Free Faxes by E-mail
Written: Feb 01 '01 (Updated Sep 08 '01)
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Pros: Free fax number with e-mail fax reception
Cons: Numbers are not toll-free, must complete annual survey, cannot send faxes
The Bottom Line: FaxWave offers a convenient, simple, and free method of receiving faxes by e-mail. Combined with a faxmodem, FaxWave gives the user all the capabilities of a fax machine.
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| lap0530's Full Review: FaxWave |
I thought I had found the perfect free web-based unified fax, voicemail, and e-mail client in uReach. However, uReach recently announced that the voicemail and fax services would no longer be free of charge as of February. This development left me without a free e-mail based fax service.
I had already downloaded and installed CallWave's Internet Answering Machine, which more or less solved the problem of not having a dedicated line for Internet access. This left me scrambling for an alternative web-based fax solution. I found that in addition to the Internet Answering Machine, CallWave also offers a simple, effective, and free fax application.
FaxWave provides an e-mail solution for receiving faxes without the need for a fax machine or a dedicated fax line. New subscribers are given a free fax number, which they can then provide to others. Unlike uReach's, the FaxWave number is not toll free.
Faxes sent to the FaxWave number are saved as image files (with the .xif extension) and are forwarded to the subscriber's e-mail address. The user views the fax image via the Microsoft Imaging application. Faxes may be saved, printed, or annotated with a number of tools. The application does not directly provide the possibility of sending faxes. However, saved fax files can be sent as e-mail attachments or can be faxed via a fax modem and the associated software.
FaxWave requires no downloads. The new subscriber provides his or her name, e-mail address, telephone number, year of birth, gender, and the number of people in the household. The user selects a four-digit pin number and presses "submit." The free FaxWave service is advertiser-supported. User information is kept private, according to CallWave.
The user can expect to receive periodic e-mail messages from CallWave announcing product upgrades and features, but must explicitly subscribe to (and can voluntarily unsubscribe from) CallWave newsletters. The User Agreement also requires that the subscriber respond to a minimum of one user survey each year.
The new user receives an e-mail message confirming the FaxWave account and the assigned ten-digit fax number. Attached to the message is a sample 2-page fax document. This document provides users the opportunity to test their computer's imaging application to make certain that it is capable of viewing the .xif file. Users of Windows 98 and higher will have no problem with the viewing of multi-page fax documents. However Win 95 users may need to upgrade their imaging application, which they can easily do by downloading the newer version of the program from the URL provided by CallWave.
I signed up for the service and had received and reviewed my first fax within a few minutes. The document was easily legible in the imaging application. As a precaution, users of space-limited web-based e-mail accounts should be aware that .xif files by their nature are relatively large. For example, the sample fax sent by CallWave was 24KB, and a three-page fax with more detail was 88KB in size. Users who have space-limited e-mail inboxes may want to save the fax files in a separate online drive or on their computer's hard drive.
Recommended:
Yes
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lap0530
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Location: Anderson, SC
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Psychology and management professor and business consultant
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