cPanel is a control panel for your website and allows you to set up and manage your web account through a graphical interface instead of having to use command line. This means that you can make changes to your website without having to learn to use a command line environment. There are a variety of control panels out there, most offering a graphical interface and granting access to email management, FTP, subdomain administration, website statistics, etc. With a control panel, you can add/remove email accounts or view disk usage and statistics for your site by clicking on a shortcut and entering the appropriate information.

cPanel is the leading control panel on the market today. The two other big players in the control panel arena are Plesk and Ensim.

Ensim offers a variety of features and four levels of administration: appliance owner, reseller, site owner and user account owner. Ensim is the second most used control panel and compares well with cPanel, but its interface can sometimes be difficult to navigate and can be confusing to the users.

Plesk is reputed to be very stable, which is a desirable feature if you have important information which requires extreme stability. Plesk also provides more support for automation and has a large variety of plug-ins to increase its available features. On the down side, like Ensim, Plesk's user interface is harder to use than that of cPanel. It also does not contain as many features as cPanel.

With its stylish design, user-friendly interface and rich features, cPanel remains one of the most popular control panels on the market. It's easy to navigate with the icon-based menu and it provides all the tools necessary to manage your website.

Below is a selection of the features available in cPanel:

Mail

? Add and remove email accounts

? Set up email forwarding, mailing lists and auto-responders

? Web mail allows you to read and compose emails anywhere in the world

FTP Manager

? Set up FTP accounts

? Set up anonymous FTP access

? FTP session control

File Manager

The File Manager basically replaces an FTP program and allows you to upload files to and download files from your website. It is a stand-alone file management program with a graphical interface.

Backup

You can backup and restore your website at a click.

Sub-domains

cPanel allows you to create and manage sub-domains. Sub-domains can be used for many different purposes, including hosting friends or clients.

Raw Log Manager

You can choose how raw logs are stored on your account.

Raw Access Log

You can download the raw access logs for any domain in your account. This information is useful for tracking user movements.

Error Log

The error log displays all the "404 File does not exist" errors so you can find out what files are missing from your website.

MySQL Databases

If you use MySQL databases for your website, you will have the ability to manage all your databases with this option.

Agora Shopping Cart

You can install Agora Shopping Cart on your website. This is a powerful shopping cart system which will allow you to start your own ecommerce website.

There are many more useful features available in cPanel. With such a rich variety of features, it's no wonder that cPanel is the most used control panel. So make sure that your hosting company offers cPanel before signing up. For more information about cPanel, visit www.frontierpowerhosting.com

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