There’re numerous web-based email service providers that you can use, but having a mailbox with your own domain name will grant you more credibility if you have a company, for instance, not to mention that with web-based email services there are restrictions on the size of the attachments that you can send or receive. In case you use an email service that offers support for the POP3 and IMAP email delivery protocols, you won’t bump into such problems and you will be able to use any software program on your computer to check your email accounts, including Thunderbird, Apple Mail or Outlook. 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 at your end, but remains on the server, whereas with POP3, the message is downloaded on your computer, unless you set up the program in such a way as to store a copy on the server.