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General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: G7PSK on September 20, 2015, 08:33:33 pm

Title: Non Browser email client
Post by: G7PSK on September 20, 2015, 08:33:33 pm
Hi I need a non browser email client program to use on a laptop with a sim card, trouble is most of where I am I am lucky to get a GPRS signal let alone anything more exotic like G3 or 4.
I used to use thunderbird but now it is so insecure that it is no longer safe to use, so I am wondering if there is any other programs that you can recommend.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: Augustus on September 20, 2015, 08:41:50 pm
Windows Live Mail (free, part of Windows Essentials)?  :-//
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: Balaur on September 20, 2015, 08:57:37 pm
I used to use thunderbird but now it is so insecure that it is no longer safe to use, so I am wondering if there is any other programs that you can recommend.

While not totally happy with Thunderbird, I still didn't found a suitable replacement. The last email client that I have some positive experience was Pegasus mail.
I'm a heavy email user (250K+ mails on the work server) and thanks to IMAP and the year-based archive feature in Thunderbird, things are manageable for now.

BTW, what is insecure about Thunderbird? If this is about Google's TB classification as insecure, it's just a way for Google to push people towards their non-standard secure login protocol

And no, I would not accept suggestions for mutt, pine or flight-by-night email clients.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: Halcyon on September 21, 2015, 12:13:01 am
You could try Eudora OSE but it's no longer being developed. You'll have to Google for download links.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: G7PSK on September 21, 2015, 07:32:05 am
The main problem is "Privilege escalation through web notification" a flaw that allows a hacker to gain more privileges than yourself. There are others like Arbitrary file overwriting, miscellaneous memory safety hazards,just a few of many which have been found in the last few moths fixed just to reappear again almost immediately. It would seem that Mozilla have stopped development and are just trying to patch holes rather unsuccessfully.
I have come across Mailbird in my searches but cannot find out if it is safe as no one seems to use it.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: linux-works on September 22, 2015, 01:37:25 am
thunderbird, here.  works great.  you can even find 'portable' versions that don't need to be installed, can run from a standalone usb stick and save all the data on that stick.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: Dago on September 22, 2015, 07:18:39 am
I tried looking in to a new Thunderbird replacement but didn't really find anything that seemed good, which was slightly surprising... Main reason I hate Thunderbird is that the search sucks so bad that I can't even understand how is it possible to make a search so bad. It is literally faster to order emails by date and scroll through them than using the search which changes your keywords and gives a random pile of unrelated crap.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: steve30 on September 22, 2015, 07:34:04 am
I use (and like) Claws Mail here. Don't know what its like security wise though. I used to use Evolution which I also remember being quite good.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: TerraHertz on September 22, 2015, 08:07:56 am
Yeah, it amazes me there doesn't seem to be a simple email-only utility these days. Why the hell does everyone try to integrate email with web browsers? Maybe because they think email should have all the html/css/js bells and whistles?
Which come with all the scripting security holes too. Screw that. It's essential that an email client have nothing to do with web browsers, if only to ensure stability over long time frames.

I still use the very very old Eudora Lite 3.0.   It doesn't even understand html. Plain text only - which suits me fine.
It's also very noticeable that despite all the fancy html frills of most browser email clients, the ability to conduct an interleaved embedded quoting email conversation is becoming a lost art. But maybe the Twitter-brain 'anything longer than 72 characters exceeds most people's attention span' effect is to blame there.

If anyone can suggest a good email-only utility, that runs in portable-app mode (no Windows install required), allows multiple folders and mailboxes and auto-assigment to mailboxes, DOES NOT auto-execute anything especially contents of received header fields and attachments, allows running in plain text or html modes, and can import email archives from Eudora and Chameleon (my previous email util long ago) then I'd like to hear about it.

PS. Not Thunderbird. Don't like it.

Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: IanJ on September 22, 2015, 10:53:49 am
Thunderbird for many, many years here.......and before that Eudora which you can still pick up here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20140823014314/http://www.eudora.com/archive.html (http://web.archive.org/web/20140823014314/http://www.eudora.com/archive.html)

Ian.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: BradC on September 22, 2015, 11:02:17 am
I've used Thunderbird for years. Before that it was Eudora.

I currently use Thunderbird, and easily manage a couple of accounts with a couple of hundred thousand messages in them across 60 or so folders. I guess its a matter of learning how to make the tools work for you.

I loved Eudora and even when I switched to Linux back in the late 90's I used Eudora in a Win95 VM. I ended up switching to Thunderbird enough years ago that I don't recall, but I tried a few clients between those two.

For an integrated PIM solution I use Zimbra Desktop, but that's because my prime office account is on a Zimbra server. It does support the usual protocols and systems but I would not recommend it for a non-zimbra user.

I do have html display turned off in thunderbird. Not for security reasons, but just because I'm an old curmudgeon.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: linux-works on September 22, 2015, 07:36:27 pm
there's always ELM and MUTT.

(no, I'm not kidding.  was an ELM user for nearly 20 years.)

bonus: people can send you virus and javascript exploits and web bugs and trackers all they want and that ascii email client won't even care.  nothing gets 'run' or executed by such clients.  which is how god intended email to be (lol!)



Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: rob77 on September 22, 2015, 07:51:57 pm
Evolution on my linux boxes and MS outlook on windows ones.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: nctnico on September 22, 2015, 11:30:34 pm
Eudora started to crash on some e-mails so I'm using Thunderbird and I must say it works well. No problems with the search when I set the right search parameters. I wanted to try Evolution as well but unfortunately the libraries the latest version requires are not part of the Linux distribution I'm using so its a no-go.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: John Coloccia on September 22, 2015, 11:55:39 pm
I use PostBox. I haven't tried the new version, but I like the last version. It's not free, but it's only a couple of bucks.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: linux-works on September 23, 2015, 12:28:14 am
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable)

give it a try.  no install needed, no admin needed.  works on regular old windows.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: bitseeker on September 23, 2015, 12:41:38 am
Long-time Thunderbird user. Before that, Pegasus.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: PlainName on September 23, 2015, 11:24:49 pm
TheBat! is a decent email client for Windows which does pretty much everything you'd have to install a fistful of addons into Thunderbird for. Regarding HTML mail, you can view the mail as plain text or HTML as the whim takes you.

https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ (https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/)

There is a portable version, but you need the pro license for that and it has to be activated (which probably means you can only run one portable instance - dunno, not looked into that).
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: bitseeker on September 24, 2015, 05:40:48 am
Oh, another reason I still use Thunderbird (and Firefox, Libre Office, GIMP, etc.): multiple OS compatibility. It's nice to have the same tools everywhere.
Title: Re: Non Browser email client
Post by: BradC on September 24, 2015, 06:18:52 am
Oh, another reason I still use Thunderbird (and Firefox, Libre Office, GIMP, etc.): multiple OS compatibility. It's nice to have the same tools everywhere.

Yeah, don't underestimate the value in this if you aren't chained to an MS environment.