I have probably confused John in Hull by saying that in some chat rooms your email address is on show and you can then receive junk email. To get round this I suggested getting one or more extra email addresses to use in those occasions so that your main address isn't cluttered with junk (my boss gets loads of unsolicited porn email after visiting a chat room - but I have since found out that this is a particular problem with the way AOL operates). I have a hotmail email address and a freeuk email address. The hotmail is web based and can be accessed from any computer but messages aren't saved on my computer for later reference . The FreeUk is a 'free' ISP account and I can receive email by using the same connection I normally use (btinternet) but if I want to send messages via that account I have to use the FreeUK dialup network which is charged at a local call rate.
This still isn't making much sense is it?
Here goes again
Main email address - for close friends and 'trusted' people or sites
Second address - most people and contact for companies I have bought stuff from
third (hotmail) anything else on the internet that wants an email address - guest books and the like. This is the email that is now filling with junk and luckily has a bulk folder that collects most of the crap
I check my main email every day, the next one every other day and the hotmail whenever I remember.

Most Free ISP's aren't very free either, the free bit is usually that you don't have to pay a subscription, you do have to pay for the connection time though. For a while I have been using BTInternet which has a monthly subscription charge but no call charges - the drawback is that the service seems to be very unreliable (last night impossible to connect) and much more sluggish than other ISP's I have used. No such thing as a free lunch !!