I'm using an email client for the first time - for the most part I've always used gmail via the web interface. Now I'm setting up thunderbird to connect to an email server of my own (on my own server, own domain name, etc).

The server machine (and the email server on it) was preconfigured for me. Now i figured out away by which I'm able to send and receive email, but I noticed that in the outgoing and incoming servers section, the connection type was STARTTLS (and not SSL/TLS), and the Authentication Type was "Normal Password".

Does this mean that the password will be sent across in plain text? I'm very paranoid about security - its the only way that it works for me.

Can someone please post links that explain how SMTP (my outbound server) and IMAP (my inbound server) servers work, and what connection type means what?

Thanks!

PS: If this question does not belong here, please redirect me.