There’re many web-based email service providers that you can use, but having a mailbox with your very own personal domain name will grant you more credibility if you are running a company, for example, not to mention that with web-based services there are restrictions on the maximum size of the attachments that you can send or receive. If you use an email service that supports the POP3 and IMAP email delivery protocols, you won’t experience such problems and you will be able to use any software program on your computer to access your emails, including Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird. You can even set up an email account on your smartphone. 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 on your personal computer, unless you set up the program in such a way as to keep a copy on the server.