What is pops, imaps or smtps?

Pops, imaps and smtps are the secure versions of the pop (Post Office Protocol), imap (Internet Message Access Protocol) and smtp (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) respectively. In each case the secure version of the service uses a different port from the unsecured service and rather than exchanging the client's userid and password with the mail server in clear text all communication is encrypted using SSL/TLS. TLS (Transport Layer Security) is functionally equivalent to and represents a newer version of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer).