Mozilla Thunderbird:
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free , open source , cross platform, email and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Foundation, a project aimed at creating a web browser.. On December 7, 2004, version 1.0 was released, and received over 500,000 downloads in its first three days of release, and 1,000,000 in 10 days
Features:
Thunderbird aims to be a simple e-mail, newsgroup and news feed client. The vanilla version is not a personal information manager, although the Mozilla lightning extension added PIM functionality. Additional features, if needed, are often available via other extensions.Message management
Thunderbird can manage multiple e-mail, newsgroup and news feed accounts and supports multiple identities within accounts. Features like quick search, saved search folders ("virtual folders"), advanced message filtering, message grouping, and labels help manage and find messages. On Linux-based systems, system mail (movemail) accounts are supported.Junk filtering
Thunderbird incorporates a Bayesian spam filter, a whitelist based on the included address book, and can also understand classifications by server-based filters such as Spam Assassin.Extensions
Extensions allow the addition of features through the installation of XP install modules (known as "XPI" or "zippy" installation). One example is Lightning, the calendar extension mentioned above.Extensions and themes (below) available on the Mozilla Update site may be upgraded through the client.
Themes
Thunderbird supports a variety of themes for changing its overall look and feel. These packages of CSS and image files can be downloaded from Mozilla Add ons.Standards support
Thunderbird supports POP and IMAP. It also supports LDAP address completion. The built-in RSS/atom reader can also be used as a simple news aggregator. Thunderbird supports the S/MIME standard, extensions such as Enigmail and support for the OpenPGP standard.File formats supported
- mbox – Unix mailbox format
- Mork – used for internal database
- SQLite – also used for internal database (since version 3)
Cross-platform support
Thunderbird runs on a wide variety of platforms. Releases available on the primary distribution site support the following operating systems:- Windows
- Linux
- Mac OS X
- OS/2 and eComstation
- Opensolaris
Internationalization and localization
Thunderbird does not yet support UTF8SMTP (RFC 5336) or Email Address Internationalization.With contributors all over the world, the client is translated into at least 52 languages.
Security
Thunderbird provides enterprise and government-grade security features such as SSL/TLS connections to IMAP and SMTP servers. It also offers native support for S/MIME secure email (digital signing and message encryption using certificates). Any of these security features can take advantage of smartcards with the installation of additional extensions.Other security features can be added through extensions. For instance, Enigmail offers PGP signing, encryption, and decryption.
Optional security protections also include disabling loading of remote images within messages, enabling only specific media types (sanitizer), and disabling JavaScript.
The French military uses Thunderbird and contributes to its security features, which are claimed to match the requirements for NATO's closed messaging system.
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IncrediMail:-
IncrediMail 2 is a free e-mail client. It is simple and easy to use and fully customizable. Apart from the features of a regular email client, IncrediMail 2 also offers the ability to customize your interface by changing the background, adding 3D effects, animations, sound, etc.. You'll get all the useful options for managing your emails and you can also import your mail and your address book. IncrediMail 2 is a completely free software developed by IncrediMail Ltd.. It is compatible with Windows XP / Vista and 7.
IncrediMail Ltd. (NASDAQ: MAIL) is an Israeli company that develops and markets e-mail client programs and other personal desktop software for the consumer and home user markets.
IncrediMail was founded in 1999 by cousins Yaron and Ofer Adler, and in 2000 received $3.3 million investment from private and institutional sources. It issued an IPO in January 2006 on NASDAQ.
As of March 2009, IncrediMail claims 80 million downloads of its programs in over 100 countries, and reported Q4 2008 revenue of $6.1 million. On March 25, 2009, its board approved a buy back of up to $1 million worth of shares by the company, on top of approximately 335,000 shares which had previously been purchased.
Even though Incredimail has always been installed with an uninstall routine available via Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel on Microsoft Windows, the uninstall does not completely uninstall the product and special steps must be taken for removal.
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Yahoo Zimbra:-
Zimbra has a range of editions of its email client and has also developed its own mail server application. Zimbra is owned by Yahoo and currently uses a web interface, but is also available as a beta "desktop" edition which permits emails to be viewed online and offline. The web version is considered in this review.
Zimbra appears to have all the features of Outlook, including an integrated calendar and To Do list. Zimbra also claims improvements over Outlook such as not restricting mail boxes to 2GB. Despite being a web-based client, the interface supports multiple accounts including email extraction from external servers via POP3 or IMAP — providing centralised email access.
While Zimbra may not have the kind of scripting that graces Outlook, it does have customisable filters and a host of add-in Zimlets (similar to widgets found in Lotus) giving access to such things as flight bookings, Flickr, Babelfish and Yahoo Maps (IT staff with AJAX skills may be interested in Zimlet development). Another very handy feature is its integrated instant messenger. Besides three versions of English, 15 language options are available for the interface.
The online evaluation did not allow for the sending and receiving of emails at the time of testing, so it was not possible to assess the effectiveness of HTML email handling, nor has the Email Standards Project evaluated this software.
Zimbra has features that make it far more than an email client. It allows online viewing of Word and PDF documents as HTML. Zimbra also allows the creation of online documents, which includes pictures and spreadsheets. Integrated Asterisk technology allows for voice calls and messaging via existing VoIP systems.
Having a web-based interface, it is tempting to compare this product with services such as Gmail or ordinary Yahoo accounts for that matter. In fact, the feature set and flexibility of Zimbra make it more comparable with applications such as Outlook or even Lotus Notes.
Zimbra easily equals Outlook and it leaves Thunderbird for dead — aside from its inability to check messages offline. (On that note, it might be worth looking into Zimbra desktop at a later date when it completes beta testing.) Zimbra Desktop supports offline message browsing and allows users to access web accounts such as Gmail.
Both open source and paid versions of this software are available. Naturally, the open source version exists so that Zimbra's development will be accelerated — swapping expertise for the product. Purchasers of the paid versions are, of course, entitled to technical support. Being web-based, the licensing fee is for the server software rather than client software.
Zimbra Professional pricing is US$875 per year per 25 mailboxes. Pricing per person reduces as the number of users increases and discounts of 50 per cent are available to government, educational and non-profit organisations. This pricing assumes the software resides on your own server. Hosted services are also available. Given the range of features and flexibility, pricing at $US35 per user seems very reasonable.
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Apple Mail + iCal:-
Apple Mail is the default email client supplied with the Mac operating system. Its interface is straightforward and wholly unremarkable. Obviously, it parallels Outlook Express or Windows Mail on Microsoft machines.Being part of the operating system means that businesses using multiple OSes cannot use the same email client across machines (although this problem also exists for Windows Mail or KMail on Linux systems).
As with Windows Mail, Thunderbird and many others, calendar functions are shifted to a separate application, in this case Apple iCal. iCal integrates with the Evolution and Zimbra email clients on Apple systems.
A great feature of iCal is the ability to reschedule events by simply dragging them from one point to another with the mouse. Mail also allows for the user to enter "To Do" lists and other short notes for ready reference.
A feature of Apple Mail that brings it closer to Microsoft Outlook than Outlook Express or Windows Mail is the availability of Apple Scripts — a standard feature of Apple operating systems. Scripts can be used to automate many processes. In addition, you can use mail filtering rules, which allow for automatic sorting of mail into boxes according to details such as the content, subject or sender.
Apple Mail handles HTML formatting as well as you could hope. The Email Standards Project rates Apple Mail as "Excellent". Apple Mail also has a number of pre-defined stationery designs. As well as supporting standard IMAP and POP3 mail servers, Apple Mail can also work with online accounts such as Gmail and Yahoo. In addition, RSS feeds can be automatically downloaded.
Integration between iCal and Mail is tight, allowing dates and places in emails to be recognised and easily exported into iCal. Apple Mail is an effective, no frills application that is open to automation using Apple's in-built tools. Because this software is Apple only, it cannot actually replace Outlook per sec, but it has a comparable feature set and comes at no cost above the initial purchase of the computer.
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