Yahoo Mail has been around for years, but in that time bar a few tweaks such as improved security measures and increased storage, it has had little in the way of a major upgrade.

The application was beginning to look and feel very tired as an email tool, but Yahoo has finally put that to rest.

Following the trend of releasing Beta versions to the public (for example Google Talk Beta), this upgrade is called Mail Beta. You don't have to upgrade, but we suggest you do.

This version has breathed new life into Yahoo Mail. Suddenly it is a far easier, more intuitive application to use.

New to Yahoo Mail - somewhat belatedly - is a preview pane. It has also refreshed the icons running along the top and moved email folders, the calendar, contacts and notepad icons into the left-hand pane, making it quicker and easier to manage your email.

Plus, it has integrated the RSS feeds set up as part of your My Yahoo account, so you now get your news stories in your email as well.

With the range of features and tools on offer, Yahoo Mail appears to have been strongly influenced by Microsoft Outlook.

It still comes with 1GB of free storage, but gone are the Mark and Move tabs - email can now be dragged and dropped between folders.

All emails are also now kept as a continuous stream that you can scroll down, rather than on different pages.

There's little in this update that sets it apart from existing email tools, such as Hotmail, but if you are a current user of Yahoo Mail it's definitely worth upgrading.

System requirements:
Internet connection