The great folks at Google, Inc. are crafting up a free, web-based email service that will be in direct competition with Hotmail (only Google Email, or Gmail, will have 1000 MB of free storage). It looks like it's gonna be great.

UPDATE: After having been using a Gmail account for some time now, I can safely attest that Google is the best ... sort of. The only real problem I have is that messages deleted in the "sent mail" folder will delete the same messages in the "all mail," which is supposed to function as the "archive". Also, I've read in Gmail Help that, whereas other web-based email services terminate your account after 30 days of inactivity, Gmail won't delete your account until nine months of inactivity, which is really cool.