In the late 1990s, despite Adobe Acrobat render faxing obsolete, most people still depends a lot on the normal conventional fax machine. Rumors of the traditional fax machine's impending demise have been greatly exaggerated but nothing significant happens. 99% of the faxes were still coming in as paper form and people doesn't seems likely to make a switch to the virtual faxing service, or so call, online faxing. Self employed professionals were still there to bare the high cost for a fax machine and an extra fax lines.

Fortunately, with the rapid development in internet technologies, online faxing (or also known as internet fax, online fax, and virtual fax) had once again rise back as one of the hottest products sold on internet. As the internet users can gain numerous benefits by going with an Internet fax service; more than 30 billions of internet faxes had been sent out based on recent research.

With the online faxing services, one can send and receive faxes via e-mail, which means you can do it from work, home, or on the go, as well as view them online from your e-mail account whenever you wish. Faxes sent our or received can be in PDF format, Microsoft documents format (.doc, .xls, .ppt), CAD drawing format (.dxf), graphical formats (.gif, .jpeg, .bmp, .tif and so on) and the list goes on.

For another plus point, online faxing save a lot on the faxing expenses. No more expenses for extra fax line, or cost for fax machine, or cost for buying fax toner or any other extra money to maintain your fax line. All you need now is a PC which is connected to the internet.

The downsides are few. You'll need a scanner or an all-in-one printer in order to scan handwritten and signed documents into your computer before faxing them online. The printer doesn't need fax capabilities of its own, however; the online fax service takes care of that part. Some services charge by the fax, which can get expensive, though others include 100 or more pages free each month as part of the service fee.

There are probably more online faxing services available than you think, though not all are independent of one another. One of the well-known online fax products is eFax. eFax is part of j2 Global Communications, and its been used by millions of users. With subscription fees range from $0 to $19.95/month; you can receive faxes up to 200 pages for free; you can then send out faxes with a low price of $0.10/page; you get a local or a toll-free number; you get additional services such as voicemail-to-email services.

eFax is strongly recommended due to its low price; its technology reliability; as well as its reputable customer services. ther notable services include Electrosoft's 32-bit Internet Fax, ClickFax, MyFax, Send2Fax, and MaxEmail.