Hotmail is a free web-based email service owned by Microsoft. It was one of the first email services on the internet and was launched in 1996. It was rebranded as Outlook.com in 2013, but users can still use the Hotmail.com domain to access their email accounts. Hotmail/Outlook.com offers features such as spam filtering, virus scanning, and support for multiple languages. Users can also access their email through a mobile app or through a web browser.