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Simple Mail Transport Protocol - SMTP

SMTP In A Nutshell

You need SMTP Relaying services if you wish to send email from email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, or Mozilla Messenger. If you only want to send email from WebMail, then you do not need SMTP Relaying services.

If you imagine that the sending of an email message is analogous to the sending of a letter, then computers are "post offices", and the "Simple Mail Transport Protocol" (SMTP) is the "procedure" by which a post office receives a letter or sends it off to another post office closer to the ultimate recipient.

SMTP is used by any program that sends an email message to deliver that message to the nearest "post office" for relaying to its destination.

For most people, there are really only two significant ways to send email - via a web-based interface or via an "email client" such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora. In the former case, the use of SMTP is taken care of by the web server running the web-based email package, and as a result you don't have to worry or think about SMTP at all.

In the latter case, where you are using a program on your personal computer (or cell phone, or PDA) to send email, you have to specify a "post office" for these programs to connect to such that they can send messages. This "post office" is known as your "SMTP server".

To learn more about how SMTP works and the security issues involved in sending and receiving email, read Understanding Email Services: What are they and what do you need? and The Case for Secure Email.

LuxSci's SMTP Services

LuxSci provides all of its email and web hosting clients with an SMTP server that they can use with their email programs so that they can send email from anywhere in the world (provided they have an Internet connection). No matter if you are at work, at home, or traveling, you can always use our servers to reliably and consistently send email any time that you are connected to the Internet!

Authenticated: For your protection and to prevent SPAM, we do not provide "open relays". This just means that you must configure your email program to send your username and password when sending your email messages. This is easy to do and we have step-by-step instructions that are available to you for configuring most email programs. We also have a strict anti-spam policy.

Security: If you are security-conscious, LuxSci also offers "Secure SMTP", or SMTP over a secure SSL connection. This ensures that your username, password, and message contents are encrypted when you connect to our email servers. No one will be eavesdropping on your outgoing email connections! Account administrators can optionally force all of their users to use only secure connections for SMTP.

Additionally, all of LuxSci's email servers support "STARTTLS" and will automatically talk to other email servers securely if at all possible. I.e. if we are sending to another server that supports STARTTLS or another server with that support is talking to us, you email message will be automatically encrypted in transit between these servers.

Alternate Ports: If your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or organization doesn't like you to use SMTP servers from other companies, LuxSci offers alternate ports that you can use to connect to our SMTP servers and thus get around your ISP's overly restrictive policies. LuxSci even provides SMTP services over port 80 to allow you to send email through even the strictest of firewalls.

Anonymous: If you are concerned about the recipients of your email messages knowing information such as the Internet address of the computer(s) from which you are sending your email messages, you may be interested in LuxSci's Anonymous SMTP sending service. Read more about Anonymous SMTP.

LuxSci's SMTP Services are complete, easy to use, and part of every email and web hosting package for which you order "SMTP Relaying". Please contact us if you have any questions!

What About Bulk Emailing?

Because of our strict anti-Spam policies and our desire to remain off of black lists for the good of all of our clients, we do not usually support the sending of email or newsletters to large distribution lists.

However, we have partnered with the company IntelliContact Pro. This company provides an excellent solution for managing and sending email newsletters and managing mailing lists and email marketing campaigns. We are not in the business of mass emailing and email marketing, and they are not in the email hosting business; we are happy to partner with a company that has as strong an anti-Spam ethic as we do. Follow the link below to find out more information and to get a 15-day free trial account.

Ordering

To order SMTP services at LuxSci, use our Custom Package Wizard to design your email services package. Make sure to select "SMTP" services in Step 3.

Listen to Our Clients:

"Well, I've been with LuxSci Email hosting for a few months, and true to say I've found them faultless so far. Was a bit nervous to begin with going with a Foreign provider. What sets them apart for me is their attention to detail. Always keen to ensure the Customer is kept informed at all times. Unlike the experience with my old provider. Really a first class effort, fantastic features and great value too!"

Dave Nunn, United Kingdom

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