There’re plenty of web-based email providers that you can use, but having a mailbox with your very own personal domain name will grant you more credibility if you have a business, for example, not to mention that with web-based email services there are limits on the maximum size of the attachments that you can send or receive. If you use an email service that offers support for the POP3 and IMAP email protocols, you won’t encounter such problems and you’ll be able to use any software program on your personal computer to access your email accounts, including Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird. You can even set up an email account on your mobile phone. The difference between the two email protocols is that with IMAP, an email message is displayed at your end, but remains on the server, while with POP3, the message is downloaded on your PC, unless you set up the program in such a way as to leave a copy on the server.