As there is no universal client program which can access all of these protocols, servers and resources, you will have to use several programs independently.

The most common source of information on the Internet comes from the World Wide Web. The choice of browser has become more important in recent times, as web sites provide ever more sophisticated services.

The guide has chosen Mozilla Firefox as the most suitable browser, since it is a highly successful open source project, runs on all of the popular operating systems, and because the internal architecture of this program allows other developers to produce useful additions (called extensions, or add-ons) to the main program.

The guide explains installing Mozilla Firefox in this article, and provides its own pragmatic tutorial in the Using Mozilla Firefox article.

Electronic mail is one of the most popular protocols on the Internet. In most cases it has taken the place of traditional paper mail, telex machines and even fax machines. Unfortunately, this popularity has also led to wide scale abuse, and a new definition of the word spam.

The guide has chosen Mozilla Thunderbird as the most suitable e-mail client, since it uses the same core software as Mozilla Firefox with the same advantages, and also has many interesting add-ons available. Particular care has been taken in the latest version to reduce the problems of junk e-mail and other fraudulent tricks.

The guide explains installing Mozilla Thunderbird in this article, and provides its own pragmatic tutorial in the Using Mozilla Thunderbird article.

Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP provides a cheap alternative to the conventional telephone. Using a VoIP client you can call others who are connected to the Internet, or even make calls to traditional fixed and mobile telephones. Probably the most famous of these is Skype, but this is not the guide's first choice.

The guide prefers an open source, multiplatform, standards compliant client called WengoPhone. The reasoning behind this choice is simple; while Skype is extremely popular, there is no possibility of studying, changing, or improving the code, either directly, or through the program developers, nor can you change the provider (Skype is the only provider, because the protocol is proprietary.)

The guide explains installing WengoPhone in this article, and provides its own pragmatic tutorial, Using WengoPhone.