Email Post Office Protocol (POP3) education and training defines usage of POP3 mail as well as pros and cons of POP3 versus other email services. Updates and refinements to the POP service provide better service for users. Since its invention in the 1980s, there have been three versions with the latest one known as POP3. Check the latest edition for more and improved features.

POP3 is the first choice of many Internet users but most do not have any idea how it actually works or what process their email goes through to reach them. Look at the following to learn Email Post Office Protocol (POP3) education and training:

1. Find the difference between post office protocols and other email services.

2. Define POP3 email information.

3. Take a course on email protocol for further information.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Recognize how POP3 email services is different from IMAP

Choose the type of email service that works best for you. If you use dial up instead of broadband to connect to the Internet, then learning about email delivery is essential to choosing the best method for your setup.

I recommend: Rockefeller University offers information about POP and IMAP including pros and cons of both services. Use their comparison charts to see readily the differences in these services. Reseller Hosting provides an informative article about the differences between POP and IMAP. It explains how email usage decides which service is best for you.

Explain POP3 mail server

Know the operation of POP3, how it generally works, potential security breaches and other useful information pertaining to retrieving your email. Decide if this service works best for your company.

I recommend: Medical College of Wisconsin provides a basic definition of POP email. Tech Terms explains the meaning of POP and briefly looks at how to configure your email client with POP. TCP/IP Guide provides the history, versions and standards of POP mail service.

Educate yourself on business POP3 email for additional knowledge

Take a short course on POP email and make it mandatory for your employees or anyone accessing your email accounts. The more informed you and your staff are, the less chance of misuse of email or breaching security with email.

I recommend: Inform It offers an article with information on the commands used with POP mail. Kerala Education Grid offers a course that includes a section on email and POP. RFC provides very detailed information about POP including commands and statuses. Mails Broadcast offers a one-page course on POP including a section on passwords and logins.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Compare ISP services not only on price and features but also on the email post office protocol information included with their basic service. Read the information then decide upon the service.

POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) is a client/server protocol for receiving e-mail. With email post office protocol, mail is held on a server until the client downloads it. POP3 is preceded by older post office protocols and is an alternative to IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) which allows users to save mail on a server.

POP3 is provided by ISPs and can usually be configured as a service on enterprise mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange to allow users to download mail at home. While you can use email post office protocol to receive email, you will also need SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to send it. Some things to keep in mind as you prepare for POP3 include:

1. If you have a website, your host probably provides POP3 email services.
2. You can use your own POP3 server or get an online hosting service.
3. POP3 email can be downloaded to a browser or an email client application.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Use a host for your business POP3 email

If you have a website, check with your host for POP3 email information. Most hosts provide at least one email address for your business. If not, online hosting is an alternative to pricey enterprise email servers, and you don't have to worry about supporting or maintaining a server.

I recommend: Gmail has no preset user account limits and free or premium versions. Yahoo offers 1,000 business email accounts. Hostway has email hosting plans for 5, 15, or 50 users.

Host your own POP3 mail server

If you want an on-site server, a POP3 mail server is an inexpensive alternative to enterprise packages like Exchange. There are free open-source servers available, especially Unix- and Linux-based applications.

I recommend: Qpopper and Teapop are open-source POP3-servers that run on UNIX platforms. The SOHO Mail server and hMailServer are free e-mail servers for Microsoft Windows. Eudora has an Internet Mail Server that can be run on Macintosh systems.

Get a POP3 email client

Once you've set up your hosted or live server, your employees will need a way to get their email. Users can either download their email from the web or use a POP-3 client. When you use a client, your other post office protocols will need to be set up. The outgoing (SMTP) and POP3 settings, including the name or IP address of the servers, must be configured in the client mail properties.

I recommend: Outlook and Outlook Express are popular Windows email clients. LiveMail replaces Outlook Express in Windows Vista. Outlook, which includes advanced features like local folders and calendars, is part of Microsoft Office, and Express or LiveMail are included in the operating system. Mac users can use Microsoft Entourage or Apple Mail 3.0. There are many free add-ons for Apple Mail on the Apple website. Free downloadable mail client software includes Pegasus Mail and Eudora.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Only need one email address? Weigh the benefits of featuring your own domain name (jdoe@mycompany.com) against the cost of a web domain. Most people think that a domain name sounds more professional than a free email account. If this is not a concern to you, consider a free email account with your ISP, Yahoo or Gmail.

POP3 is the current, standard protocol for retrieving email messages for many email client software programs. Along with IMAP, POP3 is a protocol that communicates with the mail server to download and store email messages, which are then sent to the mail server using another protocol, SMTP. While POP3 is a simple protocol and easy for users to configure, there are some key terms that will help you in setting up and maintaining an email program on your computer.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

POP3

POP3, or sometimes just POP, stands for Post Office Protocol. The number 3 refers to the third version of the protocol, which has been updated several times since the 1980s. When configuring an email client, you will need to investigate your email server's settings to find whether it is a POP3 or IMAP server and enter the address given into the correct field in your client's settings.

I recommend: Get a more detailed explanation of POP3 from TechTerms.com or a good background history from The TCP/IP Guide.

Internet Message Access Protocol, or IMAP

Internet Message Access Protocol, or IMAP, is the alternative to POP3. The main difference between POP3 and IMAP protocol is that while POP3 downloads messages to your computer, IMAP allows you to read messages on your mail client without downloading the message from the server. With IMAP, the message remains in your inbox on the server so that you can read the same messages on any computer.

I recommend: Learn more about the differences that distinguish IMAP from POP3 with the comparison offered by The Rockefeller University.

User Agent, or UA

User Agent, or UA, is broadly used to refer to the identity of your specific computer as it can be expressed in text to other computers and web servers over the Internet. Your UA also may be synonymous with your email client in the context of POP3 configuration with a mail server, since the way your computer communicates with the server is through the mail client.

I recommend: Learn more about UA and how it is used on the Internet at What's My User Agent?

Header

The header is a short piece of text at the beginning of an email message, often invisible to the user, that communicates between the mail client and the server when POP3 and SMTP are being used. The header time stamps and identifies the email and also allows mail clients to sort email into proper mailboxes.

I recommend: PC Magazine provides a definition of an email heading and information about how headers are used by mail clients and SMTP servers.

Node

Node refers to a unit of information contained in an email and sent through POP3 or other protocols. Within the context of POP3, a node is usually understood to be a symbol that stands for a larger body of text or data. Node can also mean a specific point in a network, like a computer, server or peripheral, so that both your computer and the email server might also be considered nodes in a larger sense.

I recommend: W3C and Bradley University both provide definitions for node within a larger glossary of network-related terms.

Authenticated POP, or APOP

Authenticated POP, or APOP, is an extension of the standard POP3 protocol that is typically used by mail clients and servers. By using APOP, your username and password are encrypted by the protocol and decrypted by the server, allowing your actual password to remain protected.

I recommend: Read more about APOP from Mails Broadcast and Gordano.