Gmail is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though still in beta status at that time.it has 176 million users monthly. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps suite. - Source: Wikipedia