exeng

Thanks, I'm aware of that and have started down that path.

Interesting ! Wilco, standby.

There is no need to change email addresses if you change your ISP.

I still use the e-mail address I had when I had a dial-up internet account in the early 90s. Although I went to BT for ISDN and later ADSL service, I still pay a small charge to ClaraNet for use of their SMTP servers.

Also, I have 2 domains registered to me for which the hosting company provides a forwarding service for emails addressed to me at those domains to my ClaraNet address. If I decide to terminate the Claranet account, then I can easily change the forwarding details with the domain hosting company to forward to the new ISP provided email address. One of my domain email addresses is the one I give when I register to on-line services and the subsequent spam sent to that address does not bother me since it does not get forwarded to my real everyday account.

you may be lucky in doing that with Claranet, but you try doing the same with Orange, or Sky, or Talktalk / Tiscali / Pipex........
admittedly the Talktalk companies sometimes don't terminate the account, but they do more often than not - especially if you left as the result of a dispute

and if I used this combination I'd still be relying on NZ Telecom to do the forwarding, or whatever they have to do, and as we hate each other .......... ??

exactly
either get yourself a free account with AOL/Microsoft/Yahoo/Gmail (my preference is for Yahoo - its easier to set up with local client software than the others)

or pay some one to host your own domain and run your e-mail through that.

Not forgetting hotmail, of course.

I've tried all sorts of email accounts, including ones forced on me by bt and google, and one that came with my website. None have offered anything like the features of hotmail.

In hotmail I have a large number of files where I can put emails from different people or companies. There are lots of options including a facility for barring unwanted incoming mail from specific addresses and hotmail bars anything from known spam addresses.

It is not tied to a specific computer, I just log in from anywhere.

- look, I've seen exeng's legs, and there is NO WAY..........................He cannot even make a decent cup of tea.