email ... mmmm

Win 8 is only £25 as a download from M$ until the end of Jan.

It can be made to look like XP/7 using "classic start".

WLM will pickup your mail accounts as will thunderbird.

Either go for Outlook and use an IMAP server, keeping your e-mails on a remote server, use Outlook and a POP server, keeping your e-mails on your local machine. Or switch to Thunderbird. and use a POP server. You can then use any OS you wish, as even TB on Linux can access TB mailboxes generated by the Windows version. TB can also easily import e-mails from Outlook and Outlook Express.

Switch to Firefox as your browser, it's more used nowadays than IE anyway.and sites are now more likely to work correctly with FF than IE. Forefox is also cross platform, and my copy automatically updates itself every few days with no problems.

If you think 50K of e-mails is a problem, you'd panic looking at my 2.1 Gigabytes of stored e-mails....

I know lots of us in the same boat. I understand that there is still life left in xp yet though, I have tried live mail 2009 and Firefox for the web. this seems to work fine, but the problem with live mail is that they have dropped the identities so all emails sit in one tree and message rules then need very careful setting up as its easy to move emails to a completely different account unless you specify that it should only apply to one. Messy. Thunderbird I find counter intuitive as well. If you don't mind paying and a versio exists for newer versions of windows, the portable progrm pimmy is quite nice but dont' think it does news. As for the client in win 8 don't know enough about it.

Actually when you say IE 8 uis not supported, what you really mean is that googles sites are trying to get folk to use Chrome so they can track them eeven n more, by making ie 8 not work on ytheir pages. it siilly as its easy enough to support it in myview.

Brian

The other question which I cannot get answered is if classic shells actually support the accessability APIs properly for us blind folk. No use having old menus if all you get is menu item five etc as in some programs.

Brian

Could I put a word in for Seamonkey, as it basically integrates Firefox with Thunderbird and I've seen a portable version of it knocking around.

Brian

Firefox.

Thunderbird.

I have always wondered why anyone wants to mix-up mail/news and browsing? Really don't understand why Thunderbird wants to open web pages either - as far as I am concerned, two separate functions, two separate apps, please.

Perhaps you do have a specific reason, Brian. Does it make life easier for you?

NOOOO!

Is that all? I've got 3.2GB of oldemails..

either Thunderbird or build your own home server and put IMAP onto it.

My experience of Thunderbird is that it sends the URL to your default browser to open when you click on the link in an e-mail or news message.

There are also portable versions of Thunderbird and Firefox available.

I've tried Seamonkey. When it refused to import my Firefox preferences or read my Firefox profile, that was the end of that.

For some reason, some links open within Thunderbird, but some hop over to Firefox. Maybe, if I could be bothered, I'd work out why. Not a mega-problem, simply a bit odd IMHO.

FWIW I still use Thunderbird and the ISP's email. Wife has been using gmail for a considerable time with no obvious problems. Bought a chromebook to share a couple of weeks ago and now can hardly get my hands on it.

Domestically, the only thing I find really useful about having a local collection of emails is to search for stuff in my "online shopping" folder in case I want to place a repeat order. I'm sure TB is safe for years to come.

My "work" emails are away on secure servers, but at least I know where they are.

Price is rumoured to triple or quintuple after then end of Jan BTW!

ITYM Classic Shell:

There are pros and cons - and personal perspectives will have as much influence again.

Some folks rave about moving to cloud storage since it takes it "out of their hands", and others are fearful of it for exactly the same reason.

IE8 is old, but there are plenty of better and current browsers you can run so its not in itself an issue. XP however is becoming more of a problem - so for most semi serious users its probably going to need to go some time this year.

Thunderbird will suck that lot up and hold it in a more accessible form. Also if you create IMAP accounts for it to access as well, you can simply drag and drop old email onto IMAP servers if you want.

gmail is also quite good at integrating with other mail platforms. It can read external POP mail boxes for example, and also make its own mail store accessible via POP/IMAP

Where are your emails safest? Do you have a (working and tested) backup regime for your systems?

Do you need concurrent access to emails from multiple platforms (phone, desktop, laptop etc?)

How good is your broadband?

What volume of mail do you handle a day?

All these will influence your choice...

Its possibly partly historical. Users who came from Netscape and later the Mozilla integrated comms suites may be more comfortable that way. On the less powerful machines of the time, having one less significant program open and running all the time just for email made some sense. Also the ability to be reading an email and immediately pop open a full browser window was particularly quick and easy.

TB ought not open a web page unless you click on a web link in an email.

Yes - a link in an email is what I meant. But why sometimes within T/B, and sometimes not? As I say, if I cared that much I'd work out why.

ITYAC.

MBQ

So you recomended one thing

Typical Dennis.

MBQ

I use Thunderturd and IMAP, inbox on the server and move the files I want to keep to local folders.

Be aware that ThunderTurd will only import from Outlook if Outlook is running on the machine. It cannot import directly from .pst. So make sure you do it before losing Outlook.

I can beat that at work, but only until the new mandatory 3 year retention policy kicks in.

MBQ