Using Web-based email accounts with TBird or Mozilla?

[Joe]

Hi.  I've never used a Web-based email account like gmail/hotmail/yahoo.

Is it possible to configure an email program like Thunderbird (or <gasp> 
Lookout Express) to read the email into my computer just like it works 
when I get email from my regular ISP?

Hopefully this won't start a flame war, etc., but aside from not really 
wanting to patronize M$ by using hotmail, are some web based email 
systems better than others?  I know a lot of people seem to like gmail.

Joe

-- 
" . . . as long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life." -- Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth