There are a lot of web-based mail service providers that you can use, but having an email address with your own personal domain name will give you more credibility if you are running a company, for instance, not to mention that with web-based services there are limitations on the size of the attachments that you can receive or send. If you use an email service that supports the IMAP and POP3 protocols, you will not face such problems and you’ll be able to use any software program on your computer to access your emails, including Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird. You can even set up a mailbox on your mobile phone. The difference between the two email protocols is that with IMAP, an email message is displayed locally at your end, but remains on the email server, while with POP3, the message is downloaded on your PC, unless you set up the program in such a way as to save a copy on the server.