There are numerous web-based email providers that you can use, but having an email with your very own personal domain will provide you with more credibility if you are running a business, for instance, not to mention that with web-based services there are restrictions 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 won’t come across such problems and you’ll be able to use any program on your PC to check your mailboxes, including Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail. You can even set up a mailbox on your smartphone. The difference between the two email protocols is that with IMAP, an email message is displayed at your end, but remains on the mail server, whereas with POP3, the message is downloaded to your personal computer, unless you configure the program in such a way as to store a copy on the server.