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Best service depends on what you need. Rather than defining by Pro and Con, I present each one by who they're for.

Hotmail
This is for people who just need email for the sake of email and plan to be visiting the website daily. While it used to have the reputation as being a spam magnet, it seems to have switched to the opposite, as being rather stringent. If you add friends and family to your address book and are mostly corresponding with them, the problems should be relatively minimal.

Hotmail is also for the fans of MSN Groups. While you can join with just about any email address at the groups, MSN shows favoritism towards Hotmail - being that Hotmail is the child of MSN. Using Hotmail gives you access to group features so that the group experience is "fulfilling."

Yahoo
Despite the number of spammers who abuse Yahoo's free email service, many professionals - independent contractors and small businesses - continue to use it as their primary email. Simply, Yahoo has integration. When you get done checking your email, you can search, check the news, check stocks, work on your website, etc. One login gives you access to a wide variety of features. Even though it's lagging behind the next contender in how much email space you get, it has come a long way since it's humble beginnings of only one or two megabytes (now at 2GB).
For average internet addicts (such as myself), Yahoo is an awesome provider. We may chide it when the service is having trouble (which happens at least once a month), but it's very hard to refuse a stop at Yahoo's "city."

GMail
This is the Google powerchild solution for people who are either popular or hang around popular areas - or just need to download their email using an installed client. The mailbox is large, in fact, the Google team thought "Hell, let's put a ascending counter on the front page and whatever it says, that's how much space they get." Basically, you have to be in some very active groups in order to overflow your limit. However, I have done that, so do be sure to do some cleanup about once a month. I've noticed that the trash folder, which does count against your quota, takes a bit longer than a month to empty. Also, be ready for a less than pretty web interface. Sure, it's functional and organized, but neither of those points necessarily mean pretty.

Final Thoughts
While Gmail is set on being free, Yahoo and Hotmail do offer improvements to their services to make up for whatever is lacking in your account, for some money. So if you've already signed up at Hotmail and don't like supporting the "evil" beast of Yahoo, you don't necessarily have to switch. Though I do suggest making a list of just what you need from your email and then comparing that list to what each service provides and for what prices.
Or you could take the fourth option of the email address that comes with your ISP account or one of the small freebies out there. Do be careful when going for the fourth choice though. While ISPs do have a standard of service, email tends to be just a side experiment, for them and the loose email providers. Not saying they're all bad, just be aware.

Learn more about this author, Marie Culver.
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