Simple Pop Email client recommendation.

October 4, 2004 2:19 PM

Simple Pop Email client recommendation. [MI]

Pegusus Mail often has my father completely completely confused and trying to support this over the phone is driving me batty. An interface like gmail/hotmail in a pop/imap client would be ideal. It needs to handle attachments in a simple consistant manner. Inbound filtering a bonus but not required. This is on WinXP. Outlook (Express) not an option nor is Mac/Linux. I'd also like to stay away from a multiuse application like Netscape.

posted by Mitheral to computers & internet (14 comments total)

um... thunderbird? give it a whirl. my father-in-law has been using mozilla for a while, he's pretty computer inept but has no problems with this. thunderbird = mozilla (netscape) - the browser and other extras, just the mail.

handles pop3/imap, add-ons like hotmail popper or yahoo pops make it easy to use with webmail accounts (nothing for gmail yet that supports imap, but pop goes the gmail will make it work pop3...)
posted by caution live frogs at 2:38 PM on October 4, 2004

(making this clear: mozilla minus everything but the mail. sorry. used a - there instead of the actual "minus" symbol, −.)
posted by caution live frogs at 2:40 PM on October 4, 2004

Thunderbird appears a lot less whizzy than I thought it would be. I'll give it a test drive.
posted by Mitheral at 2:54 PM on October 4, 2004

Eudora is very friendly and stable as hell, and very simple in the "light" (free, no ads) configuration. It's what I use when I'm forced to use an email client on a Windows box. Thunderbird still feels like betaware to me.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:11 PM on October 4, 2004

Go with thunderbird. Not only do you get the rules, you also get a top-notch and trainable spam filter. The interface is modeled from outlook express so it should be easy to pick up. Its also a newsreader too. Supports SSL, certs, etc.

>Thunderbird still feels like betaware to me.

Does it? Its up to .8 now and more polished than ever. I dont think I've had a crash since .4 or so.
posted by skallas at 10:01 PM on October 4, 2004

From: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/identities.html

This sounds fantastic, surely there is a catch? Yes, there is a catch. We have not developed UI in Thunderbird to configure multiple identities yet. You must be comfortable modifying user prefs.js in order to take advantage of this feature.

Er, no, thanks. I'll stick with Eudora.

(The only thing lacking in Eudora is the ability to archive old posts.)
posted by madman at 10:26 PM on October 4, 2004

Another vote for Eudora.

Or...

You could try Pine. Yeah, it's all non-graphical and nasty and etc, however, if basket weaving students at a university can use it, so can your dad. At least all you have to tell him over the phone are letters to push. Trying to describe mouse movents is deadly if the person on the other end doesn't know, for example, what a "title bar" is.

If you're gung-ho on the webmail type interface, if you have a server you could try using fetchmail + squirrel.
posted by shepd at 11:34 PM on October 4, 2004

The only thing lacking in Eudora is the ability to archive old posts.

Last time I used eudora it was still using a (slightly) modified mbox format.

You should be able to back that up along with the attachments directory if you want to archive it.

Or did I misread you?
posted by shepd at 11:35 PM on October 4, 2004

What about the bat. I've heard that it's nice and simple.
posted by seanyboy at 3:12 AM on October 5, 2004

This previous conversation might be worth a read, Mitheral. Slightly different question, but a lot of crossover.
posted by nthdegx at 3:16 AM on October 5, 2004

I'll second the vote for The Bat. Great client.
posted by Succa at 7:56 AM on October 5, 2004

madman: make sure when you're looking up info you look up current info. your link and comment refer to thunderbird 0.5, not the newer 0.8 version. you wouldn't like me checking out eudora 4 and accidentally maligning eudora 5 or 6 now, would you?

thunderbird handles (using the UI, not by editing) multiple users, either separately or by handling multiple email accounts within one user's settings, each with it's own filtering rules, reply-to, signature file, etc. my wife and i use one copy (to avoid having to tell it which profile to use on startup) and it checks both of my accounts and one of hers, no problems. if we reply to a message from her inbox, it uses her sig and reply-to, from my inbox it uses my settings. it works very well, no issues.

anyway, eudora in my opinion really blows. it's an awkward program, with too many windows, and poor management of the user interface. advanced controls aren't intuitive and the lack of features in the free version cripple it. the popup ads in the sponsored version would annoy the hell out of me. the handling of attachments (saved in a specific folder automatically) is ok unless you accidentally delete the folder or its contents. from my experience there are better free alternatives out there.

i know three people who muddle along with eudora because it's what they've always used, but none of them are happy with it, and all are annoyed at either the lack of features or the damn ads. i've already convinced one of the three to switch to thunderbird (one other is waiting to switch when she gets her new computer).

and i've heard good things about the bat, but some spambots masquerade as the bat, so your emails might get auto-trashed by some recipients with poor blacklisting. not the bat's fault, but it can happen.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:03 PM on October 5, 2004

Eudora is _way_ too powerful/complex.

Thunderbird is looking good. Only hang up so far is that an email with multiple attachments looks different than emails with single attachments. He doesn't need multiple identites yet. On preview appears to not be a problem.

I'll give the Bat a try as well though Thunderbirds freeness appeals.

My father actaully grasped key windows concepts OK (and I've been doing professional phone support for a long time) but he'll have trouble remembering keyboard shortcuts so I'll pass on Pine. It's Pmail's stateful tool bars that are throwing him for a loop I think (same problem with personalised Start/Office menus).
posted by Mitheral at 2:51 PM on October 5, 2004

do you need a client? what about Gmail? it's working well for me. and i have extra invites, so if you want one, email me (from profile).

(this is not a ploy to get rid of invites. just trying to be helpful...)
posted by Sean Meade at 3:22 PM on October 6, 2004