There’re lots of web-based email providers that you can resort to, but using a mailbox with your very own personal domain name will provide you with more credibility if you are running a business, for example, not to mention that with web-based email services there are limitations on the size of the attachments that you can send or receive. If you use an email service that supports the IMAP and POP3 protocols, you won’t run into such problems and you will be able to use any software program on your personal computer to check your email accounts, including Apple Mail, Thunderbird or Outlook. You can even set up an email account on your phone. 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, while with POP3, the message is downloaded to your computer, unless you set up the program in such a way as to leave a copy on the server.