Hi, I've bougth some space on a server and I can have pop3 accounts but they don't give smtp...

if I get it right, pop3 is for sending emails, and smtp is to receice emails... I guess you must usually have smtp with your internet provider, but if you don't, is there any free smtp server out there?

any info would be welcome!

thanks a lot!

POP3 is for receiving email, SMTP is to send it. Your ISP does not provide you with SMTP service? Is it a Free ISP or something?

yes it is, any option?

Find a host that allows SMTP? :) Sorry I don't have more info than that. Usually ISPs give SMTP access so it's usually not an issue. There are hosts out there with SMTP services though.

ICUServices.com (http;//www.icuservices.com/) offers SMTP and POP with their hosting...

Thanks guys, I know some hosts offer SMTP but I wondered if you could put a smtp server which would work for anybody.... maybe I'm a little naive but we find so much free stuff on the net and a lot of free email services...

Hello there from Montreal (me too!)

What you seem to want is to offer mail from your domain, right? If it's the case, then why not signup for a service like everyone.net or bigmailbox.com ? With a single MX record change from your host, you will be able to offer free anybody@yourdomain.com email to your visitors :)

The reason that hosts are leary of allowing SMTP is SPAM. If you use a host's server to send out SPAM, it is actually a big problem not only for you but for your host.

Alot of hosts are starting to block port 25 (SMTP) now. First MSN did it in my area now my local ISP is. They only let you send mail through their smtp server. I can not use my own anymore. A lot of it is because of SPAM( mentioned earlier).

I used to work for a ISP. The one I worked for and almost all others block their SMTP server. Only customers that log in with one of their IP's can use it. For example if you were dialed into Earthlink and tried to use MSN's it wouldn't work.

You can always use something like a Yahoo.com account. They allow you to bypass their web interface and use their (the yahoo servers) for SMTP and POP. Of course, you would still use your regular POP on your account to check emails, just put in the sender and reply to for your domain, and just use Yaho as the SMTP server to send it. I don't know if it needs to check the account name/address though to send, because if it does, it might require you to send with username@yahoo.com, which would take the point out of it. So, it might be worth checking out, even though web based email is a really bad idea.

there are programs that turn your own computer into an smtp server.
http://www.argosoft.com/applications/mailserver/ for pc
http://www.echonyc.com/~andrewj/serversframe.html for mac

Check out these sites. They might be able to serve as "webmail" for your pop email accounts. I just found them last week, after seeing their links here on this forum, and have no experience with them (other than a couple tests).


http://mail2web.com/

http://www.pop3now.com/

there's also bn3.com, which used to give away 20 free email accounts per member. they allowed you to pick a subdomain name (you@subdomain.bn3.com). They stopped giving the subdomain accounts away for free a while ago, but they will still provide 20 free email accounts (with pop3&smtp service) for people who own their own domain names.

good luck :)

Thanks a lot everyone!

Ryu your option seems the best, from what I've read at bn3.com they give you both POP and SMTP and it's supposed to be ad-free! It will even save me space because they offer 3MB for each mailboxes...

so thanks again! :)

D'oh! :o

they have to host your website so you can take advantage of their offer... it looked to good to be true I guess...

they have to host your website so you can take advantage of their offer

that's odd, i don't remember that as being a requirement before. i just went to their site to take a look and i still couldn't find this stated as a condition anywhere.

did you mean *own your own domain name* or did you mean *hosting your website*?

from your original question, i got the impression that you own a domain name, have some server space for a website, and just want pop3/smtp services. that is what bn3 provides. as i understand it, you are supposed to own your own domain name. they give you 20 free pop3 accounts using the domain name that you own.

or did you contact them and they only told you about the hosting your site condition privately? because i really can't find that requirement anywhere on their site...

there's a misunderstanding here somewhere, i think... *scratching head* :)

Well, you have to use their nameservers and from there you can direct your domain elsewhere via their DNS. I don't belive you have to have it hosted there, from what I remember, though this could have changed since I used them (not sure what DNS services are offered *now*)...

Originally posted by allera
Find a host that allows SMTP? :) Sorry I don't have more info than that. Usually ISPs give SMTP access so it's usually not an issue. There are hosts out there with SMTP services though.

There is a growing trend that ISPs are getting into hosting and alot of them wont let you use SMTP unless you host with them.