Email Clients

Which email program?

What's wrong with Outlook Express? Poor security for starters. Microsoft has too tightly (needlessly?) integrated OE with Internet Explorer and Windows. Also, it's the most widely used email client. That makes OE a juicy target. Reminds me of the Gary Larson cartoon. There's a deer in the woods with a big bull's eye on one side. Caption: Bummer of a birthmark.

Outlook Express isn't a bad email client if you "lock it down" to avoid the many hazards of email. However, you might want to switch to a more secure client that makes backing these things up easier. Some of them keep your messages and all your settings in one easy-to-back-up file. The table below describes the main contenders. Find more information in an article on clients at ZDNet, and a description of clients from the "List of Lists".

Trying other email clients (programs)

It's easy try out alternative email clients without losing your email messages. Temporarily enable the option in the new client to "Leave email on the server...".

For example, in Thunderbird, after you've created your account(s) do the following: Click Tools > Account Settings > click Server Settings for each account (you may have more than one set up) > click "Leave messages on server".

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Client	Cost	Comments	Backup
Outlook Express	Free	Vulnerable to security problems.	You need a special program to make it feasible to back up OE. [another backup program] [and another]
Mozilla Thunderbird	Free	A clean, well-designed email client. It's easy enough for beginners to use, and powerful enough for almost anyone else. Thunderbird is very secure and it blocks spam. It's the one I use every day. If you have a Gmail account, you can use Thunderbird to download your messages and read them offline.	Your mailbox and settings are all saved in one "profile" folder, which makes it easy to back up your email, address book and account settings.
Courier	$29.95	Powerful and very secure. I used it for several years before switching to Thunderbird to access Gmail.	Messages, settings and addresses are all contained in one file that you can back up very simply.
Calypso	Free	The predecessor to Courier, and almost as good, though not as secure.	Messages, settings and addresses are all contained in one file that you can back up very simply.
Pegasus	Free	A venerated classic. Strong on security. Review messages on the server and delete the ones you don't want before you download the rest.	Messages and settings are all kept in the "Home mailbox location" folder, which is easy to back up.
Eudora	$49.95	Users rave about it. Especially good for heavy email users. Has an excellent spam filter.	Everything that you need to back up is located in one folder.
Opera	$39	The Opera suite includes the "M2" email client. M2 is a powerful, innovative program.	You need to back up several files and folders, but they are well defined.
PocoMail	$34.95	A secure and very up-to-date program. Many features make handling lots of email easy.	Your mailbox and address book are in standard formats, which makes them easy to back up.