There’re a lot of web-based mail service providers that you can use, but using a mailbox with your own personal domain will grant you more credibility if you are running a business, for instance, not to mention that with web-based services there are limits 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 retrieval protocols, you will not bump into such problems and you’ll be able to use any program on your PC to access your email messages, including Thunderbird, Outlook or Apple Mail. You can even set up an email account on your mobile phone. The difference between the two email protocols is that with IMAP, an email message is displayed at your end, but remains on the server, while with POP3, the message is downloaded to your PC, unless you set up the program in such a way as to save a copy on the server.