Just wondering what your thoughts are on the above.

I've used Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo, and out of those I find Gmail to offer the best service.

Too much spam seems to make it into my Hotmail inbox these days and the limit on the number of "safe senders" also puts me off.

I have no complaints about Gmail, other than the occasional downtime.

Yahoo is mostly OK, however e-mails seem to take a while to appear in my inbox from when they were sent, whereas they appear virtually instantly in my Gmail and Hotmail accounts.

What are your experiences of free e-mail providers? Also, has anyone tried using Gmail on their own domain?

Gmail wins hands down for me

I think Gmail is brilliant. I've registered the address in my signature with it, so I can send and receive from my own domain without needing anything complicated. I do get a lot of spam in there, but that's not their fault.

I'm also very happy with Hotmail. It used to be very restrictive, but they've had to improve it to keep up with Google. What I particularly like is the contacts and calender integration with Mail and MSN. I don't get any spam at all, but that's because I'm careful who I give that address to.

Yahoo has had serious issues in the past with their spam filters. Because they basically blocked half my friends, I had to stop using them and tell all my friends to stop using them. They may have fixed the problem now, but it's too late - they are dead to me. It's a shame, because they were my first half decent free POP provider.

I used to use Hotmail, but the poor spam filters stop me from using it much theses days, plus their illogical new interface, I can never find the send button...

GMail wins for me. I have an original GMail address and have recently started using my own hosting too, people can email me on my hashbang0.com domain

Gmail! I have a hotmail account but I've had it so long it just gets full of chain mail junk now. Use Google for most things now, especially as it integrates with Dreamhosts and also works with iChat.

I've had a Hotmail account since the last century and haven't had any problems with it.
I get maybe 4 or 5 bits of spam a day into it which is easy to deal with. I do have the spam filter on the most draconian setting though and I use it for registering on websites and keep a second e-mail address for actually talking to people with.

Yeah, it's brilliant.

I host my e-mail at Google, and it works brilliantly. I also have a normal GMail account, but they combine and integrate perfectly. They arrive into the same inbox, but it's clear which address each e-mail has been delivered to. You also get the option to reply from which ever address you like.

I use GMX. It is very good and can pick up mail from other email addresses through its Mail Collector

https://www.gmx.com