The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Email client used at home?

Other than Web email and Outlook Express / Mozilla, what email client do you use at home?

I decide not to use OE due to security reason (may not be a very valid reason, but that's how I feel)

Too bad ThunderBird is still too immature.

I would use The Bat! if I don't have to pay licenses for every people in my family. And it still does not store user data in user home directory (I am amazed so many software are like this)

Have anyone use the client come with Opera? Is it good?

Rick Tang
Monday, October 13, 2003

mutt

Monday, October 13, 2003

Popcorn is a terrific Text only Pop email reader.
http://www.ultrafunk.com/products/popcorn/
It clocks in at about 200Kb aswell.

Don Vince
Monday, October 13, 2003

I've used The Bat for the past five years, but I'm now scared to upgrade given the problems associated with the latest version.

Time to look for an alternative :(

HeWhoMustBeConfused
Monday, October 13, 2003

Poco Mail and The Bat! are both excellent e-mail clients.

Jinks
Monday, October 13, 2003

Eudora 5.1.1 - Light Mode

I'd still be using Eudora 3.xx Light if it handled SMTP Authentication...

RocketJeff
Monday, October 13, 2003

pegasus mail is pretty good, and probably does everything you'll need, though the UI is clunky in places.

http://www.pmail.com/

Tom
Monday, October 13, 2003

Have you tried Thunderbird? Though the version number is low, the performance and capabilities are quite good. I've been using it on Windows and Mac OS X without any problems. They know they're being very conservative with the numbering, mainly to keep people's expectations in check, but if you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend it.

pete
Monday, October 13, 2003

I use Gnus (available for free at http://www.gnus.org).

From the About page:

"The main Gnus goal is to provide the user with an efficient and extensible interface towards dealing with large numbers of messages, no matter the form they may have or wherever they may come from."

Another excellent choice is mutt (also available for free, at http://www.mutt.org).

Both work fine on Win32 or Unix-like operating systems.

Nils
Monday, October 13, 2003

Off topic...

Is Outlook Express really insecure if you keep your system patched with auto-update? I have used it for years and have never run into problems (to my knowledge). I hate running virus scanners since they bring the system to a halt, so I am careful about what I open and not. I have always been under the impression that users running scripts labeled "picture.jpg.exe" is where OE gets a bad rap. Am I wrong?

m
Monday, October 13, 2003

Kail.

And yes, Outlook is always insecure, even if you keep your systyem up to date.

The problem: virus scanners detect only known, analyzed viruses. You will still be vulnerable to anything new that comes along, at least for the first day or two.

Some virus scanners use heuristic methods and will detect these, but why take the risk? Don't use MS to read mail. Ever.

David Jones
Monday, October 13, 2003

Outlook != Outlook Express.

I've used OE for about seven years without problems. I use a firewall and up to date anti-virus software and don't do anything silly with unknown attachments.

It's probably inertia that has prevented me from changing to something else. I have a lot of folders and rules set up in OE and can't face the pain of moving them all.

John Topley (www.johntopley.com)
Monday, October 13, 2003

m, Outlook Express is fine if you're not dumb enough to click executable attachments and if you have javascript disabled.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Outlook 2002. If your company has a volume licence agreement for work there is a chance you are entiteled to use it at home also.

Just me (Sir to you)
Monday, October 13, 2003

Eudora 6. The spam filter in this works much better than what I used before.

Bruce Perry
Monday, October 13, 2003

OE has been discountinued by M$. I like it as an IMAP client, but not for POP due to fragility of its message storage.

tekumse
Monday, October 13, 2003

Eudora 6 (paid version), and I really like the new spam filter as well.

Chris Nahr
Monday, October 13, 2003

Outlook 2000. Not a single problem with viruses yet. The thing that gets me is spam. I tired the bayesian extension for Outlook from Source Forgethat somebody recommended but it seemed to hang the machine. Pity as the idea looked great. I've got the other free spam filter that was recommended, and I'll try and set it up over the weekend.

Stephen Jones
Monday, October 13, 2003

Pine over SSH, baby!

Actually, I got a Mac recently and the OS X mail client isn't bad....

Michael Kale
Monday, October 13, 2003

http://www.fastmail.fm

rz
Monday, October 13, 2003

Ask the guys at Valve what they think of Outlook's security.

Lee
Monday, October 13, 2003

What's valve?

Stephen Jones
Monday, October 13, 2003

pine over ssh! Accessible from almost everywhere, fairly usable over dialup.

Scott Evans, www.antisleep.com
Monday, October 13, 2003

>> "What's valve?"

A software games company. Makers of half-life.

A device used to control the flow of liquid substances.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Stephen: Valve are the guys who make Half-Life 2, whose source was recently published on the web by a hacker that, apparently, used a buffer overflow vulnerability in Outlook to gain entry into their network.

Keeping up with the latest version is essential, but it is almost never good enough - more often than not, exploits circulate for months in the BlackHat community before the vendor solves the problem.

At the moment, there are 31 known security problems with IE, which microsoft is in no hurry to solve. If I'm not mistaken, some of them allow a malicious attacker to gain control of the user's machine. The most well-known list was taken down yesterday for reasons unclear to me, but you can still find them in the google cache.

Try Mozilla Mail or Thunderbird. They do everything OE does, and much more; they still lack some features compared to Outlook, like a usable calendar. But they do offer things like spam filtering that works built-in. Also, Mozilla and Firebird are much better than IE as browsers, even if you disregard security - the offer tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and various other features you'll quickly get addicted to and wonder how you've lived without. [That goes double if you develop web apps - the development support in Mozilla is unmatched].

Ori Berger
Monday, October 13, 2003

I already use Netscape as my windows borwser, and Mozilla as my Linux one.

I have usd OE or Outlook as mail clinets since 1995. Never been hit by a single virus that the virus client hasn't caught.

At work I got hit by Lovsan, although the virus checker caughti it. It doesn't replicate by email.

Stephen Jones
Monday, October 13, 2003

I've used Eudora for Windows for quite some time and really liked it. Now I decided to read my mail on Linux instead, so I'm using kmail. It's nice, but I still have to get used to it.

I also have two ssh accounts where I log into them and use pine there. This gives me the ability to read my mail from everywhere.

Regards,

Shlomi Fish

Shlomi Fish
Monday, October 13, 2003

I use the e-mail client implemented in Opera (the browser).

Ross
Monday, October 13, 2003

Thunderbird is getting better every day.

fool for python
Monday, October 13, 2003

I use Calypso Email.

http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/calypso/

--
Monday, October 13, 2003

mutt

Tom Vu
Monday, October 13, 2003

Mozilla here. Love the spam feature. Wish there was e-mail bouncing though.

radius
Tuesday, October 14, 2003

I use SMTP, just kidding.

Li-fan Chen
Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Another one using Outlook for years and never been caught by a virus. Do keep an up-to-date anti-virus running and practice safe-computing.

DJ
Tuesday, October 14, 2003