If email messages are an integral part of your online communication with business colleagues or relatives, you may be better off using a mailbox with your own domain name and an email service provider that supports the IMAP and POP3 email retrieval protocols, rather than resorting to a web-based service that involves restrictions as to the size of the attachments. Thus, you will be able to check your mails on any desktop or mobile device using any software application – Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail, and so on. With the IMAP protocol, you’ll be able to view the emails locally at your end, but they will be on the server at all times, whereas with the POP3 protocol, all emails will be downloaded to the device, unless you choose a copy to be left on the mail server. Besides, you will be able to use lots of other handy options – contact groups, calendars, etc., not to mention that in case there’s a temporary issue with your Internet connectivity, you can still view your emails since they will be on your desktop or mobile device.