If you do not presently have an email account, you can probably obtain one from your local Internet Service Provider (The company you subscribe to for your internet service). Help is also usually readily available.

If you are looking for a different email provider, below are some major vendors who offer free accounts. They provide accounts with many advanced features totally free of charge and employ highly skilled people to maintain their services.

The reason they do this is to bring users to their website, which increases their advertising revenue. As long as you don't mind seeing a few ads and getting some email advertisements, the quality of their service is excellent.

Listed below are three good choices.

Hotmail
Lycos
Yahoo

You just go to the link which says something like "Sign up for Free Email". Then fill out the forms and you will have a fully functioning email account in a few minutes.

A few hints:
1) Make sure you write down your email name (i.e. - thenameyouchoose@theemailprovider.com) and your password.
Forget them and you can't get back into your account.

An example might be - tracym@lycos.com with a password Twrah3
(Email addresses use only small letters or numbers. Passwords can have small letters, capitals, numbers, and various symbols.)
Note: When logging back into your account, you usually only need to put the first part of your email address in the Username box (tracym in the above example)

2) When filling out the forms, you will probably be shown a checklist of newsletters you can subscribe to. Some of these are very informative and good.
However, only choose the ones you are really interested in. Check them all and you will likely get tons of extra emails you may not want.