I find it interesting that (for a service which has become an essential part of our daily lives) people are so reluctant to pay a (small) monthly fee for a decent
guaranteed level of service - free from adverts and irritating 'features' .
For a couple of quid a month I get a nice, personalised, domain name and up to 20 email addresses based on it - so you could give the whole family their own addresses or (as I do) have variants of your email address for different purposes. I can use my provider's own webmail access, or use a client like outlook, or even add them to my gmail - it's very flexible and secure.
I happen to prefer the new .uk extension to .co.uk, so I have (and these are not my real addresses, so don't bother spamming me) :
[email protected]
shopping @sunnydave.uk
business@sunnydave. uk
[email protected] (for use on dodgy sites)
etc etc.
For a couple of quid a month, why be at the mercy of a 'free' provider - there is no such thing as a free lunch (or email service) - you always pay in some way ...