Pools you use and why...

[BiffyMcBifferstein]

As I gain more and more experience in mining (and realize how much I still don't know as time goes on), I have found two pools I really like — MajorMiners and HashStrike.  Simply put, for the crappy "miners" I have, I've gotten really good results with both.  They've also both been very responsive to questions.  Also, while I found MajorMiners 2-step authentication to be annoying at first, I've come to really appreciate it more and more with all the news of "missing coins" and other weird fraud moves. 

So, now you know I like MM and HS (and why), curious to know who you use.. and why.  Also, if you're a pool owner, what separates you from the two I mentioned and why should I check you out?

[Wipeout2097]

Welcome!

I'll just say for now, that sooner or later you will become fed up of all that register/login crap, and will mine on anonymous "zero-step" authentication pools like www.1gh.com, www.dwarfpool.com or www.clevermining.com  

[flounderella]

For BTC: Eligius, BTCGuild and Ghash.io

But since this is the altcoin section, so:

LTC: solo mining, p2p pool, litecoinpool.org
DOGE: hashfaster
Multipools: wafflepool, clevermining, scryptguild

Misc: usually united, dedicatedpools, coinmine, hash.so and poolerino have been good to me

There are plenty of other good pools out there but the above are just where I've mined mostly

[wasamata]

For gaining bitcoin using scrypt-wafflepool or clevermining
For gathering scrypt coins I find the most reliable is multipool.us and its sister site.