The number and variety of free e-mail services is astounding. These are a few of the most popular free email services.

Microsoft Hotmail

Microsoft Hotmail is the leading free email service, with approximately one third of the market.

Microsoft Hotmail provides a 250MB mailbox, with a limit of 10MB for attachments.

Hotmail provides protection from viruses and junk email.

Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail is the second most popular free email service, trailing Microsoft Hotmail by only three percentage points.

Yahoo Mail provides a 1GB mailbox, with a limit of 10MB for attachments.

Yahoo Mail provides protection from viruses and junk email.

AIM Mail

AIM Mail provides a 2GB mailbox.

AIM Mail provides protection from viruses and junk email.

In addition to the web interface, AIM Mail supports the IMAP protocol.

Google Gmail

Gmail provides a 2GB+ mailbox, with a limit of 10MB for attachments.

Gmail provides protection from viruses and junk email.

In addition to the web interface, Gmail also supports POP3 and SMTP.