire (or need) to archive messages locally have extra steps that have to be gone through to do local archival with IMAP4 - POP3/SMTP. on the other hand, has always offered that option.

The big reason I personally prefer POP3 over IMAP4 - despite now being able to use the same software for both - is that local-archive option that IMAP4 lacks.

Not a webmail fan, but you are wrong... (I have both a Comcast email account and a RR email account). RR is far worse than Comcast.

The web client and the backend have both been updated regularly since our initial deployment. Every year we dedicate more resources to the platform, which is good.

I should also add that we keep an eye on threads like this to see what customers think, like, and obviously don't like. That factors in clearly to our future plans (and my team is in charge of the platform so I have a personal stake in it).

So we appreciate the feedback - and don't hesitate to start new threads on issues in the future - we read them (that includes engineers and developers working directly on the platform of course).

OP,
It sounds to me like you have more going on there than just some lousy web mail. I've used Comcast's web mail pretty much since it's been around and I've never seen the problems you are experiencing.

First if you are using Internet Explorer, cut it out. Abandon it for a better browser. If you have a browser like Firefox, install ad blocking pluggins such as AdblockPlus. I didn't even know there was advertisements, on the Comcast webmail page until you mentioned it.

If you have any tool bars, search bars, internet "accelerators" or internet "helpers", emoticon backgrounds etc --disable or remove them.

Run a check for spyware. Something like Malwarebytes.

Make sure your antivirus is up to date and run a deep scan.

FWIW I agree with the other posters, web mail is probably the most annoying and least powerful method of managing your mail. My desktop machine runs MS Outlook which manages my various email accounts - I only use web mail with mobile devices.

The real question is- WHY are you using Comcast? GMail is so much better. I switched years ago (2005), and I'm glad I did. Also, having your email address tied to your webmail account is generally a bad idea anyways...

I find this funny as I use zimbra alot and even after compiling there opensourced free version has more features and less bugs then Comcast web mail.

Never had trouble with their webmail.

Also use Firefox or chrome if you dont already and get AdBlock...

remember there is no guilt at all for blocking ads on Comcast.net because you pay comcast to use their service as such you are paying for the website.

The only problem I have with the Xfinity web mail service is that after I activated my Comcast Business Class account, the old Xfinity (residential) web mail stopped working (although POP3 and SMTP access using the Xfinity (residential) email servers does still work). Prior to that I found it to be just as accessible (and reliable) as similar services from Yahoo! and Microsoft.

I did find it interesting that the residential service had 10GB of online storage for each email account, but the business class online storage is only 2GB for each email account. One would think that a business class account would have more, not less. It is also interesting that even though Comcast shut off my ability to use the Xfinity web mail service, they won't allow me to change the email address used to access Comcast Customer Central. I still have to use the old Xfinity (residential) primary email address to be able to do things such as pay my Comcast Business Class bill on-line (which is I guess, why they still allow me to access it via POP3 instead of just shutting it down totally).

Never use an ISP-specific email address that you might lose at some point. Switching is a pain.