There are plenty of web-based email service providers that you can resort to, but having a mailbox with your own personal domain name will provide you with more credibility if you are running a company, for example, not to mention that with web-based services there are restrictions on the maximum size of the attachments that you can receive or send. In case you use an email service that supports the POP3 and IMAP email delivery protocols, you will not come across such problems and you will be able to use any software program on your computer to access 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 locally at your end, but remains on the server, whereas with POP3, the message is downloaded on your computer, unless you configure the program in such a way as to store a copy on the server.