Webmail and Email Applications

Email is one of the most widely used forms of communication, so having a professional email address @ your domain is crucial. If you're still using sillyname + randomnumbers@yahoo.com, you may be giving the impression that your company is inexperienced or—even worse—raising doubts as to whether you’re a legitimate company. 

Once you've created your professional email address, how're you supposed to check your email? You're going to need an email client for that. And what is an email client? Email clients come in two varieties: webmail and email applications.

Webmail

Webmail, or web-based email, is portable and accessible anywhere that has an internet connection because the application that sends and reads your mail is accessed on a website from your browser. Examples of webmail we offer are Roundcube, Horde, and SquirrelMail and can all be accessed at realifehost.com/webmail.

A few advantages of using webmail to access your email are:

·         Simplicity. No setup required.

·         Portable and accessible anywhere.

·         Great if you can’t install software on your work or school computer.

·         Save space on your computer; email is stored online.

Webmail Client Comparison

We offer three options for webmail that are built into your account. Each individual email user can choose which webmail client they want to use: Roundcube, Horde, or SquirrelMail.

·         Roundcube. As our most popular webmail client, it has the look and feel you’d expect from an email application, but is available inside a browser. You can import and use an address book and use IMAP folders with drag-and-drop organization. When composing emails, you can set up preset responses to save time, and write with spell check in a rich text html composer.

·         Horde. It's more than just a webmail client—it’s a collection of simple online apps for collaboration including webmail, calendar, notes, and tasks. These extra features do have some limits, however. For example, the collaborative features only work inside Horde; so to share a calendar entry or a note, the person you're sharing it with would also need to use Horde.

·         SquirrelMail. Perfect simplicity. While it lacks many of the features offered by Roundcube and Horde, SquirrelMail offers a simple, user-friendly interface with more customization possibilities than our other the webmail options.

Email Applications

An email application is software installed on your computer or mobile device that is used to read and send email. Your email is stored on your computer, including deleted and sent mail, giving you the ability to manage your email offline. Not everyone needs offline access to their email, but if you do, being able to work from a train or on a long flight without Wi-Fi is definitely an advantage to using an email application. Some common email applications are Outlook, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail.

A few advantages of using an email application are:

·         Accessible offline.

·         Immediate notifications to your device.

·         Manage multiple email addresses in one interface.

·         Easily back up your mail and store it on your computer.

·         Use advanced mail rules and filtering based on multiple factors, such as words, senders, subjects, headers, etc.

IMAP and POP

When an email is sent, the message is stored on an email server where it waits to be retrieved. Your email application can be set up to retrieve email from the email server using one of two different protocols: IMAP or POP3. The protocol you'll use mostly depends on the number of devices you'll use to access your email.

·         IMAP. This is the setting you'll use if you want to access your email on multiple devices or if multiple users access the same account. When you read, reply, delete, forward, or otherwise manage your email, the changes are made on the server and sync with your webmail and other IMAP-connected email clients. IMAP is limited to 20 connections per IP address, but that shouldn't be an issue for most users.



·         POP3. If you intend to access your email on only one device, this is the setting for you. Most email clients set up with POP3 will delete the message on the server once it’s been downloaded to your email application. This means that your email application will have the only copy of the email, and it cannot be retrieved again using webmail or another email application. Do not use POP3 if you want to access your email from multiple devices

Spam

SPAM is a brand of canned mystery meat made by Hormel Foods Corporation. It was first introduced in...oh wait, different kind of spam—but still related to email spam because they share similar characteristics, like nobody wants it or ever asks for it. Email spam is electronic junk mail or more generally, any unsolicited commercial email.

Spam can't be eliminated entirely, but it's certainly possible to reduce its flow to a trickle. Unfortunately, stopping unsolicited emails from piling up in your inbox is not a one-click solution—it's a balance between prevention techniques and email filters.

Prevention

To prevent your email address from being targeted by spammers and hackers, it's important to keep it private. Only give your email address to people you know, and avoid posting it on public websites, chat rooms, forums, etc. Use a contact form on your website as a safer alternative to posting your email address. And, if at all possible, enable domain privacy on all of your domains so your email address is hidden from spammers.

 

Spam Filters

The next step towards eliminating spam is to set up a spam filter. It’s best to set up your filter as soon as you log in to your new hosting account. That way you can significantly decrease the chances of ever getting spam in the first place. If you have already experienced a spam attack, don’t worry, you can set up a spam filter at any time and it will start working as soon as it is installed. For spam filters, we recommend the following:

·         SpamAssassin. It's a free spam filter that detects certain phrases and formats that are common in spam and then assign a spam score. SpamAssassin requires some setup to work correctly, and you may have to adjust your email or setup an additional email filter to understand the changes that SpamAssassin is making. Settings sometimes may need to be updated to block new spam attacks.  

·         SpamExperts. This is more of a set it up and leave it solution. This is a more advanced filtering program that will eliminate 99.98% of all unsolicited bulk email. SpamExperts works at the domain level, but you can also set up rules for individual email addresses.  

While both spam filters are effective, we recommend only using one. If your spam filtering needs are greater, SpamExperts is best if your need more advanced filtering, but if you are simply looking to protect against basic spam, SpamAssassin is the better choice.

 

Login Management 

Accessing your account is as easy as entering your domain name and password on the login screen, or clicking one of our Single Sign-On options. As a web hosting provider, we're charged with safeguarding a lot of valuable and sensitive information, such as websites files, contact information, and financial data; a responsibility we take very seriously. We've implemented sophisticated backend security measures to the login process to prevent targeted attacks and added options like limited-access user passwords and two-factor authentication, resulting in a login experience that's easy to use and doesn't compromise security.

Passwords are the first level of protection against hacking, but research has shown that up to a shocking 90 percent of user-created passwords are vulnerable to hacking—90 percent! If that isn't cause for concern, we don't know what is. We rely on a slew of security protocols to make certain that your login is secure, but these measures can only go so far. Nowadays, it's becoming increasingly important for you to be proactive when it comes to keeping your login information secure. Not only do you need to create a strong password to withstand hacking attempts, but you also need to keep it safe so it doesn't find its way into the wrong hands.

Create a Strong Password

We know it's a pain in the neck to come up with a new password for each site and application you frequent, not to mention how frustrating it can be to remember what they all are, but having a strong password can mean all the difference in securing your account.

Much of the traditional advice about creating a strong password is pretty much the same: the longer the better; use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols to make it complex; avoid using any personal information; and don't use a word found in the dictionary. Still, it all holds true to scrutiny, even now that security concerns are greater than ever. Historically, password complexity seemed to be favored over length; but criminals figured out that shorter passwords are easier to hack, even if a few letters are substituted by similar numbers or characters. The trick is to create a long and complex password that can withstand a variety of hacking attempts.

Strong Password Do's

·         Make It Memorable. Long, complex passwords are the most secure but they're often hard to remember. Try this to make it memorable: Think of an easy-to-remember phrase or piece of information, and then replace letters with similar characters or symbols. You could even take that phrase and make it an acronym before substituting symbols. For example, "I went to JFK High in 1975" can become "!WtJFKh1gh@I_75" or something similar.

·         Use Different Passwords Everywhere. You wouldn't use the same key for your house, car, mailbox, etc; so why would you use the same password for your online accounts? If a hacker obtains your password, the first thing they'll do is check whether that password works for other websites. It only takes one compromised login to put all of your other accounts (that reuse the password) at risk.

·         Use a Password Manager. A password manager—like LastPass, Dashlane, KeePass, 1Password, etc.—is an app that saves your login credentials for different sites, then automatically logs you in the next time you visit. Some will even generate unique, complicated passwords for you. They're available in any web browser, and many apps will even sync across your devices.

Strong Password Don'ts

·         Don't Use Dictionary Words. Hackers can employ a list of every word in the dictionary (or multiple dictionaries) to use against a password database. Luckily, strong passwords aren't usually vulnerable to this kind of attack.

·         Don't Use Common Passwords. As with dictionary words, common passwords and generic sequences like password, admin, 123456, qwerty, etc. are also discouraged because they're easily hacked. Read this Gizmodo article for the 25 most popular passwords of 2015.

·         Don't Reference Personal Information. It's easy to remember names, phone numbers, birthdays, etc., but that kind of information is easy for a hacker to find using social media and other methods.

·         Don't Write It Down. If someone finds your password, they could do any number of things with your account, such as logging in and changing or stealing information, and even resetting your password. This is especially a problem with banking and email passwords.

·         Don't Share It. Sharing your password with a friend or family member often seems harmless, but it could be easily mishandled and fall in to the wrong hands.

·         Don't Log In From Public Computers. In a public place, it's easy for someone to look over your shoulder to view your password as you enter it. And it's even easier to accidentally save your login information for a particular website, allowing the next visitor access to your account.

Password Management

Account passwords and login options are managed in Account > Passwords where you can do the following:

·         Change the main account password, also known as the administrator password.

·         Enable or disable two-factor authentication for your login.

·         Create an identification PIN, which is used for verification purposes only; not to log in.

·         Create or change the billing password for an authorized user.

·         Create or change the hosting password for an authorized user.

You have complete, unrestricted access to manage your hosting account when you log in with the main account password. If you're the only one who logs in then this may be the only password you'll ever need for your hosting account. But if you want to delegate your website and billing management responsibilities without giving out your main login password, you also have the option to create limited-access user passwords.

As the account administrator, you'll create and manage the passwords on the user's behalf. This is a great security measure because it allows you to revoke access at any time just by changing the user's password.

 

 

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