For the past 3 years I have used the Gmail interface for all my mail. As I worked across multiple machines didn’t have a mail client, just using the webmil interface which was excellent.

All of that changed 2 months back when somehow my gmail was hacked. I ended up locked out of my own account and Google have done nothing to get my account back to me. I have submitted their on-line form multiple times which has resulted in a handful of automated emails and the account being deleted.

I have lost every mail for the past 3 years and the main address I used to communicate. Google have been unresponsive and unhelpful. The Google Groups insiders seem to be of the opinion that expecting anything else of a ‘free’ service is unreasonable and, beyond pointing you to Google’s help pages, they are unable to help.

By all means use gmail, and make use of the excellent web interface. However I would make very sure you have your mails backed up elsewhere and I would not expect any support or service from Google if you run into problems. I am now using a paid for POP account via mail.app.