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Email Overview
To send and receive email you will need an email client and you will need to be connected to an email network. Email ClientsThere are two popular types of email client they are:
Client based or POP3 emailThis is a dedicated email client examples are:
The term POP3 client arises because the protocol they use to receive email is usually POP3 (post Office Protocol version 3). These types of client have been around since the birth of email when they were command line based, and they are still the type that most people use. Web Based Email ClientsThese clients are simply web browsers with the work all being done on the web server. Hotmail was the first well known example and was purchased by Microsoft January 1998.The advantage of this type of client is that no software other than a web browser needs to be installed on the user's computer. This means that access to email can be accomplished at any computer that has a web browser (almost 100% have). Almost all email providers now provide access to email via a web based client.. The main disadvantage of this type of access is you need to be connected to the Internet in order to read/write emails. There are three main providers of free email
services that provide access primarily through a web browser. They are:
Email Address and Email Account and Email Network ConnectionIn order to send and receive emails you need to connect to and email network. Connection to the network can be via the Internet or via a business network.In order to connect to the network you need an email account on the network. You can get an email account from a variety of sources and you can have many different accounts. They are usually called network accounts today as they generally provide access to a variety of services other than email. Email Addresses and MailboxesA mailbox is a location where email is stored. It is the electronic equivalent of a post office box. In order to receive email you need to have a mailbox. When you sign up for an email account you are assigned a mailbox and normally an email address. The email address and mailbox are linked such that any email sent to the email address will be placed in the mailbox. Mailbox LocationsMailboxes need to receive email from the email network and hence need to be available to receive email. Therefore they are located on the email network. If you have a Yahoo email account your mailbox will be on a Yahoo maintained email server. Mailbox AccessTo access your email you will need to connect your email client outlook express etc or your web browser to your email providers email server. Once connected to your mailbox you can send, receive and manage your emails. Access via desktop based client like outlook Express is very different to access using a web browser. Mailbox Access using Outlook Express or SimilarOutlook Express normally uses the POP3 protocol (Post office protocol version 3 ) to read emails in your mailbox. The default behaviour of the POP3 protocol is to move the email from the mailbox on the email server (on the Internet) to a mailbox on your local PC. Because the email is moved the only copy that now exists is stored on your local PC. These default behaviour can be changed see- leaving email on the Internet for details. This does mean that you have, in effect, two mailboxes a mailbox on the email server and a mailbox on your email client machine. It is for this reason that accessing email when travelling is not so straight forward with clients like Outlook express unless you are using a laptop. Although POP3 is the most common method IMAP4 is also used.
Both POP3 and IMAP4 are designed to read and manage your email to send it the SMTP protocol is used. You will need to configure your email client to access your mailbox the detailed instructions are here:
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