Traditional USB-A-style ports come in one of three main varieties: uncolored, dark blue, and teal.

This color-coding system serves the purpose of designating bandwidth speeds.

Unfortunately, color alone often isn't enough to determine the underlying USB specification you're working with.

For the most part, the existence of Universal Serial Bus (USB) has been a net positive for the consumer tech industry. The universal standard has replaced the need for dozens of proprietary and single-purpose plugs, which in turn has streamlined the world of computing, gaming, and mobile device charging.

Over the years, the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) has outlined and minted numerous USB specifications, both in terms of physical plug designs and in terms of underlying technological protocols.

Unfortunately, the USB-IF is notoriously bad when it comes to naming conventions -- the current lineup of USB protocols is a rather confusing mess from a user-facing point of view. USB-C was set to rectify many of these more confusing elements, but, instead, it's arguably muddied the waters even more so than before.

Historically speaking, the most popular and ubiquitous variety of USB is the USB-A plug. First introduced in 1996, the physical plug is symmetrically rectangular, but not reversable.