INTERNET SERVICE

INTERNET SERVICE

In order to connect to the Internet, you need to use an Internet service. Internet service provides a way for data to be transferred from Internet servers to your computer. An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Most ISPs require you to subscribe in order to use their services, but there are ways to connect to the Internet for free. Some of the most common ways to connect to the Internet are dial-up, DSL, cable and wireless services.

WWW

The World Wide Web (WWW) is combination of all resources and users on the Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).A broader definition comes from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):"The World Wide Web is the universe of network-accessible information, an embodiment of human knowledge."The Web, as it's commonly known, is often confused with the internet. Although the two are intricately connected, they are different things. The internet is, as its name implies, a network -- a vast, global network that incorporates a multitude of lesser networks. As such, the internet consists of supporting infrastructure and other technologies. In contrast, the Web is a communications model that, through HTTP, enables the exchange of information over the internet.Tim Berners-Lee is the inventor of the Web and the director of the W3C, the organization that oversees its development. Berners-Lee developed hypertext, the method of instant cross-referencing that supports communications on the Web, making it easy to link content on one web page to content located elsewhere. The introduction of hypertext revolutionized the way people used the internet.In 1989, Berners-Lee began work on the first World Wide Web server at CERN. He called the server "httpd” and dubbed the first client "WWW.” Originally, WWW was just a WYSIWYG hypertext browser/editor that ran in the NeXTStep environment. The World Wide Web has been widely available since 1991.

E-mail

Electronic Mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages between people using electronic devices. Email first entered limited use in the 1960s and by the mid-1970s had taken the form now recognized as email. Email operates across computer networks, which today is primarily the Internet. Some early email systems required the author and the recipient to both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need to connect only briefly, typically to a mail server or a webmail interface, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.Originally an ASCII text-only communications medium, Internet email was extended by Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) to carry text in other character sets and multimedia content attachments. International email, with internationalized email addresses using UTF-8, has been standardized, but as of 2017 it has not been widely adopted.The history of modern Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET, with standards for encoding email messages published as early as 1973 (RFC 561). An email message sent in the early 1970s looks very similar to a basic email sent today. Email had an important role in creating the Internet, and the conversion from ARPANET to the Internet in the early 1980s produced the core of the current services.

Web-based email

Main article: Webmail

Many email providers have a web-based email client (e.g. AOL Mail, Gmail, Outlook.com, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail). This allows users to log into the email account by using any compatible web browser to send and receive their email. Mail is typically not downloaded to the client, so can't be read without a current Internet connection.

POP3 email services

The Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) is a mail access protocol used by a client application to read messages from the mail server. Received messages are often deleted from the server. POP supports simple download-and-delete requirements for access to remote mailboxes (termed maildrop in the POP RFC's).[57]

IMAP email servers

The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) provides features to manage a mailbox from multiple devices. Small portable devices like smartphones are increasingly used to check email while travelling, and to make brief replies, larger devices with better keyboard access being used to reply at greater length. IMAP shows the headers of messages, the sender and the subject and the device needs to request to download specific messages. Usually mail is left in folders in the mail server.

MAPI email servers

Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is used by Microsoft Outlook to communicate to Microsoft Exchange Server - and to a range of other email server products such as Axigen Mail Server, Kerio Connect, Scalix, Zimbra, HP OpenMail, IBM Lotus Notes, Zarafa, and Bynari where vendors have added MAPI support to allow their products to be accessed directly via Outlook.

Uses

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Business and organizational use

Email has been widely accepted by business, governments and non-governmental organizations in the developed world, and it is one of the key parts of an 'e-revolution' in workplace communication (with the other key plank being widespread adoption of highspeed Internet). A sponsored 2010 study on workplace communication found 83% of U.S. knowledge workers felt email was critical to their success and productivity at work.

It has some key benefits to business and other organizations, including:

Facilitating logistics

Much of the business world relies on communications between people who are not physically in the same building, area, or even country; setting up and attending an in-person meeting, telephone call, or conference call can be inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly. Email provides a method of exchanging information between two or more people with no set-up costs and that is generally far less expensive than a physical meeting or phone call.

Helping with synchronisation

With real time communication by meetings or phone calls, participants must work on the same schedule, and each participant must spend the same amount of time in the meeting or call. Email allows asynchrony: each participant may control their schedule independently.

Reducing cost

Sending an email is much less expensive than sending postal mail, or long distance telephone calls, telex or telegrams.

Increasing speed

Much faster than most of the alternatives.

Creating a "written" record

Unlike a telephone or in-person conversation, email by its nature creates a detailed written record of the communication, the identity of the sender(s) and recipient(s) and the date and time the message was sent. In the event of a contract or legal dispute, saved emails can be used to prove that an individual was advised of certain issues, as each email has the date and time recorded on it.

Email marketing

Email marketing via "opt-in" is often successfully used to send special sales offerings and new product information. Depending on the recipient's culture,[60] email sent without permission—such as an "opt-in"—is likely to be viewed as unwelcome "email spam".

Personal use

Personal computer

Many users access their personal email from friends and family members using a personal computer in their house or apartment.

Mobile

Email has become used on smartphones and on all types of computers. Mobile "apps" for email increase accessibility to the medium for users who are out of their home. While in the earliest years of email, users could only access email on desktop computers, in the 2010s, it is possible for users to check their email when they are away from home, whether they are across town or across the world. Alerts can also be sent to the smartphone or other device to notify them immediately of new messages. This has given email the ability to be used for more frequent communication between users and allowed them to check their email and write messages throughout the day. As of 2011, there were approximately 1.4 billion email users worldwide and 50 billion non-spam emails that were sent daily.

Individuals often check email on smartphones for both personal and work-related messages. It was found that US adults check their email more than they browse the web or check their Facebook accounts, making email the most popular activity for users to do on their smartphones. 78% of the respondents in the study revealed that they check their email on their phone. It was also found that 30% of consumers use only their smartphone to check their email, and 91% were likely to check their email at least once per day on their smartphone. However, the percentage of consumers using email on smartphone ranges and differs dramatically across different countries. For example, in comparison to 75% of those consumers in the US who used it, only 17% in India did.