To the best of my knowledge, SMTP is a main protocol used to send mail.... Thats all I know :eek:
At the risk of sounding even MORE stupid..ahem.. do hosting companies provide SMTP servers for you to use when you sign up with them?
Such as on Aletia's site, it says SMTP and SendMail is supported.
What does that mean?

Thanks for bearing with me through this godawful post!
Any help is appreciated :)


Radi

Most hosts do indeed provide SMTP support so that you can send mail through your own domain. The better question would be: does your ISP support foreign domain relay? Some ISPs (Earthlink, MSN, and so on) filter port 25 traffic, and you cannot send email through any outbound mail server except their own.

But then...many hosts don't support SMTP:(

This just basically means that you can use your hosting company's SMTP server. Some hosts do not offer this service and you then have to use your local ISP's SMTP server.

SMTP is the protocol that is used to SEND mails...
POP3 is used to RECEIVE mails...

sendmail is like the post office...it can accept connections so other SMTP server can connect to it and deliver email to your server...it can also be used to SEND mail...

Ahhhhh
I get it now :)
Thanks all!
You people are wonderful.

:D