Printable Version
<<Back

Computer applications communicate over networks using 'ports'. Every application that communicates over a network uses a specific port to communicate. This allows a computer to determine what program is supposed to get the data it is receiving. For example, when you go to a web site, your computer communicates with the web server on port 80. So, if you type www.google.com in your web browser, your computer sends that request to port 80 on the google.com server. Port 25 is used for outgoing e-mail. If you send an e-mail from your USFamily.Net address, your computer sends the e-mail to the USFamily.Net e-mail server on port 25 and the USFamily.Net server then sends the e-mail to your intended recipient.