Did i miss something, or have Google sneaked this one out?? You can now access Gmail via your own Email client, such as Outlook, Eudora and Thunderbird. All you need to do is login to your Gmail account goto "Settings" » "Forwarding and POP".
That's right, but yes you missed something: not all users have pop3 enabled. Google says they will be enabling it slowly. In my case, i still don't have the possibility to do so. We'll have to wait. Maybe that's why we haven'r read much about it yet.
Nail in the coffin for Hotmail in my eyes, I got this today when accessing my mail:
"Unable to poll for new messages on your HTTP server. 'Access to Hotmail via Outlook and Outlook Express now requires a subscription. Please sign up at http://upgrade.msn.com', Port: 0, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x80004005"
I can still access my old account from Outlook at the minute. When it goes. i'll run it into the ground with spam me thinks, just to keep the inbox full until it dies. Also, needless to say that (for me) they still havent made good on the 250mb upgrade yet.