The best email clients to manage your emails
October 12th, 2009 | Published on: Roundup
The best email clients to manage your emails
When it comes to choosing an email client, you need to take into account several different things, above all functionality, security and accessibility. Although the vast majority of users now tend to use webmail accounts, desktop email clients are still a practical alternative for when you need to manage several accounts at once, plus they also offer the possibility of creating emails that have professional multimedia layouts.
We’re going to focus our analysis on the five most popular clients: Eudora, Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, Pando and Incredimail.
Eudora
Eudora is one of the most popular e-mail clients both for Windows and Mac.
Eudora is one of the most traditional email clients for the Windows platform. It features support for multiple mail accounts, powerful filters, customized text layouts, drag and drop support, IMAP support, and options for automating processes. It also has a wide range of plug-ins available, which can seriously enhance the usefulness of the program.
The application’s interface is simple and accessible. The only negative for this email client could be the strong resemblance it bears to Outlook.
Outlook Express
Perhaps the most well-known email client in the world, Outlook Express is freely distributed along with the Internet Explorer web browser.
Among the features in version 6 are the administration of multiple accounts and identities, its HTML compatibility, the address book and the directory services. It also allows you to synchronize accounts without the need for a connection. Its interface is very accessible and it’s easy to find the latest version in practically any language on the official web site.
Without a doubt the biggest flaw is the program’s poor security. It is still highly vulnerable to worms and other types of threat that circulate in emails.
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is the new email client from Mozilla, and is perhaps Outlook’s most serious competitor.
It has an extremely simple and intuitive interface that presents an easy and practical application in which everything is designed to work with and complement Firefox, the Mozilla web browser.
Although it may not offer as many bells and whistles as some other clients, it has some interesting features, such as support for themes, powerful mail filters, and the ability to use plug-ins to add new functionality.
Mozilla Thunderbird also has some flaws which, although they don’t occur too frequently and normally have a solution, can cause headaches at times. Following a crash, for example, email accounts may disappear, along with some messages. Plus, over very slow connections, it may not be possible to download large attachments.
Pando
How many times have you wished you could send large files via email? Well, Pando lets you do just that. Using this client, you can send files of up to 1 GB in size.
Thanks to its attractive and simple interface, resembling that of a P2P file-sharing program and complete with a Wizard and permanent online support, you can send enormous files easily.
Pando also comes with its very own multimedia player.
However, since it is primarily designed for sending large files, Pando has hardly any of the extra features that you’d expect to find in a regular email client.
IncrediMail
Incredimail has turned managing email accounts into an artistic experience thanks to the graphical characteristics of its interface. And, best of all, it does so without sacrificing functionality.
When writing messages you can choose from a large number of effects, including animations, backgrounds, electronic greetings cards, sounds, special fonts, and even animated text. For these features the program comes with two extra applications: Incredimal Gallery and Letter Creator. This second program lets you turn a regular old email into a letter designed in the program’s own word processor.
Incredimail also includes all the features common to most email clients, such as multiple account handling and an address book. Plus, it has some very original new mail alerts.
The downside to this client is without a doubt its vulnerability to harmful software. According to some more advanced users, this app has some security holes within its multimedia features.
As you can see from this analysis, there aren’t any really huge differences between the most popular email clients, apart from perhaps in the particular case of Pando . As such it’s difficult to rate one over the others unless it’s in terms of each individual’s expectations.
For example, if you’re looking for a practical and secure email environment, you’d maybe be better off with Thunderbird. However, if you want to be able to create customized messages that include different types of text, graphics and multimedia content, Incredimail could well be the best choice for you.
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