Good free email is hard to find these days. I can remember how good and easy to get free email accounts were back in the early days of the net.  Mail.com, Yahoo, Hotmail to name but a few were easy to obtain, didn't require SMS verification and were ad-free. Now all the free services are plastered with ads. They also have horrible privacy as they scan your mail for things to sell you and resell your information. For the last six months or so, I have been using Proton mail. It is free and ad-free. It is the most secure email service you can get, and there are no crappy ads or mandatory SMS verification.