There are numerous web-based mail service providers that you can resort to, but having an email account with your own personal domain will provide you with more credibility if you are running a business, for example, not to mention that with web-based services there are limitations on the maximum size of the attachments that you can send or receive. If you use an email service that offers support for the IMAP and POP3 email retrieval protocols, you will not face such problems and you will be able to use any software program on your PC to check your emails, including Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird. 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 locally at your end, but remains on the email server, whereas with POP3, the message is downloaded onto your personal computer, unless you set up the program in such a way as to save a copy on the server.