The following steps will lead you through setting up a Yahoo! Mail account to remotely check your POP3 accessible Email account. In my example I've chosen to use Yahoo for simplicity, however the steps are quite similar with Microsoft's Hotmail and several others. Though several web-based Email services will work (I prefer Yahoo! ¹ over Hotmail) they both allow you to specify a different "Reply-To" address.  More on that below.
Basic Steps

• Create a Yahoo Email account at mail.yahoo.com

You will be asked certain questions including your age and sex, etc.... information that is used to determine which ads will appear.
• Sign on to your Yahoo account and choose the following links:
• Options
• Check Other (POP) Mail
• Add Mail Server -- in the Add Mail Server screen you'll need to provide some necessary information:

• Mail Account Server - this is the name of your ISP's mail server for example, mail.myisp.com
• Mail Account Username - the part before the @myisp.com
• Mail Account Password - the same password normally used to check your Email.
• Additional options include:
• Leave mail on POP server - if you want to re-receive the same messages when you get "home".
• Retrieve new messages only - if you're going to check several times daily and don't want to keep downloading the same messages you decided to leave on the server.
• Use filters - to ignore or re-direct particular messages based on criteria such as Email address or subject.


Once these options are set, you'll be able to "pull" mail from your server into your Yahoo Mail window. I personally choose to leave messages on my mail server and to retrieve only NEW messages. This way, when I return to my computer, I'll get those same messages again however if I check my remotely during the day, I only have to wait for new messages to come in.

Specifying a different Reply-To address:

When recipients reply to your messages, the replies will be directed to the address you chose in your Reply-to address. If you would rather have all mail sent to ONE primary address you can force that by having others' replies go to your main address. This is facilitated by specifying a different "Reply-To" address.  When the recipients of your messages click Reply the reply will be addressed to the place you decided, probably your main Email address, the address you're checking remotely.  Most Email programs recognize and honor this Reply-To address.

** Exceptions:  Some ISPs are not POP3 accessible.  Many including AT&T and America Online have their own web-based interfaces.
To log into the AT&T Message Center, go to netmail.att.net.
AOLers can check their Email by going to www.aol.com and clicking the AOL Mail link.

Though POP3 accessible, Mindspring, Netcom, Sprynet, Pipeline, and IGC users can check their Email at: www.springmail.com

If anyone can offer more information, corrections, or websites for ISPs that are not POP3 accessible, please let me know.

^1/I prefer Yahoo! Mail over Hotmail for a number of reasons:

1. HTML formatted messages in Yahoo maintain their formatting when forwarded. Hotmail converts them to plain text, often messy with raw HTML code displayed. All formatting is lost.
2. When you take a hyperlink from an Email in each, they open into separate windows. However, the Hotmail window is still a sub-window containing an MSN/Hotmail banner and NOT displaying the true URL.
3. The Signature in Yahoo can be applied or not, when sending mail. In Hotmail, there is NO on/off switch; it's a default setting and that's it.
4. Can Forward messages as attachments.

^UPDATED!
I prefer Gmail over Yahoo! Mail for a number of reasons:

1. Faster (geat shortcuts)
2. Lightning fast email searching
3. Cleaner message arrangement, grouping by subject
4. More storage -- 2.7 GB and counting!
5. Can forward incoming mail to other addresses
6. Can set up other addresses to send from.
7. Can use a separate email client such as Outlook (but... see #1 below)
8. It's a constantly evolving system

What I don't like about Gmail:

1. Can't "POP" other email accounts
2. Imported Outlook Contact data (esp. Notes) does not always 'fit'. (Yahoo is better)
3. Can't easily add other recipients to your address book.