Email for Free

Gmail www.gmail.com The heavyweight champ of free email is clearly Gmail, and not just because it gives you as much storage space as you’ll ever need. Though Gmail may not have the prettiest interface of the bunch, it’s speedy, it does away with frills, and it has all kinds of features if you’re willing to do a bit of digging. For example, Gmail doesn’t handle just web-based email; unlike other free services, it can work with your existing email software. You can also use it to forward mail to other accounts. (Click Settings•Forwarding and POP to configure both of these options.) Gmail allows you to create rules to handle incoming mail automatically, and you can easily search through your messages via Google.

Yahoo Mail mail.yahoo.com The interface, which works more like desktop email software than traditional webmail does.

Microsoft Windows Live Mail http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview The email service formerly known as Hotmail has received a significant makeover, becoming appealingly slick and Outlook-like.

Spamato www.spamato.net Tired of wading through the spam clogging your inbox? This add-on for Outlook, Thunderbird and Mozilla Mail does everything it can to eradicate the junk.

Thunderbird www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird This downloadable email client has a nice, simple interface, spam filtering, antiphishing features, RSS news-feed functions, quick search, and a spelling checker. It’s also from the folks who brought you the Firefox web browser.

Eudora www.eudora.com This freebie email favourite has been around for a long time, and with good reason: Eudora includes features like Mood Watch (which rates messages on a mood meter) that no other tool has. People who suffer from email overload (and that’s everyone, isn’t it?) will treasure the program’s unique folders-based approach to message organisation. An open-source version of Eudora is being developed by Mozilla for release later this year.