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Web portals such as Yahoo.com, Google.com and Live.com offer partial customization. By signing up for an account on these websites you get the opportunity to receive email for free. Registrations on these websites are free as well. These websites only offer the option of choosing the first part of the email address but not the portion after the '@' symbol. For example, on yahoo.com your email address will be username@yahoo.com.
For the portion you can customize, choose a username you will remember. For most people this may be a combination of first and last name or first name and occupation. For example, if your name is John Public and you are a dentist, then you may want to choose JohnPublic@yahoo.com or JohnPublicDentist@yahoo.com.
If you choose a name that isn't available these websites are good at providing alternatives. In our earlier example, if JohnPublic@yahoo.com wasn't available you would be presented with options such as JohnPublic123@yahoo.com, JohnPublic2010@yahoo.com, JPublic123@yahoo.com, etc. In this case you need to choose an alternative that makes sense for you.
Keep your username as short as possible but as relevant as possible. If you are creating an email address for a business or other professional reasons do not use offensive or unrelated names. -
There are two ways you can have complete customization for an email address. The first way is to register your own domain name. Search an online domain name registrar such as GoDaddy.com to find out if a domain name you're interested in is available.
Purchase that domain name if you desire to use it for your email address. Domain-name-only purchases will cost approximately $10 per year and will need to be paid annually. After your purchase, you will need to log in to your account and set up your email account(s) as you would like them to be. The advantage of using your own domain name is that it's unique enough for you to use whatever email address you'd like.
Google Apps and Windows Live Custom Domains allow you to use your domain with them and give you full advantage of their features. With Google Apps you get 2GB of space, virus and anti-spam protection, and a 10MB attachment limit. Windows Live Mail gives you 5GB of space. Another option similar to these is going through AOL's My eAddress. The difference is that AOL's My eAddress gives you a range of domains to choose from for your email address. You must register your own domain name if you don't choose a ready-made domain name.
