There are lots of web-based mail service providers that you can use, but using an email address with your own domain will give you more credibility if you are running a business, for example, not to mention that with web-based email services there are limits on the size of the attachments that you can receive or send. If you use an email service that supports the POP3 and IMAP email delivery protocols, you will not experience such problems and you will be able to use any program on your computer to check your mailboxes, including Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird. You can even set up a mailbox on your mobile phone. The difference between the two email protocols is that with IMAP, an email message is displayed locally at your end, but remains on the mail server, while with POP3, the message is downloaded onto your computer, unless you configure the program in such a way as to save a copy on the server.