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What is an email address and email in general

Modern means of communication are very diverse. But perhaps the most proven, popular and oldest method of communication is e-mail, which has almost supplanted the traditional one. Writing paper letters is no longer the norm, but rather a deviation from it. It's much easier to write an email to your friend's or colleague's email address. In addition, many companies, including Russian ones, give e-mails the same official significance as paper documents. This article will tell you in detail what an email address is.

During its existence, e-mail has received many names. Among which: e-mail, Internet mail, e-mail, soap (in computer jargon).

So what is an email address?

Email is a modern technology. It allows you to send a text message or a specific file over the Internet to a given email address.

The operation of e-mail is similar to the normal functioning system. Many Internet mail methods and terms have been borrowed from traditional "offline" mail. An example is such concepts as delivery, box, attachment, and many others.

Roughly speaking, e-mail has certain similarities with regular mail, only instead of a paper letter, an e-mail typed using the keyboard is obtained. It also indicates not the place of residence, but the e-mail address (example: [email protected]).

What is a mail server

A mail server can be called a powerful large computer that stores a huge amount of information. And an email address or just a mailbox is a small area of the memory space of said computer that is specially allocated for storing and processing emails of a specific user.

All this means that electronic messages are not stored on your personal computer, but on a special central one connected to the Internet (mail server).

The procedure for sending an email can be described as follows: a person writes a letter, indicates a specific registered email address of the recipient, and sends it. The letter first arrives at the mail server and then enters the user's mailbox. When the recipient goes to his mailbox, he will find a new message and read it.

Some email services allow you to add your email address to your permanent contact list for ease of communication.

The history of the emergence and development of e-mail

So, we have considered some theoretical aspects on the topic of email. For a better understanding of what an email address is, let's look at the history of its creation.

For the first time e-mail appeared in 1965, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) created a program called Mail.

It had its drawbacks, but at the time of its creation it was simply revolutionary. The emergence of the DNS system influenced the development of the electronic communication system. Now the email address has become attached to the domain. At the end of the twentieth century, the following companies made a breakthrough in electronic communications: Hotmail, Yahoo, Mail.ru. And already in 2004, Google launched one of the more popular mail servers - Gmail.

What does an email address look like

The email address is the following sequence:

LoginUser(your name)@MailServiceName(example: yandex) + Domain (ru, com or other).

Login (name) you can choose when registering on the mail server. As for the name of the mail server itself (depending on which e-mail address you choose), it matches the name of the site that provides mail services.

The user login and the name of the mail server are absolutely in all cases separated by the @ sign, which has the funny name "dog". This is what an email address looks like. An example of such an address: [email protected] or [email protected]

Some Benefits of Email

Communication by e-mail has a number of advantages:

Mail is delivered instantly, without any delay. This allows for online conversations.
It is possible to send the same email to multiple users at the same time.
You can attach a file of any content to an e-mail: a document, music, a short film, a photo or a picture.
Ease of use of mail. Anyone can learn to work with this service.
Confidentiality. Mail servers guarantee that your letter will not be read by someone to whom it is not addressed.
Reliable mail delivery. The recipient will definitely receive your letter.

Disadvantages of an email service

The disadvantages, of course, are much less compared to the positive aspects of communication by e-mail, but still they are:

It is not possible to delete a mailbox by going through the registration process. It is saved permanently.
The mailbox is exposed to such a phenomenon as spam. This is the deliberate distribution of emails with advertising content, sometimes they are even infected with viruses or malware.

So, we have learned what an email address is and how it functions. Today, anyone, even a novice Internet user, can register his personal e-mail for free on one of the many mail servers. Using the service is easy and convenient for both work and personal purposes.