I have always been wary of free email services. Email is so important to me that I feel that it's a service I want to pay for, and not depend on someone else's business for.

The domain name corresponding to my last name has been bought by netidentity.com (a service of Tucows.com, a Canadian company). So I pay about $20 a year for myfirstname@mylastname.com . For another $25 I get myfirstname.mylastname.com which I am not really using but 10 years ago I had a blog and I like the archive to remain accessible somehow.

I access it through POP or through a web interface.

Overall it's been pretty good, and I hardly receive any spam. However these last few months they have had a series of technical issues, including one recently that lasted three days. I thought that sucked pretty badly, but the same happened to my university last year. Tucows gave me a 2-month credit and apologized profusely. Oh well. So I don't know if I really want to recommend them, but you can be aware they're out there. You can check if they have your last name by just typing: www.yourlastname.com or .net and see what happens.

I've had this address for over 5 years I think.