Windows Live Hotmail has brought incoming POP3 access to the US, Canada and Brazil – something that should have happened years ago. This of course means that you’ll be able to have centralized access to your mail from Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and other services. Residents of the West are behind those in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, UK and Spain, which already had incoming POP3 access.

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I'm pretty sure hotmail had this feature before it was owned by microsoft. They just got rid of it.

so thats why I could never send emails from outlook express. I Spent ages trying to configure it to send emails. Looks like you can't!

Gmail has had POP3 access since the early betas, not to mention the best spam filter I've seen anywhere. It never seems to stop mail I've asked for but it lets precious little spam through. I'm not a Google religious nut, but once I saw Gmail I stopped even looking at Hotmail. Adding POP3 access this late in the game won't change that, even if Hotmail did manage to speed up its service. I doubt MS is interested in spending the kind of bucks that would take.

LOL...between Yahoo! and Gmail, I'm surprised HotMail even exists any more.

LOL. POP...

Gmail has IMAP....

people have Hotmail because it links to Windows live messenger (MSN) Xbox Live. and other ''. net services'' (I no it has not been called a .NET passport in a long time, they call it a windows live ID.) People have several email accouts. Google also have a whole host of services linked to a g mail account, such as google earth photo uploads. Yahoo have games and yahoo messenger.

Once Microsoft let me merge all my live ID services to gmail, I never logged back into my hotmail account...wonder if I still get mail there. Oh well...

Heh, people are misunderstanding the article. They are saying Hotmail will now check pop3 on other email accounts and drag it into it's own clunky interface. Gmail has been doing this for ages.

Hotmail has always had outgoing pop3 access as it seems so many commenters are thinking. You just have to subscribe for it.

POP3
POP3 access is now available for all Hotmail accounts, adding support to access Hotmail from any email client – most notably mobile devices.[8]
POP3 Settings:
POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes


That was taken from the hotmail wiki, it works ive tried with outlook and my cell phone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail#POP3