Things to look for:

uptime:
you should be able to get access whenever and wherever you want.  Some websites are down for maintenance on weekends.

space:
total space available for all saved and unread emails.  maximum email size (some don't let you receive or send any single email greater than 1 MB).

saveability:
can you save the email as a file outside of the web?  Hotmail lets you do that.  Ecompare doesn't; you have to copy/paste the text from the email onto Notepad or elsewhere.

voicemails etc: 
Excite offers free voicemail and fax. 

analyticalQ links:

• Three days of emails
• Chatting online
• Slow internet connection
• Internet bill

Free Email Addresses

Free email business makes its money off targetted advertising and traffic.  The user wants reliability, friendly user interface, large MB email storage, and other features.  With a free email, you just need a web browser.

There are other ways to communicate besides email. There's sms text messaging. There's instant messenger. There's discussion forum. With instant messenger, you need to download the free software. And you can talk online!

The downside of using web-based e-mail is that you will soon run out of space, if you don't regularly keep your mailbox below the meager limit. One way out of this is to start using Outlook or Microsoft Outlook programs.