There’re numerous web-based mail service providers that you can use, but having an email with your own personal domain will grant you more credibility if you are running a company, for example, not to mention that with web-based services there are limits on the size of the attachments that you can receive or send. If you use an email service that offers support for the IMAP and POP3 email protocols, you will not come across such problems and you will be able to use any software program on your computer to check your email messages, including Thunderbird, Outlook or Apple Mail. You can even set up a mailbox on your 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 onto your personal computer, unless you configure the program in such a way as to save a copy on the server.