Welcome to the Free Email Address site! By the time you leave, you'll know which email service is right for you.

Fastmail.fm

Fastmail.fm has established a well-deserved reputation as a world-class email provider. Their blazingly fast service offers web-based and IMAP access at the free level, and the ability to download email from external POP3 accounts, and retrieve messages from Hotmail.

As the name implies, Fastmail is all about speed! Its super-fast interface (no graphics or Javascript) means that messages load almost instantly even on a dialup connection.

Fastmail is one of the few free email services to support IMAP. In a nutshell, IMAP enables you to synchronize your email wherever you are (at home, in the office or on the road) in a similar way to how Outlook Express syncs automatically with Hotmail. This means that you have access to ALL your email wherever you are! IMAP is a power email user's dream...

Where Fastmail really comes into its own is with its low-cost premium services, starting at US$4.95 a year for an ad-free service with upgraded storage space, POP3 and SMTP access, advanced virus and spam protection, and much more.

For those in search of a business email solution, FastMail offers business email outsourcing from 1 mailbox to thousands.

As a leader in the email industry, FastMail has defined the standard for reliability, support & spam protection. FastMail runs a redundant and secure platform that is free of common frustrations. With FastMail, companies and individuals experience less downtime and less clutter resulting in a more efficient email experience.

Yahoo! Mail

The famous web portal has jumped in with the crowd and is now providing its very own free web-based email service.

Although the features are pretty standard, small twists and spins have been incorporated so at least something will catch your eye. Signature files are great for sharing your favorite quote or website, the mail filters stop all unwanted email, preventing your mailbox filling up with spam, folders are ready for separating business email and friend email, and more.

The address book is very expansive with details and features. Alphabetically stores all email addresses with many details including name, address, phone number, Yahoo! ID, and many more. Also has a nice search feature so you can find the person you're looking for in a hurry.

On the downside, the 4MB of storage space for emails may quickly become a hindrance, though you can pay to expand this considerably.

GMX

If you can read German (the site - and signup pages - are only available in German!), GMX has a very good reputation amongst free email users. It provides a very fast email service, with 10MB of storage space and a variety of other features such as the ability to forward emails, set up a personal "blacklist" to deflect spam messages, set a vacation reply message and more. If you're willing to pay a little, GMX offers enhanced options with 100MB and 250MB (!) of storage space for messages.

Hotmail

Hotmail is one of the oldest and most popular email services (it's now part of the Microsoft empire). Its ease of use and features make it a strong competitor, though it also has significant restrictions.

Although many of Hotmail's features have become standard in web-based email services, like attachments, address book, and access from the Internet, there are a few features that stand out from the rest.

One great feature is the anti-virus scanner provided by McAfee. This comes in handy if you're skeptical about downloading attachments from the Internet. Before you actually download an attachment, the scanner will check it for anything that could be damaging to your computer. Although this approach can never be 100% effective, it's a very welcome security feature.

We've looked at the upside - now comes the downside... Hotmail offers one of the meanest storage quotas of any email service, a miserable 2MB of space... And since it's arguably the most popular free email service in the world, good luck getting a meaningful email address without throwing three or four digits into your user name!

FOR-FEE ALTERNATIVES

So many free email providers have been shutting down or cutting back on their service offerings recently that it's worth considering the stability and additional features offered by for-fee providers... especially since you can try them completely free of charge before deciding whether to part with your money.

Runbox

Runbox offers a very powerful ad-free service with 1 GB (1,024MB) of email storage and 100MB of file storage. The service can handle messages up to 30MB each!

One of the main attractions of Runbox is its accessibility: subscribers can read their mail via the Web,download mail via POP and IMAP, or access their mail via WAP and SMS devices. Naturally, subscribers can send email via Runbox's SMTP server.

If you're on a slower connection or a mobile internet device, there is a slim, text-only version of the Runbox service.

Runbox offers all the standard features of a quality email service, such as a spell-checker and comprehensive filters for sorting incoming email, as well as an address book for storing contact information on the people you mail most frequently.

You can try Runbox FREE for 30 days, without commitment

MailSnare

MailSnare offers several full-featured email service plans, beginning at just US$14.95 a year. Their standard account includes 35MB of email storage space and 5MB of file storage for you to upload any files you'd like to access remotely. The enhanced level account extends this to 50MB of email storage and 10MB of file storage.

The impressive list of Mailsnare features goes on and on, including POP3 and IMAP access, SMTP outgoing email support, a calendar and bookmark manager, strong anti-spam and anti-virus filtering, reminders and alerts, autoresponders and many other interesting tools.

For business users or families looking to standardise around a single email address, Mailsnare offers multi-user plans with 5, 10 and 25 user mailboxes and a generous amount of storage that can be allocated to each mailbox.

On the support front, Mailsnare operates a dedicated series of support forums, and also offers email-based support.

You can try Mailsnare FREE for 30 days, without commitment