Most Internet services can be accessed
by email. Just about the only technologies you can't access
by email are those that are inherently
interactive by nature, such as IRC and MUD's, where you need
to participate in real time.
The most common form of Internet access by email is getting
web pages for people that don't have direct web access, perhaps
because they are not directly connected to the Internet or
they have a very low bandwidth connection. The following sites
provide references and services that get web pages by email.
A couple of sites that worked last time we checked are listed
below with examples. You retrieve web pages by sending an email
request to the site, where the page "http://www.yahoo.com/" is
used as an example and you can substitute the page you actually
wish to retrieve.
- Send an email to agora@dna.affrc.go.jp with a message of www to
get instructions. Get a web page by sending an email to agora@dna.affrc.go.jp,
with a two line message of:
The following sites provide statistics on use of their web
email servers:
Boyd's resources. Gerald
E. Boyd maintains a range of resources for accessing
the Internet by email, including a list of email
servers (last updated 2003) that enable email access
to a range of Internet services, including the Web and Usenet,
as well as some older technologies like Gopher, Archie, and
Veronica.
Boyd is also the author of the Accessing
The Internet By Email FAQ, providing detailed information
about how to access a range of Internet resources by email,
also found on the web at rtfm.mit.edu.
The FAQ also includes a tutorial on accessing Usenet by email,
including posting and reading newsgroup messages by email.
You can also obtain a copy of the FAQ by email by sending
an email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with anything in the
subject, and the following all on one line in the message
body:
send
usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email
Mr. Boyd is also the moderator of the
Accessing
The Internet By Email mailing list, which you can join by
sending an email to listserv@listserv.aol.com with anything in
the subject, and the following message body:
subscribe
accmail
