There’re a lot of web-based mail service providers that you can use, but having an email address with your own personal domain will grant you more credibility if you are running a business, for example, not to mention that with web-based email 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 protocols, you will not face such problems and you will be able to use any software program on your PC to check your email accounts, including Thunderbird, Apple Mail or Outlook. You can even set up an email account on your mobile device. The difference between the two 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 computer, unless you configure the program in such a way as to store a copy on the server.