What free Web-based E-mail service is your favourite and why? The things that concern me are – low spam, high security, high privacy, high storage, high reliability, and low on fancy graphics that slow things down. And most important – they don’t demand real-life identifiable information like real name, address, another E-mail address, etc.
My favorite is Gmail. The spam filter is very good. The storage is huge. Reliability is very good. I can access it on dialup (at work). It supports pop mail and also forwarding. It’s free. You can have as many accounts as you want.
The only thing I don’t particularly like is the threading, but many people consider that a feature.
My problem with Gmail is that it’s my understanding that it tracks your searches once you’ve logged in.
You can turn that off. But yes, this is true. I actually find it kind of handy.
Really? how do you do that?
Also, doesn’t Gmail require you to link your account to another E-mail account?
I don’t know what you mean about any Gmail requirements to link to another account. It may just be standard password recovery.
I like Gmail overall. Clean and easy to use.
It is in “Web History”.
As for a URL, you can try:
http://www.google.com/history/
Or just google Web History while logged in. You can clear your web history and you can also “Pause” it. Which is google for turning it off. I have mine paused but browsing through it is pretty interesting.
I also love google bookmarks and google notebooks. Google owns me.
I love the threading! Apart from Google being a web based email service, the threading and labelling(instead of folders) are my main reasons for using Gmail. Why don’t you like threading? Just curious 
I’ve used Mail.com for the last 6 years or so. They don’t spam me at all, although I do get some popups. They do have ads on the pages, but not an unreasonable amount. I’ve noticed recently that the ads are much more mainstream/big company. I’ve been wondering if someone bought them.
It started out as a very basic service. Email and address book only. Recently they have changed their front page to look more Yahooish, with news stories. Meh. Don’t care about that one way or the other. They have also added a calendar, notepad, greetingcards and a bunch of other stuff I never look at.
100meg storage size.
I do occasionally get 1/2 hr or so when I can’t access, but that is less then once a month.
To be honest, I can’t remember why. I so rarely use the web interface that I forget. But when I was using that interface more, I didn’t like threading.
How’s that for a stupid answer?
Another Gmail convert here. Gmail is massively customizable, which is a big plus for me.
For instance, I have an old laptop with about five years’ worth of e-mails in Mozilla Thunderbird stored in it. I was worried about losing all those e-mails, so I poked around and found this blog post. Following that guy’s instructions, it took me just a few hours to import thousands of e-mails into Gmail. And I don’t mean just forwarding them to Gmail; I mean importing them, so they still have the original send date and all.
I’ve got three or four Gmail accounts and two non-Gmail accounts that I use for various stuff (school account, etc.). Recently I discovered I can not only have those forward into my Gmail, but also use Gmail to respond from those addresses; I can also compose mails with my .edu address listed as the sender, once I’ve verified the other accounts by clicking a link e-mailed to them by Gmail.
Seriously, there are a gazillion cool ways to streamline your e-mail experience with Gmail. Herre are a bunch, for starters.
Yes, I am hooked.
Just so you know, your main gmail address is still in the headers from messages sent from different addresses.
EDIT:
In other words, anyone who really cares can find the email address you logged into gmail with.
I’ve had a Gmail address for more than three years. I’ve had less than a dozen spam emails in my inbox, and no false positives. They have offered free POP access for a couple of years. Currently, I have 72130 emails and a gig or so of space used. The space that I can possibly use expands much too quickly.