Webmail is a class of web applications that allow users to read and write e-mail using a web browser, or in a more general sense, an e-mail account accessed through such an application. In software engineering, a web application is an application delivered to users from a web server over a network such as the World Wide Web or an intranet. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Icons for Web browser shortcuts on an Apple computer (Safari, Internet Explorer, and Firefox). ...

Webmail is commonly offered as a service by Internet companies, sometimes in exchange for providing personal information for marketing purposes. It may also be offered by one's Internet service provider for remote access to a regular e-mail account. Many companies also provide web-based access to their internal e-mail systems, for use by employees when at home or travelling. It has been suggested that Product marketing be merged into this article or section. ... An Internet service provider (ISP, also called Internet access provider) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...

Some mail servers, such as Microsoft Exchange , Kerio MailServer or Atmail, contain built-in webmail interfaces. A mail transfer agent or MTA (also called a mail server, or a mail exchange server in the context of the Domain Name System) is a computer program or software agent that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another. ... Microsoft Exchange Server is a collaborative software server from Microsoft, positioned as a rival to the Lotus Notes / Domino server from IBM and recently challenged by a number of Linux-based competitors such as Scalix. ... Kerio MailServer is secure mail server developed by Kerio Technologies. ... @Mail is a commercial open source WebMail, Mail-Server and Groupware solution designed by Calacode, location in Sydney, Australia. ...

History

Historically, the first webmail service was Hotmail, created in 1995 by Sabeer Bhatia of India and Jack Smith. Hotmail became very popular, and was later bought by Microsoft and re-branded MSN Hotmail. Hotmail is a free webmail e-mail service, which is accessible via a web browser. ... 1995 (MCMXCV in Roman) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sabeer Bhatia is a co-founder of Hotmail. ... Jack Smith, along with Sabeer Bhatia, founded the web-based free e-mail service Hotmail, in 1995. ... Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKEx: 4338) is the worlds largest software corporation, with 2005 global annual sales of close to $40 billion USD and about 64,000 employees in 85 countries and regions. ... MSN (or The Microsoft Network) a collection of internet services provided by Microsoft. ...

Since then, webmail offerings are widespread, with offers ranging from Chinese portal Sina to European portals such as Voila.fr or GMX.de.

In early 2004, Google announced the arrival of Gmail, a free search-based webmail solution including new features such as a 1 GB storage limit (now expanded to nearly 2.7 GB, and currently growing at a rate of 13 to 14 kilobytes per hour), conversation threading and labels to replace the need for folders. It also features small contextual text-based advertisements based upon the content of messages (though for a short while this did provoke some privacy concerns). This has strongly stimulated competition in this sphere, forcing most webmails, and in particular Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, to update their webmail interface and increase their storage from a few megabytes to several hundred megabytes or more. 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Google Inc. ... Gmail is a free webmail and POP e-mail service, currently in beta testing, from Google, Inc. ... A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one billion bytes. ... A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one billion bytes. ... Depending on the context in which it is used, the word kilobyte may mean either 1,000 or 1,024 bytes. ... Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to stop information about themselves from becoming known to people other than those they choose to give the information to. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A megabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to approximately one million bytes. ...

There is webmail software available that allows one to create ones own webmail server, notably open source software such as Horde IMP or SquirrelMail. Many universities take advantage of this software to provide students and faculty with university webmail. Also, more and more Internet Service Providers offer webmail for their customers. The market for webmail has two primary competitors: Hotmail has a 33% market share and Yahoo Mail has a 30% share. Gmail, despite causing quite a stir of publicity, only has 4%, mainly due to its invite only policy. The remaining market share is held by much smaller providers. Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... Horde IMP is a web-based mail user agent integrating with the Horde framework. ... SquirrelMail is a browser-based email client (also known as a Webmail program) started by Nathan and Luke Ehresman and written in the PHP scripting language. ... An Internet service provider (ISP, also called Internet access provider) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ... Market share, in strategic management and marketing, is the percentage or proportion of the total available market or market segment that is being serviced by a company. ...

Features

Most webmail services have the following features:

• folders
• filtering (incoming e-mail to dispatch to related folder)
• trash folder
• address book

Several webmail services offer the following features: A mail filter is a piece of software which takes an input of an e-mail message. ... An address book or a name and address book (NAB) is a book or a collection of data storing contact details (for example: address, telephone number, e-mail address, fax number, mobile phone number). ...

• E-mail spam detection
• POP3 mail retrieval
• anti-virus checking of mail attachments
• dictionary and thesaurus when composing messages
• spell checker

A typical spam advertisement Email spam is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to thousands (or millions) of recipients. ... In computing, local e-mail clients use the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), an application-layer Internet standard protocol, to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. ... Anti-virus software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, thwart and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software (malware). ...

Advantages of webmail services

• e-mail is stored remotely on a web server, which means that it is accessible anywhere there is an internet connection and a web browser.

Disadvantages of webmail services

• The user must stay online to read and write more than one e-mail. They cannot easily edit mails they are working on offline (except by cutting and pasting the text).
• Commercial webmail services often offer only limited e-mail storage space and either display advertisements during use or append them to mails sent. Unlike with a local client, the user cannot keep the messages on their local hard drive.
• Most e-mails are usually short, plain text messages of less than 2 kB, but using webmail the original e-mail is wrapped in the website's HTML, which can be 40 kB or more. Obviously this brings a significant decrease in speed of use, especially on a slow network connection.

A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix kilo-, meaning 1000) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 1024 or 1000 bytes. ...

Other features of webmail

• Webmail accounts can be set up with minimum technical competence and provide independence from one's current ISP as well as a degree of anonymity.
• The ability to access it anywhere means it is harder to trace the individual who uses an account than if they used a connection associated with their home address.

These features mean it can in theory be more easily used as a communication tool for nefarious purposes (or for avoiding oppressive authorities) than conventional e-mail. In practice, most governments security agencies are fairly easily able to track individuals who try to use such methods, just as with someone who calls from phone booths. Ordinary citizens will find it more difficult, however. For the 2002 movie, see Phone Booth (movie). ...

Gigabyte storage

Due to the heavy media coverage of Gmail's initial announcement of 1 gigabyte of storage, many existing web mail services quickly increased their storage capacity, as did many ISPs. This was seen as a move to stop existing users from switching to Gmail, and to capitalize on the newly rekindled public interest in web mail services. Below is a brief outline of the course of events following Gmail's initial release. A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one billion bytes. ...

• On March 31, 2004, Gmail was initially released with 1 gigabyte of storage space per user. On April 1st, 2005 (Gmail's first birthday), Gmail increased each user's storage quota to more than 2 gigabytes. This new figure and the original offering of 1000 megabytes are hundreds of times more than what other webmail services offered at the time of Gmail's original announcement in 2004.
• On April 5, 2004, Spymac became the first open-to-the-public free e-mail service to offer a gigabyte of storage.
• On May 29, 2004, the European edition of Lycos raised its paid storage allowance to 1 GB.
• On June 15, 2004, popular web mail competitor Yahoo! Mail increased its free storage space to 100 MB and its paid storage space to 2 GB. (Free storage space for Yahoo! Mail was later increased to 250 MB on December 2, 2004).
• On June 18, 2004, Rediff.com headquartered in Mumbai, India, increased the storage capacity of its free public Rediffmail service to one gigabyte.
• On June 24, 2004, Microsoft's Hotmail increased storage space to 250 MB and 2 GB respectively for its free and paid e-mail services for users in North America.
• Throughout June, the Israeli search site Walla upgraded their service to 1 GB of space.
• On July 29, 2004, Yahoo! Mail increased space to 1 GB for its users in China in hopes of getting a foothold in the country's booming internet market.
• On March 21, 2005, Streamload announced the launch of xStreamMail. The first e-mail enhancement system specifically designed for sending and sharing collections of full-quality videos and photos, xStreamMail users are given 10 GB of free e-mail storage and file attachment limits to paying subscribers of 50 terabytes per e-mail.
• On March 23, 2005, Yahoo! Mail announced that it will soon (in late April) begin giving all users of its free Web e-mail service 1 gigabyte of storage.
• On April 1, 2005, its first anniversary, Gmail increased its storage size to 2 GB, and its storage has increased constantly since then at a rate that works out to 1 GB per year, a rate that Google pledges it will keep up as long as its servers have room.
• On May 11, 2005, AOL announced AIM Mail, a free Web e-mail service with 2 gigabyte of storage.
• On June 6, 2005, AOL announced unlimited e-mail storage for its paying subscribers.
• On October 8, 2005, Runbox announced 10 GB e-mail storage for its subscribers with a 1 GB Files storage.
• 30gigs announced 30 GB e-mail storage for its subscribers.
• On November 1, 2005, Microsoft released a beta version of Windows Live Mail, the successor to Hotmail, featuring 2 GB of free storage for all accounts.

March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (91st in Leap years), with 275 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Gmail is a free webmail and POP e-mail service, currently in beta testing, from Google, Inc. ... April 1 is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 274 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Spymac is a web magazine with a community comprised largely of Apple Macintosh users. ... May 29 is the 149th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (150th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Lycos is an Internet search engine and web directory. ... June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... December 2 is the 336th day (337th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... June 18 is the 169th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (170th in leap years), with 196 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Rediff. ... June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Hotmail is a free webmail e-mail service, which is accessible via a web browser. ... July 29 is the 210th day (211th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 155 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Streamload [1] is an online media management service that enables individuals to enjoy their personal digital videos, digital music, digital photos, and files from anywhere and share them with any person or device. ... March 23 is the 82nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (83rd in Leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... April 1 is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 274 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Gmail is a free webmail and POP e-mail service, currently in beta testing, from Google, Inc. ... May 11 is the 131st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (132nd in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... America Online, or AOL for short, is a U.S.-based online service provider and Internet service provider that is owned by Time Warner. ... June 6 is the 157th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (158th in leap years), with 208 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... America Online, or AOL for short, is a U.S.-based online service provider and Internet service provider that is owned by Time Warner. ... October 8 is the 281st day of the year (282nd in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Runbox AS is a private Norwegian company developing the email service Runbox Mail Manager (RMM). ... 30Gigs. ... November 1 is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 60 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKEx: 4338) is the worlds largest software corporation, with 2005 global annual sales of close to $40 billion USD and about 64,000 employees in 85 countries and regions. ... Windows Live Mail is a web-based e-mail service by Microsoft. ... Hotmail is a free webmail e-mail service, which is accessible via a web browser. ...

See also

• Comparison of webmail providers
• E-mail hosting service

The following tables and gallery compare general and technical information for a number of webmail providers. ... An e-mail hosting service is an Internet hosting service that runs e-mail servers. ...

References