Gmail's highly anticipated mail fetcher service went fully operational over the weekend. It is a nice addition for existing Gmail users but an even better option for those currently using fetchmail, getmail or some other pop3 checking tool for multiple email accounts. Traditionally you would have to run one of these applications or pay for a service such as Runbox to consolidate your email around a single account, but with Gmail this process has become significantly easier and cheaper.
Simply sign up for a free Gmail account (or log onto your existing one) and set Gmail to forward all incoming email to your primary account (assuming it isn't Gmail). Once the forwarder is in place configure the mail fetcher to retrieve mail from the accounts you want to check. Before you know it you have in place a free, spam filtered and highly redundant fetchmail/getmail replacement all without the cost and stress of maintaining your own server or application on your desktop for this task.