Almost everyone has a free e-mail address these days. With so many choices, it’s tough for novices to choose. Not all e-mail providers are created equal, many provide different features so it’s a good idea to find the one that’s best for you.

E-Mail

When looking into an e-mail provider, you want to be able to leverage features, reliability and ease of use. Not everyone has the same needs, so you may want to create an e-mail account on a number of e-mail providers and test them out to see how they meet your needs.

We’ll take a look at a number of top e-mail providers and share our perspective on them.

  • AOL/AIM E-Mail  (http://mail.aol.com)

    • Format: Web, AOL software, POP and IMAP
    • Pros: Easy to use, integrated address book, calendar and Instant Messaging. Short e-mail address — aol.com or aim.com respectively, strong anti-spam controls, integration with AOL Pictures and X-Drive (online storage) at no charge.
    • Cons: Senders experience poor e-mail delivery due to aggressive anti-spam filtering, service experiences frequent outages and downtime without adequate filtering, negative appeal among Internet power users, very heavy on advertisements.

  • GMail (Google) E-Mail  (http://mail.google.com)

    • Format: Web, POP and IMAP
    • Pros: Easy to use, integrated address book, GTalk and AIM Instant Messaging. Simple e-mail address — gmail.com.  Strong and flexible anti-spam controls, integration with a wide array of Google services. Offers e-mail forwarding, custom away messages and flexible mail filtering (tagging) and custom “from” addresses.
    • Cons: Web mail loads quickly, but older browsers may experience difficulty.

  • Yahoo E-Mail  (http://mail.yahoo.com)

    • Format: Web
      Pros: Easy to use, integrated address book,Yahoo Instant Messaging. Effective anti-spam controls, integration with a wide array of Yahoo services.
      Cons: Web mail loads quickly, but older browsers may experience difficulty, does not offer IMAP/POP connectivity for free, senders may experience sending e-mail to Yahoo addresses, unwanted spam may appear in Inbox.

  • Live E-Mail  (http://mail.live.com)

    • Format: Web, Windows Mail/Outlook Express
    • Pros: Easy to use, integrated address book, e-mail address domains: live.com and hotmail.com. Effective anti-spam controls, integration with a wide array of MSN services.
    • Cons: Web mail loads quickly, but older browsers may experience difficulty, does not offer IMAP/POP connectivity for free, senders may experience sending e-mail to Hotmail addresses, unwanted spam may appear in Inbox. Software client access is restricted to Windows Mail (formerly, Outlook Express).

So which one is best?

There really isn’t one, but so far one provider does stand out, GMail. GMail does a pretty good job leveraging features, ease of use and reliability. It may take a little getting used to, but many people have switched and they love it.

Do you have a favorite e-mail provider? Share why in the comments below.