Why you should use Gmail, Hotmail or Outlook.com

Web-based email such as Gmail has has advantages over client-based email that your internet service provider ISP give you. It isn't hard to change your email to get these benefits.

For businesses and government, a powerful service like MS Outlook is appropriate because it has sophisticated security and privacy that a business needs. For individuals, there are considerable advantages in using a Web based service such as Gmail, Outlook / Hotmail, Yahoo which are simple, nimble and free.

Web mail
With Web based email like Gmail (Google), all of your service is on the web - in the 'cloud'. This means that it is fully available on any device anywhere in the world. All you need is an internet connection and your password. It doesn't matter if your computer blows up and you can't have software faults because that is the provider's problem. Many businesses and universities use web mail for these reasons.

Client based mail
Client based mail is stored on your computer rather than on the web. Many individuals have in the past accepted the offer from their internet provider, ISP for their 'free' client email service. The trouble is that this locks them in to that provider. Bigpond for Telstra and so on. If you change internet providers you might end up with a fee for your email.

The problem with client based services is that they do not work very well with portable devices such as iPhones and iPads which have to connect to your computer to access emails. When you go overseas you lose contact with your computer and lose full access to your mail. You can use webmail option that people use overseas and so on, but these are not a fully featured option.

 How to transition to Gmail (similar process for Outlook.com etc.)

• Sign up for a Google account, which provides a number of services beyond Gmail. Use a good quality (complex) password. 
• Choose an address that isn't already taken. Note: Gmail ignores dots in an address. You can still use them but the dot is ignored.
• Log in and when prompted, set up 'Two factor authentication' which improves security a lot. When changing your password etc it sends a code to your phone to authenticate that you respond to to prove that you are you.
• On your old email eg: BigPond, set up Auto Forward to send all new emails to your new account. Also you can import your old BigPond emails from Gmail Settings. 
• In Gmail go to Settings/Accounts and Import/Import mail and contacts and you should be able to import these from your old address.
• Notify your contacts of your new address.
• Make sure that you have the adblocker browser extension installed on Safari, Chrome, or whatever to get rid of advertisements. See Settings in your browser.
• On your iPhone, iPad, go to Settings /Mail and enter your new account. 

A feature of Gmail is that it has no need of folders. Just Archive (store) your read emails and when you want to find old one, use Search.