As a travellin’ man, I need web-based email. Of the big 3, my service HOTMAIL is still ranked third.
I really should switch to Gmail or Yahoo.
The three applications, along with AOL mail, make up the vast majority of the 500 million or so webmail users around the world (see chart included in this post).
Most of these users are still using the old, tedious, Ajax-free Yahoo Mail and Hotmail user interfaces, requiring page refreshes for every click.
The new applications, along with Gmail, offer a much richer experience, much like Outlook or Mac mail. When these webmail clients are performing well, their speed and ease of use is easily as good as a desktop client.
Overall we prefer Gmail over all other webmail applications because performance (speed) is consistently fast, and emails can be tagged making search much more effective. They also offer more storage and other features, and it’s free.
However, Yahoo and Live Hotmail offer more mainstream Outlook-like user interfaces (although Live Hotmail does not allow you to access other email accounts from their application), whereas Gmail takes some time to get used to. If you are looking for speed and tagging is important, Gmail is for you. If you are looking for the closest thing to Outlook online, go with Yahoo Mail.
Rick McCharles 
I use Yahoo, Beta version
much like Outlook actually in how it displays messages. I had too much trouble with Hotmail when I was travelling, and although I still have an address for this service, I don’t like the page format, or the manner in which it works. For some reason I get so much junkmail sent to there as well, that it infuriates me.