Let’s face it: E-mail is enormously valuable, but it can be an enormous hassle too. You need a tool that can read, write and wrangle hundreds of messages a day, that can find and help organise messages, and that can juggle e-mail from multiple accounts. And in an era when (according to UK research firm MessageLabs) half of all e-mail is spam, you need a tool that can filter out most of the junk.
We looked at four desktop e-mail applications to find out which ones were easiest to use, and which offered the best features and the strongest spam protection.
Desk or Web?
Each e-mail option has its advantages. Desktop e-mail applications have advantages over web-based ones such as Hotmail because they allow you to store messages on your hard drive, so there are virtually no limits on how many you can keep. But e-mail programs can be difficult to back up, so if your hard drive dies, your e-mail may expire along with it. We have two favourites. XP users should take a look at Outlook 2003, a package that’s a lot more than an e-mail application and works well in business settings. Mozilla Thunderbird is a much simpler desktop app for individuals who don’t use Windows XP or who simply want e-mail without all the extras.
As if testing the best e-mail clients isn’t enough, we also give you some tips on e-mail etiquette — essential if you don’t want to upset your suppliers and more importantly, your clients.
The Best desktop e-mail clients
Bloomba
Bloomba, which aspires to be the Google of e-mail, turns your in-box into a huge, highly searchable database. At this job, the EUR*50 program excels. But as an e-mail client, it’s too cumbersome to use.
Bloomba looks like a typical e-mail client, with folders and news feeds on the left and an optional preview pane below. But it works like a search engine: Just type a term into the search window, and Bloomba scans all messages, folders, and news feeds to find matches. To refine your search and to organise your data, you can categorise and colour-code messages (for example, blue for personal, red for business, and so on) and then search or group your mail by category. All good stuff.
Bloomba fights spam with SAproxy Pro, its own version of the highly regarded Spam Assassin. In our tests, Bloomba trapped 82 per cent of the hundreds of incoming spam messages, with almost no false positives at its default setting not bad, but not as good as Outlook 2003 at its high setting. Cranking Bloomba’s spam settings up to a higher level involves editing an SAproxy configuration file — not an undertaking for the faint of heart.
Small interface quirks were bothersome. Unlike Outlook, Bloomba has no easy-to-fill-in templates for creating mail-filtering rules. You have to back up your e-mail manually by hunting down the data file on your hard drive. Importing large address books was problematic.
Bloomba is powerful, but not as user-friendly as Mailblocks or Thunderbird. A new version, scheduled to be available later this year, may address some of the usability issues. The program has great potential, so we’ll keep an eye on it.
www.statalabs.com
Eudora 6
Today’s grande dame of e-mail software, Qualcomm’s Eudora is feature-rich, eccentric — and a bit past its prime. Version 6 is available in free (ad-supported), light, and the fully functional, EUR*40 adless version we tested, which provides spam filtering and some tech support. In our tests, the program stopped 82 per cent of spam at its default setting, with about 8 per cent false positives, but we still can’t recommend it: Eudora is simply too idiosyncratic and difficult to master.
Over the years Eudora has accumulated a mass of features — some as sophisticated as the ability to use Kerberos authentication for e-mail; others as whimsical as MoodWatch, which pops up a warning when you’re about to flame someone.
SpamWatch, one of the key new tools, assigns a spam score to each message and funnels the ones with the highest scores into a Junk folder. Other new tools in version 6 are a content concentrator, which snips out redundant bits from long e-mail threads, and contextual filing, which lets you organise messages by keyword.
Eudora performed some large tasks erratically on our test machine (though your mileage may vary). When we tried to import a large amount of mail from Outlook Express, for instance, Eudora struggled for 20 minutes and then crashed.
Loyal Eudora users may want to move to version 6 for the new features; but there’s little reason for others to switch.
www.eudora.ie
Microsoft Outlook 2003
Comparing Outlook 2003 with most e-mail clients is like racing a Humvee against a go-kart. Outlook 2003 is a first-class e-mail app, but it works only with 2000 or XP, and it’s packed with so many collaboration features and other tools that some users may find it overkill.
Outlook is full of nice touches. A spiffy new interface places your folders, calendar, contacts and task list into a navigation pane on the left, with your most frequently used folders in a separate pane at the top. As it downloads mail, Outlook sorts messages into groups — ‘today’, ‘yesterday’ or ‘last week’ — a handy visual aid for sifting tons of e-mail. You can display the preview pane vertically or horizontally, and you can choose to turn it on for some folders but not for others.
Creating rules is both simpler and more sophisticated than in previous versions of Outlook. You can choose from prefab rule templates or build rules with specific exceptions — for example, to delete all of the messages from a particular person except those that the sender has flagged for action. You can set expiration dates for each message, attach receipts for delivery and reading, and encrypt the text so that only the recipient can read it. And that’s just a fraction of Outlook’s many features.
Outlook 2003’s integrated spam filter stopped about half of the spam messages in our tests at its default setting (low). At its high setting, however, Outlook performed superbly, stopping 99 per cent of the junk, with no false positives.
No question, Outlook 2003 is a powerful e-mail app worthy of serious consideration for XP users at the corporate level. But if you don’t use XP or if you want a smaller, less complex e-mail client, Thunderbird may be the right choice for you.
Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4
Looking for a smooth e-mail cruise? Hitch a ride with T-bird. This free program (which is part of the Mozilla open-source project, the successor to Netscape) is as easy to use as Outlook Express, and it doesn’t require the security patches, but its spam filtering needs a little work.
Thunderbird’s organisation is simple and intuitive. In general, Thunderbird puts things where you expect them to be, one or two levels higher than Bloomba or Eudora does. Because Thunderbird does a lot less than Outlook 2003, it has fewer menus and icons, further simplifying it.
Managing accounts, for example, is extremely simple. T-bird displays all of your e-mail accounts in one easily expandable pane on the left. We could set T-bird to bcc another address on all outgoing mail with a couple of clicks; Bloomba buried that command four levels deep in menus. Tech support had to help us find it.
Like Outlook Express (and Outlook), Thunderbird lets you build filter rules by filling in a form, create folders on the fly, and run new rules on messages already in your in-box. It also successfully imported a large address book and a massive mail database from Outlook Express.
You must train T-bird’s built-in spam filter by downloading a batch of messages and labeling them ‘junk’ or ‘not junk’. In our tests, the unschooled Thunderbird stopped only 15 per cent of the spam we threw at it; but after training, its blocking rate improved to 66 per cent. We expect that it would continue to learn over time, but using a stand-alone spam filter (like McAfee SpamKiller 5.0) would help, too.
You’ll also have to make do without an install wizard; instead, you download the file, unzip it to a directory, and create your own start menu shortcuts to launch the executable. Tech support is limited to online FAQs and a user forum.
But aside from its out-of-the-box spam performance, these are minor quibbles. If you’re willing to pop the hood and tinker with this free application, you’ll find that Thunderbird delivers an excellent ride.
www.mozilla.com
Cool Tools for Enhanced E-mail
You don’t have to dump your favorite e-mail program to gain a raft of new features. These utilities and plug-ins can spiff up your in-box in a jiffy.
All the feed you can eat: Want to read the news headlines alongside your e-mail? An integrated RSS aggregator, such as the Newsgator (www.newsgator.com), shuttles news headlines directly to folders in Microsoft Outlook. You can subscribe to a wide range of news feeds although most of these are US-based. If you’re not an Outlook fan, try the www.genecast.com, which works inside Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, and Thunderbird.
Back that thang up: E-mail is too important to leave unbacked up. The Outlook Express Backup 6.5 and the Outlook Backup 6.0 from Genie-Soft (www.genie-soft.com) are a snap to use: Just click along with the wizard to back up your mail files, address book and browser favorites. You can save each of your identities separately, split huge backups across multiple discs, and schedule regular automated backups.
Get organised: Like a housekeeper for Outlook, the Nelson E-mail Organiser from Caelo Software (www.e-mailorganiser.com) grabs your mail and organises it by sender, status, date and more. Copies of messages appear in more than one place, so you don’t have to remember where NEO stashed them.
Prompt attention: Got more e-mail accounts than you can keep track of? The free EPrompter utility (www.eprompter.com) checks up to 16 accounts — including AOL, Hotmail, MSN, POP3 and Yahoo Mail — and displays all your new messages in a single user interface.
Jumping Through ‘Oops’
In addition to being a great communications tool, e-mail can be an even greater source of embarrassment. Following the right electronic etiquette can help you steer clear of major mistakes. Here are some tips.
Beware ‘Reply All’: No e-mail ‘oops’ has claimed more victims than hitting Reply All when you really meant to reply to one person. Before you belittle any of your colleagues or reveal any cross-dressing secrets, check the To: and CC: lines carefully.
Type not in anger: The temptation to flame someone on e-mail can be overpowering; Eudora 6 even has a MoodWatch feature that warns you if your language gets too incendiary. But it’s you who usually gets burned in the end. Before you deliver a serving of e-mail flambé, save the message to your drafts folder. Go for a walk around the block, take a Valium, or show it to someone whose judgment and confidentiality you trust — then decide if you really want to send it.
CC? No No: If you’re sending a message to a large group of unrelated people, don’t put all their names in the CC (carbon copy) field where everyone can read them. Most people don’t want to share their e-mail address with strangers. Use the BCC (blind carbon copy) field instead.
CC? Oui Oui: Got an important question that needs to be answered? Don’t put a million addresses in the TO field; if you do, nobody will feel responsible for responding. Address it to one person and CC anyone else who needs to be in the loop.
No hot gossip: Ensure your employees know that if they must get catty about their coworkers they should use a private e-mail account, not the company’s. Legally, if someone typed a message on a PC at work, the as the employer you may still have the right to read it. Therefore advice staff not to send personal e-mails from company accounts if they want to spare their blushes.
File be damned: It’s easy to e-mail those photos from your holiday at a nudist colony instead of your quarterly report. Sending the wrong file attachment can cause all kinds of heartache for you. Double-check that you’ve attached the right file before you hit the Send button.
13/04/04
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers