Once as free as the air we breathe, most Web-based e-mail accounts now come with all kinds of strings attached. We test four different services to find out if these so-called free e-mailers are worth the hassle.

In most cases, these "free" sites either charge for certain services or impose strict limitations in an effort to make you pay for "premium" e-mail packages.

Hotmail, for example, which boasts more than 110 million users, now imposes strict storage limitations and inside the US and UK charges US$20 per year to bypass these limits. Yahoo Mail now charges for one of its most useful and heretofore free features: the ability to grab your mail not only from a browser, but also from a desktop e-mail program, such as Outlook or Eudora.

Given these limitations, we must ask: Are these so-called free e-mailers worth the hassle? To find out, we took another look at four top services: AOL Mail, Microsoft Hotmail, Mail.com E- mail, and Yahoo Mail. We set up accounts, monitored the amount of spam we received, and tested each service's security provisions. The result: a longtime champ remains at the top, but a former fave ends up in the doghouse. Read on.

AOL Mail
If you use AOL as your ISP, you don't have a choice: AOL Mail is the only way to grab your messages from the Web. Everyone else, go with Yahoo Mail.

Hotmail
If you use Outlook Express or Outlook 2002 on your desktop, you should go with Hotmail since it integrates with those programs for free. But if you're Outlook-free, Yahoo Mail is a better pick.

Mail.com E-mail
Mail.com's many ads and lack of spam blockers make it a weak alternative to Yahoo or Hotmail. Sign up with Yahoo Mail instead.

Yahoo Mail
Even though it now charges for once-free features, Yahoo Mail still reigns as the best free Web e-mailer around.

AOL Mail

Faster start
Because only AOL members can access AOL Mail, there's no actual setup/sign-up process; to log in to AOL Mail, just enter your AOL screenname and password. Once in, AOL pulls up your 25 most recent messages--a nice change since the last time we reviewed AOL Mail. In the past, the system displayed all of your messages, which took much longer to load.

Still bare to the bone
It would be an understatement to call AOL Mail spartan. Although it looks a bit like your AOL mailbox--there's a list of message headers near the top with tabs labeled New Mail, Old Mail, and Sent Mail--AOL Mail is missing the basic features found in most Web mail services and even on AOL itself. Contrary to what the help file says, you still can't sort the messages by sender or date received. Nor does AOL Mail pull mail from POP3 accounts or let you create custom folders for better message organization, as do Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. All you can do is read your mail, reply to and forward received messages, compose new mail, and delete messages from your mailbox. The one bright spot: the most recent messages come to the top.

Not even up to AOL standards
If you want to view your address book and composition screen simultaneously, AOL Mail crowds the monitor by opening an additional browser window for each. Composing a message, however, is straightforward: just call up the address book to help fill in the Send To and Copy To fields, type your message, and if you want to attach a file, click the Browse button to scan your hard drive. Finally, AOL Mail lets you attach multiple files to each message, but it still lacks a dedicated BCC, or blind carbon copy, function. To keep a recipient's address secret, you must enclose that address in parentheses--not very intuitive.

Worse, AOL Mail doesn't include a spelling checker or virus protection to sniff incoming or outgoing attachments for bugs. To top it off, AOL Mail's online help file is too terse and doesn't do more than scratch the surface for troubleshooters, and there's no way to reach AOL from the AOL Mail site via e-mail.

Shared features and flaws
However, AOL Mail does afford AOLers some benefits. For example, it automatically updates any changes that you make to your mailbox, such as message deletions. The program also updates the address book on your AOL account with your AOL Mail account, so you don't have to monkey around synchronizing address books. What's more, AOL Mail doesn't limit your storage space like Yahoo and Hotmail do. However, AOL deletes unread messages after 27 days and won't store more than 1,000 messages.

AOL's Web's Spam filters are a joke. Junk messages inundated our test account; on average, our AOL mailboxes racked up nearly 15 spams per day. By comparison, fewer than 1 spam per day slipped through Yahoo Mail's filters. Worse, unlike other Web mailers, AOL doesn't filter spam into a separate folder, so in-box clutter is inevitable, and you can refuse mail from only specific senders. Once you've read a piece of mail, it shifts to the Old Mail folder, where it lives for just three days before AOL erases it. The only way to revive an old message is to cruise to Old Mail, select the message, then click the Keep As New button. What a pain.

At least AOL Mail's security is up to snuff. AOL encrypts your username and password as they travel to AOL's servers, and the system automatically logs you off after 30 minutes of inactivity.

Your only option
If you're already using AOL, you may welcome AOL Mail's familiar style and airtight AOL integration, but there's better fare elsewhere. And since the rest of us can't use AOL Mail anyway, Yahoo remains the best all-around option.

Hotmail

Sign out, go straight to ninemsn
Hotmail unveiled a new look last year, and we still don't like it. The interface's brighter colors and curved edges clearly mimic those of MSN Explorer and Windows XP, but the service's home page is essentially a billboard for ninemsn. In fact, when you sign out, your browser automatically, and irritatingly, displays the ninemsn.com.au home page. Ads dominate the home page, and the type is smaller and too hard to read easily.

Packed with features
Even so, Hotmail comes chock-full of features. You can sort messages in your in-box by clicking the From, Subject, Date, or Size column headings; search for received messages by looking for words or phrase in the message text; and create event reminders. A quick-pick list holds as many as five addresses that you frequently use. Plus, Hotmail comes in 12 tongues, including Japanese, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish, and collects mail from as many as four POP3 accounts. It scans attachments for viruses; and sets your account to automatically end your session after a specified number of hours to keep your account secure on a shared computer.

Hotmail also integrates with Outlook 2002 so that you can read and reply to Hotmail from within the client, which is especially handy now that Microsoft limits the number of messages you can store online.

Chinks in the armour
Still, Hotmail's flaws are many. It won't import addresses from a desktop e-mailer--not even Microsoft's own Outlook Express or Outlook--to your online address book, so you'll have to manually re-create a list of recipients within Hotmail.

Worse, Hotmail has recently implemented policy changes to enforce a 2MB storage limit; Yahoo Mail offers twice as much space. When your mailbox nears the max, Hotmail automatically bounces your messages back to the sender. You'll want to keep an eye on the new storage meter that appears on the left side on the screen once you log on. Further, if you don't sign in at least once every 30 days (previously, it was once every 45 days), Hotmail deletes everything in your account.

Spammers have wised up
Last year, we applauded Hotmail's new and sorely needed antispam tools. But spammers have wised up, it seems, and our Hotmail accounts are again jammed with junk. In our tests, even after we set the Junk Mail Filter to the second most intensive level for 10 days (the strictest level accepts mail only from people in your address book), Hotmail let more than 35 percent of all spam through to our in-box. No wonder Hotmail's standard 2MB accounts fill up so fast. And although Hotmail scans both incoming and outgoing attachments for viruses, the system isn't foolproof. In our tests, the dreaded w32.Klez.E@mm virus snuck through.

Hotmail offers online-only tech support, and its help file is searchable. We found answers to most of our questions at the Web site, which is a good thing, since there's no phone support. Nor is there a way to contact help via e-mail, except to report a bug.

Only Outlook and Outlook Express
Longtime Hotmail users should consider switching to Yahoo Mail, if only to get out from under the deluge of spam. However, if you use Outlook Express or Outlook 2002, stick around: Hotmail is the only service that integrates with those programs for free.

Mail.com E-mail

Invasion of the privacy snatchers
For starters, Mail.com digs deeper into your personal life than other free Web e-mailers. When you register, it asks for your name, current e-mail address, and mailing address. On the upside, though, Mail.com lets you choose an e-mail alias with all kinds of phrases for your domain, the part of an address that comes after the @ sign, ranging from the boring mail.com or lawyer.com to the exotic seductive.com or mad.scientist.com.

If you find Yahoo's interface busy-looking, you'll go cross-eyed with Mail.com. So many ads squeeze into the main e-mail window, they squish Mail.com's navigational tools into a small frame at the left of the browser window. Your account's primary interface is only a bit cleaner: ads appear at the left, at the top, and even in the middle of the page. Ugh! However, if you're willing to part with US$10, you can buy a year's worth of the ad-free version.

Missing in action
Once you finally reach your in-box, you can compose messages; attach as many as three files per message, totaling no more than 2MB; create folders to organize messages; move messages between folders; and sort mail by column headings, such as subject and date. Mail.com lets you grab mail from up to five POP 3 accounts, but it doesn't integrate with desktop e-mailers, as does Hotmail. By the way, Mail.com keeps your account active for 60 days between log-ins--twice as long as Hotmail does--but it bounces back incoming mail and deletes received messages and contacts in your address book if you don't use the service frequently.

Unfortunately, Mail.com is missing features offered by first-rate Web services such as Yahoo. Need the security of a virus sniffer to make you feel safe downloading attachments? Mail.com doesn't offer one. Like to proof your outgoing mail for typing goofs? Not going to happen here. Mail.com is missing a spelling checker, too. Want to import addresses from desktop clients, such as Eudora? No can do. Yearn to search for a specific message? Don't bother; there's no search tool at Mail.com.

Shoddy spam defense
It gets worse. Mail.com is also vulnerable to junk mail. Its antispam tool only lets you specify senders that you want to block, and you must enter a full address, so you can't stop spam that comes from multiple senders at the same domain. No surprise, then, that Mail.com eliminated exactly 0 percent of our incoming junk mail. Unlike the last time we looked at this service, however, Mail.com now prevents others from using either the Back button on your browser or the History tool to see your mail, assuming that you log out of Mail.com when you're through. Phew.

Thankfully, Mail.com's tech support is adequate. You'll find online help files--but no search tool to make it easier to find answers--as well as an e-mail link on the site to Mail.com's help desk.

Don't settle
Mail.com is the least reliable free e-mail service we tested. The tip-off: the help page entitled "When the Web site is down, will I lose my e-mail?" Mail.com kept us from our in-box once during our two-week, twice-per-day logon tests. That's better than the last time we reviewed the service, when it was down 20 percent of the time, but it's still unnerving.

Despite Mail.com's 10MB storage allowance, its skimpy features and glut of ads aren't palatable. Steer toward Yahoo Mail instead.

Yahoo Mail

More space than Hotmail
Sign up for Yahoo Mail (you'll need to give your name, birth date, and gender), select a username and a password, and Yahoo hands over a mailbox that holds 4MB of messages and attachments. This figure is down from 6MB just several months ago, alas, but it's still more than Hotmail's measly 2MB. Once you've registered, just enter your username and password to log in. Yahoo won't deactivate your account unless you don't use it for four months, which is four times as long as Hotmail's downtime.

Ch-ch-changes
Yahoo's new interface looks enormously better than its predecessor's, which was as cluttered as Grandma's attic. The trashy Inside Yahoo and About Yahoo Mail sections are gone, and new DHTML drop-down menus at the top give you one-click access to features and tools. What's our favorite trick? Yahoo offers keyboard shortcuts--for example, you can use Ctrl+Shift+C to check mail--which no other online e-mailer does.

Additional improvements include a storage gauge, much like Hotmail's, that shows you how much room you have left and better integration with Calendar, Address Book, and Notepad. For example, you can add an event to the Calendar from the main Mail display or, with the new QuickBuilder tool, you can add multiple e-mail addresses to your Address Book with one command.

Nails viruses and spam
Yahoo Mail also covers the traditional e-mail bases. It lets you attach up to three files to a message, with a total attachment size of 1.5MB for any one message, and create rules to shunt messages to specific folders or to the trash based on keyword, sender, recipient, or subject.

The virus checker comes courtesy of Norton AntiVirus, and in our tests, it successfully spotted--and warned us not to download--a file infected with the W32.Klez.E virus. Yahoo Mail also comes with built-in spam defense. Bulk Mail, Yahoo's spam terminator, sniffed out all but 5 percent of the spam we received over a 10-day period. This proved much better than Hotmail, which let 35 percent of the spam through its net.

Not so free anymore
Alas, Yahoo Mail has dropped some primo features and slapped a price tag on others. The biggest blow is that Yahoo now charges US$30 per year to let you collect your Yahoo mail from a desktop client; Hotmail still does this for free, but it works only with Outlook Express and Outlook 2002. Yahoo also dropped its encryption service, which kept e-mail superprivate.

And worse, Yahoo's much-touted video mail is a joke. Although you can attach a 30-second video clip to your outgoing mesages, the audio and video are so poorly synchronized that it's not worth the trouble. Switch to VMail Talk (Web site) if you're eager for video mail.

Do you need help? Yahoo's online help files are extensive, and they should answer most of your questions. But there's no phone support, which is typical of most Web mailers.

The best by a mile
While we're bummed that we now must fork over US$30 to grab Yahoo mail from a desktop client, Yahoo Mail's new improved interface and impressive feature set more than make up for that loss. No doubt about it, this is the best e-mailer on the Web.