I'd tend to suggest using free forwarding to a GMail account (registering a domain, of course).

As I rent hosting (where, unlike a number of services, they have multiple mail servers, rather than using the same server as my web sites reside) I haven't been looking for domain registration with free forwarding, but feel sure it's fairly easy to obtain.

Of course some people wrongly assume you need a web site to go with a domain, so might find it a little odd to have <familyname> domain for just e-mail.

For registering on websites I routinely use Spamgourmet.com which allows tracking of mail in a way similar to jelv's use to protect against spam, and protects my GMail accounts from plenty of junk. If a site ever sells the mail addresses, or gets hacked, I can be sure Spamgourmet will handle the junk.

Spamgourmet is a free service (which accepts donations).

Edited by deleted (Fri 26-Apr-13 12:13:28)

You're welcome to do that, but I find the mere idea of google handling all my emails utterly shuddery.

I use 1 and 1 for their mail only package and they kindly keep up the registration of my two domains on auto repeat, which is exactly what I wanted in a hosting company.

I've often considered them, but never found their prices or volume of adverse comments attractive. Tsohost normally answer the phone in less than a minute and tickets nearly as quick, 24/7. And if I have the occasional bout of thickness, they are very patient and helpful.

To be honest I have never had to use phone support or email in the 7 years I have been with them and I am still on a deal I got in 2006 which they don't seem to be in any rush moving me onto the new pricing.

If they did I may be looking to be moving my business elsewhere,

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

(I think O2 is IMAP and webmail only)

O2 email doesn't support IMAP, just POP3 and webmail (and SMTP for sending of course).

Ditto here. I use 1and1 to host my personal e-mail accounts on a single domain name. It's a few quid a year. On top of that I get five sub-domains to play with, which is useful. My websites are hosted with TSOHOST. I have two sites, both hosted with their most basic package. Both sites have e-mail accounts associated with them, most of which are aliases. Can't say I've had any problems with either provider.

Andrew

As it happens, I don't just use GMail, but Fastmail and have used Runbox in the past. Not sure why you'd find GMail anything to worry about... they're really very welcome to some 100,000+ mail messages that have come in on my {several} GMail accounts. Marketing-wise they can do what they like but I see no adverts and have no major complaints with how it all works.

Darn site easier than using POP mail, with the mix of mobile / tablet / linux / Win XP, Win 7 / OSX devices I have here... and yes, I suppose I could use IMAP, but really have no wish to waste disk space on much of the mail, some being store promotion, some notification about new items on Ebay, Amazon, etc, plus a few tens of thousands of daily archives from TBB, and so forth.

Useful to me to be able to access, yes, "lost" if deleted, no.

Edited by deleted (Fri 26-Apr-13 15:19:28)

In some ways that's simpler then, and just means downloading everything, if one wants to keep it, though I must admit it's some (7+) years since I have bothered with POP mail...

It is a generally a good idea to have your email independent from your ISP. I have lost count of the people who have complained about poor service from their ISP but refuse to switch because they would have to change email addresses.

Perhaps the most elegant thing to do is register your own domain name as most domain hosts will offer a mail forwarding service that will re-direct your email to an address of your choice. Alternatively if that sounds a bit overly complex then use one of the free email services like Gmail.