Electronic mail, sometimes written as e-mail, is simply short for “electronic mail,” a system for receiving, sending, and storing electronic messages. It gained near-universal popularity around the world with the spread of the Internet. In many cases, email has become the preferred method for personal and business communication.
Most mobile devices can send and receive email.
how to use
Messages sent by email usually reach the recipient’s account within seconds. They often include more than just text; images and various types of formatted documents are now easily included as attachments. Also, you no longer need to be sitting in front of a PC to send or receive an email. A variety of mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, allow you to manage mail on the go.
Tablets can be used to read emails.
protocols
Users receive and send messages using standardized protocols that make it possible for email to travel seamlessly between computers running different types of software and between different types of servers on various networks. Simple Message Transfer Protocol (SMTP) allows you to send and receive messages. Other protocols, including Post Office Protocol (POP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), allow users to retrieve and store messages over time.
Email is a very simple service that allows people to communicate electronically.
client software
In the beginning, a program called “client software” was needed to handle mail. There are many different email apps available, some of which cost money while others are free; some ISPs even include it in the service. Client software is still used today, but there is another, more flexible method that has become more popular in recent times.
There are several free tutorials online that cover the basics of email.
In addition to accessing email through client software, webmail is another popular option. Most service providers offer this as an added benefit, where you can access your mailbox over the Internet, from any computer or other web-connected device. Some email services are specifically designed to use the World Wide Web as their primary interface. These websites, called “portals,” have become very popular as they often offer people the opportunity to open an email account for free, along with access to a search engine, news, calendar, and much more. other resources in one place.
History
While there is some degree of uncertainty about when email was invented, the father of the modern version is generally considered to be an American, Ray Tomlinson. Before Tomlinson, users could send messages to each other, but only when connected to the same computer. Even after computers were networked, messages could not be addressed to a particular individual. Tomlinson invented a way to send mail to certain users and is therefore credited as one of the most important communication inventions of the 20th century.
Tomlinson’s idea was to identify the user’s name and the computer on which it was located. As a result, the basic formula for sending an email was [email protected] This standard hasn’t changed much over the years, other than the user’s computer is now commonly replaced by the name of a service provider.
Privacy concerns
From a legal standpoint, email is generally treated as a private form of communication, much like a phone call or even a handwritten letter; details will vary from country to country, but it’s usually illegal to access, read or post someone else’s messages without permission. However, it is important to understand that it is relatively easy for hackers to intercept email. Additionally, many companies require their employees to sign an agreement that gives the employer permission to monitor all messages sent or received at corporate email addresses.
Another privacy issue is that each electronic message becomes a more or less permanent record of the communication. Selecting a message for deletion will remove it from the visible queue in the user’s account, but a person should never assume that the message is really gone; deleted emails are notoriously easy to resurrect. Even if the sender uses specialized software to completely erase all traces of the message from their computer, copies of the email will likely still exist at the receiving end, as well as on many of the servers through which it traveled. Consequently, it is not wise to send sensitive information by this means without carefully considering the possibility that an external party may obtain it. Since emails are automatically time- and date-stamped, these records are often subpoenaed by courts to establish a timeline for a particular chain of events.
influence
The influence of email cannot be overstated. The United States Postal Service, for example, says it handles 485 million pieces of mail a day. By comparison, 39.6 billion emails are sent in the United States every day. In other words, email providers handle more than 81 times the volume of the world’s largest postal system. It is perhaps revealing to consider the extent to which e-mail has affected the use of traditional “snail mail,” as it is often called today. The US Postal Service, along with many other postal services around the world, has experienced dramatic declines in volume and revenue, beginning in the second half of the 1990s and continuing steadily ever since; This is partly because so much personal and business correspondence is now sent via email.
Email accounts require the use of a password to gain access.
