This page describes how the mailFISH client makes it possible for you to access mail messages from behind any firewall or proxy. Please read it carefully as it provides important information on the security of the provided service.

In order to understand how the mailFISH service works, it is first of all necessary to understand classical mail transmissions. The below figure depicts how POP3/SMTP communication usually works.

In this simple setup, you have your E-Mail client on the left-hand side and your POP3/SMTP server on the right. This works perfectly well until you try to execute your E-Mail client within a restricted network. If POP3/SMTP ports are blocked your E-Mail client will no longer be able to send or receive messages. This is depicted in the below figure.

What the mailFISH client does is to provide a proxy which receives POP3/SMTP communication from your E-Mail client and forwards it to your mail server or a tunnelling server, respectively. If you try to access your E-Mails in an unrestricted network, where you have direct access to your POP3/SMTP server, all communication goes directly to your servers as is depicted in the subsequent figure.

If, however, no direct connection is available (as you are behind a firewall or proxy), your mail communication is translated into HTTPS requests which are made to the tunnelling server at www.serFISH.com. There the respective requests are translated back into POP3/SMTP messages and forwarded to your actual mail server. This scenario is depicted in the figure below.

When using the mailFISH you have to be aware of the fact that your mail communication is tunnelled via www.serFISH.com whenever no direct connection to your POP3/SMTP servers is possible. There all the transferred data is available in unencrypted form. As is stated in our terms and conditions, we don't log any sensitive data such as passwords, message contents, the sender/recipients of your messages etc. Only statistical information such as the number of tunnelled messages is being tracked. Still, it is necessary for you to trust www.serFISH.com in handling your data with particular care.