Shell account

Shell accounts were first made accessible in the 1980s to interested members of the public by Internet Service Providers—such as Netcom, Panix, The World, Digex—although in rare instances individuals had access to shell accounts through their employer or university.

They were used for file storage, web space, email accounts, newsgroup access and software development.

Products such as The Internet Adapter were devised that could work as a proxy server, allowing users to run a web browser for the price of a shell account.

[4] While direct internet connections made shell accounts largely obsolete for most users, they remained popular with some technically inclined subscribers.

These shell accounts generally provide users with access to various software and services including compilers, IRC clients, background processes, FTP, text editors (such as nano) and email clients (such as pine).