Find the Best Free Email Accounts

If you are looking for a free email service, you can be picky. You'll be rewarded with plenty of storage, effective spam filtering, a fast interface, desktop email program access and more. Find the top 10 free email services to choose from reviewed here.

Have you been using the same free email service for years, or switched recently? What makes you stay? What made you switch? What would make you switch?

Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, GMX Mail or something completely different? Discover the best free email service in The 2011 Readers' Choice Awards.

Free email sounds nice, but isn't that the crippled deal where you get slow-loading pages and lots of ads? No and no. Some free email services offer POP or IMAP access, which means you can download your messages to any email program. Find the best free POP3 email service and free IMAP email services here.

AIM Mail, AOL's free web-based email service, shines with unlimited online storage, very good spam protection and a rich, easy to use interface.

BigString.com is a free 2 GB email service that includes rich secure and certified mail services and lets you password-protect, expire or edit sent messages, for example.

Care2 E-mail provides solid free email with an environmental conscience.

FastMail is a great free email service with IMAP access, useful features, and a stellar web interface.

Gawab.com is a speedy, stable and very usable free email service with 10 GB online space, POP and IMAP access as well as many a web-based goodie.

Gmail is the Google approach to email, chat and social networking. Practically unlimited free online storage allows you to collect all your messages, and Gmail's simple but very smart interface lets you find mail precisely and see it in context without effort.

GMX Mail is a reliable email service filtered well of spam and viruses whose unlimited online storage you can use not only through a rich web interface but also via POP or IMAP from a desktop email program.

HotPOP offers free, reliable email accounts you can use with any email program using POP3 and SMTP.

iCloud Mail is the free email service from Apple with ample storage, IMAP and POP access and an elegantly functional web application.

Inbox.com not only gives you 5 GB to store your mail online but also a highly polished, fast and functional way to access it via either the web (including speedy search, free-form labels and reading mail by conversation) or through POP in your email program.

Lavabit nets you a solid, secure and privacy-conscious email account which you can access in your email program using POP or IMAP and in your browser using a rudimentary web interface.

goowy mail is your rich Desktop email program on the web with a fast interface that lets you drag and drop, use context menus and enjoy lots of pleasant eye candy.

Lycos Mail has no advanced features, but a solid 3 GB of storage space and the option to send files just as large make up for that to some degree.

Mail.com is great for its domain names (use them with forwarding!), but it is missing some of the security, convenience and storage of other web-based email services.

MSN Hotmail comes with solid security features and a straight forward, easy to use yet quite powerful interface.

My Way Mail is a clean, fast and fun (though not particularly advanced) free email service.

Get a free email account with MyRealBox: free of ads, and free to access via the Web or any email client.

Windows Live Hotmail is a free email service that gives you unlimited storage, fast search, solid security, POP access and an interface easy as a desktop email program.

Yahoo! Mail is your ubiquitous email program on the web and mobile devices with unlimited storage, SMS texting, social networking and instant messaging to boot.

Yahoo! Mail Classic is a comfortable, reliable and secure email service with unlimited storage. A pretty good spam filter keeps the junk out.

Zapak Mail is a bare-bones free email service with unlimited storage and POP access to boot.

Zenbe Personal organizes your emails and attachments (from Zenbe and existing POP accounts) with labels and search — and integrates calendar, to-do list, Facebook updates, too.

Zoho Mail is a solid email service with ample storage, POP and IMAP access, some integration with instant messaging and online office suites.