There are numerous web-based email service providers that you can use, but using an email account with your own personal domain name will provide you with 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 delivery protocols, you won’t stumble upon such problems and you’ll be able to use any software program on your computer to access your mails, including Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail. 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 locally at your end, but remains on the email 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.