Web hosting packages often contain many features which may not be understood, yet used, by website owners. There are many people who are unaware of the importance of different factors for the success of their online business. In this article, we will discuss one such feature called POP3.
POP3 is the short form of Post Office Protocol (version 3). It consists of mailboxes for email systems to help a user to reclaim email from the storage files on a central location i.e. the web server. A POP3 account allows you to have mailbox on a disk server provided by the web hosting company with your domain name.
This in turn enables you to receive and send email at yourname@yourdomain.com. With POP3, you can get an easy, standardized way to gain access to mailboxes and download important email messages to their own computer. If this feature is not provided by a web hosting plan, it is not worth spending your money on. You can find a good package at affordable price that includes this feature as well.
Commonly, you will find that most of the email applications use the POP protocol while some may also use the upgraded protocol IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). To setup a POP3 email account, make sure that your domain name is hosted by a web hosting company that has name servers.
The most important thing is that POP3 allows clients to retrieve email from the server through a temporary connection. It is best suited for computers without a permanent network connection and no stationary location this includes home or mobile computers that require a POP server to store the email messages until they can reclaim it.
The main features/characteristics of POP3 include the following:
• Mail retrieval is only possible. For sending email, you will need to use SMTP protocol.
• It provides support for identification of messages during disconnected usage.
• Mail delivery is handled by a web hosting mail server that is usually shared.
• Implementations are freely available with POP3 accounts.
• Email can be reclaimed from different types of client platforms.
• Client implementations are available for Macs, PCs and UNIX.
• Availability of Commercial implementations
• There is full support for the offline access model.
• There is no need for mail gateways as POP3 is a native Internet protocol.
