The finger protocol typically provides details such as the user's login name, their full name, the terminal they are using, their idle time, when they last logged in, and their email address if available.

You use finger to find out information about other users on your network, seeing if they are logged in or if they have received mail. host displays address information about a system on your network, giving you a system's IP and domain name addresses.

The finger command displays a M- before each converted character. When you specify users with the User parameter, you can specify either the user's first name, last name, or account name. When you specify users, the finger command, at the specified host, returns information about those users only in long format.

Finger is a client-server application that allows a user to interact with a finger server or “daemon.” It was originally developed in 1971 to provide a means for users to query remote systems for a list of logged-in users.