Webmail (or web-based email) is any email client implemented as a web application accessed via a web browser. Examples of webmail software are Roundcube or SquirrelMail, examples of webmail providers include AOL Mail, Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo! Mail. Practically every webmail provider offers email access using a webmail client, and many of them also offer email access by a desktop email client using standard email protocols, while many internet service providers provide a webmail client as part of the email service included in their internet service package.
As with any web application, webmail's main advantage over the use of a desktop email client is the ability to send and receive email anywhere from a web browser. Its main disadvantage is the need to be connected to the internet while using it. There exist also other software tools to integrate parts of the webmail functionality into the OS (e.g. creating messages directly from third party applications via MAPI).
History
Early implementations
In the early days of the web, in 1994 and 1995, several people were working on enabling email to be accessed via a web browser. In Europe, there were three implementations, Soren Vejrum's "WWW Mail", Luca Manunza's "WebMail", and Remy Wetzels' "WebMail", whereas in the United States, Matt Mankins wrote "Webex". Three of these early applications were perl scripts that included the full source code available for download. Remy Wetzels' version was a CGI program written in C on Unix.
Also in 1994, Bill Fitler, while at Lotus cc:Mail in Mountain View, California, began working on an implementation of web-based email as a CGI program written in C on Windows NT, and demonstrated it publicly at Lotusphere on January 24, 1995.
Soren Vejrum's "WWW Mail" was written when he was studying and working at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, and was released on February 28, 1995. Luca Manunza's "WebMail" was written while he was working at CRS4 in Sardinia, with the first source release on March 30, 1995. Remy Wetzels' "WebMail" was written while he was studying at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands for the DSE and was released early January, 1995. In the United States, Matt Mankins, under the supervision of Dr. Burt Rosenberg at the University of Miami, released his "Webex" application source code in a post to comp.mail.misc on August 8, 1995, although it had been in use as the primary email application at the School of Architecture where Mankins worked for some months prior.
Meanwhile, Bill Fitler's webmail implementation was further developed as a commercial product which Lotus announced and released in the fall of 1995 as cc:Mail for the World Wide Web 1.0, thereby providing an alternative means of accessing a cc:Mail message store (the usual means being a cc:Mail desktop application that operated either via dialup or within the confines of a local area network).
Early commercialization of webmail was also achieved when "Webex"—with no relation to the web conferencing company—began to be sold by Mankins' company, DotShop, Inc., at the end of 1995. Within DotShop, "Webex" changed its name to "EMUmail", which would be sold to companies like UPS and Rackspace until its sale to Accurev in 2001. EMUmail was one of the first applications to feature a free version that included embedded advertising as well as a licensed version that did not. As Hotmail developed a foothold on the free email address market, EMUmail started MollyMail, a service to let one check their existing email from the web. After the Accurev acquisition, the EMUmail webmail line was killed in favor of the SMTP.com email delivery service which is still sold today.
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