OK, so in my 20 years of computering, I have never used anything but web based email (this not for 20 years, I give you that). I have installed email clients for "friends" of mine and set them up and stuff but that's it. Is there a way (an application) that retrieves my emails from an web based service like yahoo or operamail? I see there is something called gotmail for hotmail but is that all? I use operamail and they want for POP3 stuff money, actual money which I don't have. And question number 2: Are there web based email services that give you POP3 for "free"?
I hope me using the term POP3 actually makes sense to you 'cause I am just faking it.

You can get yahoo mail like "pop3" with yahoo pops or fetchyahoo

my yahoo mail worked with thunderbird. i havent tried gmail yet though.

nuka_t, are you paying for extra space/features like pop3 on yahoo mail though? How did you set this up?

In yahoo mail there is an option you have to activate to have pop3. In my country is free, but i think that few years ago people had to pay in anothers countries, but now i don't know. You can use thunderbird to download pop3 mail and you can use hotwayd + thunderbird to get email from hotmail.

That's all very cool, thanks to all of you!