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In the corporate world—and especially in those environments built on Windows—Microsoft's Outlook email client reigns supreme. But once you start poking around, you'll find that Outlook is far from the only game in town. Here, we present five of the most interesting alternatives for home and small business users.
Zimbra Desktop is open-source software and thus free. That it allows you to access email even when you're disconnected from the Internet and handles calendars, contact lists, and documents in a single application is even more reason to consider it. www.zimbra.com
Is Outlook's entrenchment the primary reason it still dominates market share? Would web-based Gmail otherwise lead the pack? Truth is that the two offer very different approaches. In an environment where offline Inbox access and Microsoft Office merging capabilities are mandatory, Outlook is king. But Gmail delivers far more mobility, costs nothing, and is seemingly becoming the future right before our eyes. mail.google.com
Fast, very fast, and in a strictly email sense, the equal of Outlook (and perhaps more intuitive to use with its tab-browsing style), Mozilla's long-established Thunderbird runs in any operating system and, like Zimbra, is free. It's also incredibly simple to set up, although add-ons are required to match Outlook's scope. www.mozillamessaging.com
Effectively the successor to Outlook Express and Windows Mail—and better than both—Microsoft's Windows Live Mail is a good option for those who run in a Windows environment and don't need the added business-oriented features (and complexity) of Outlook. explore.live.com
Purported to be the fastest email client for Windows, eM Client 3 boasts customers such as Toyota and Oracle. Available in either a no-charge Home or $50 Pro version (which includes backup and syncing to any mobile device). www.emclient.com
The Maximum PC offices have been an Outlook shop for a long, long time. We started applying our brains to the matter of improving Outlook before realizing that your ideas are just as good as ours. We asked you to let the ideas (and gripes) fly, and these are the results. If you want to join the daily conversation about tech, point your browser to www.facebook.com/maximumpc.
Christopher Alden: I'd love to have a Gmail-style conversation view.
Robert J. Armitage: Better support for showing "new mail" in subscribed folders and sub-folders. For me only the inbox updates properly; I have to manually click others for the new message count to pop up.
Mike Tjepkema: Integration of "signature grabbing," where you can double-click someone's signature and dump it into your contacts. It's available in third-party software, but I want seamless integration.
Jp Allen: Fix Outlook Web Access for non-IE browsers. Better shared calendar/contacts. Threaded conversation view that doesn't suck so bad it gets turned off. Search that isn't beaten by third parties like the Globetrotters do to the Generals. More granular junk/spam filtering options. A far less bloated archiving option/format.
James Burt: The ribbon interface, may it go back to the hell-spawned pit from whence it came. Its inconsistent layout, big buttons, small buttons, icons with no name, etc., are frustrating. Add in the fact that I find myself clicking more to perform tasks that were one or two clicks in the past is irritating.
Cory Notrica: Add something like the Lotus Notes Swiftfile. It would be so much easier than building rules and clicking twice to file to recently used folders.
Ryan Case: My #1 most desired feature in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 is smooth scrolling.
Dear friend! I am the son of the late Nigeria's former minister of mines and power in the regime of the late former Nigeria's military Head of State. I have discussed with my family attorney how best to provide for you the information on blocking email spam. To unlock these mysteries, you need only supply $2,500 of your United States dollars. To show you my sincere interest in giving you these antispam treasures, I give you immediately a sampling of suggestions for reducing the amount of spam your inbox suffers.
While using yourname@yahoo.com might make it easy for your friends and loved ones to find you online, it also makes it easy for spambots to track you down and pummel you with junk mail. To throw them off your email trail, consider using an address that includes punctuation or numerical values as well.
When signing up for a new service, often times, you’ll be given the option of opting in or out of mailing lists and additional services. Before finishing your registration, be sure that you’re not accidentally signing up for something you’re not interested in by leaving checkboxes in their native state. Take the time to do it right.
If you need to register for something online, consider doing it with a disposable email address, like those available from services like Ten Minute Email (10minutemail.com) or GuerillaMail (www.guerillamail.com). Doing so will guarantee that your inbox stays spam-free.
If you prefer to keep a record of what you’ve signed up for and when, a disposable email address just isn’t going to cut it. Instead, consider using a secondary email address solely for the purpose of signing up for online services, such as web communities, Internet shopping sites, and newsletters. The bulk of the spam your online activity generates will be sent to the secondary email address, leaving your primary account relatively spam-free.
Your Internet service provider should be at the heart of your antispam solution, not at the heart of the problem. When selecting an ISP, research its antispam policy: Does it penalize customers who engage in spamming? Does it host spamvertisment sites? How closely does it guard customer information? These are all questions that your ISP’s customer service representatives should be able to answer. If you don’t like what you hear, take your business elsewhere.
Taking the time to unsubscribe from a service you never signed up for in the first place is a sure-fire way of letting spammers know that their aggravating messages are indeed being read by someone. Don’t encourage them. Instead, delete the email or…
There are a lot of excellent antispam software packages, extensions, and services out there. Choose one and run with it. Installing antispam software like SpamFighter (free, www.spamfighter.com) can dramatically cut down the amount of spam your inbox sees on a daily basis. For the holy grail of Internet privacy, you may also want to consider investing in a computer security suite, such as our favorite, Bit Defender Internet Security 2011 ($50, www.bitdefender.com). Along with antispam protection, you’ll also get antivirus and antimalware protection, plus a large number of other perks.
Comments are closed on this article
JamesR
May 28, 2011 at 2:09pm
I have not used Outlook from before Netscape Mail/New was discontial. An I changed to Thunderbird. It would have been nice to have some of the information for Thunderbird that you gave for Outlook and Gmail
handyman315
May 26, 2011 at 3:15am
One back-hand mention of the email application used for years by millions, then summarily killed by Windows 7 - Outlook Express.
While many of us still wander aimlessly asking "Why?", please confirm Microsoft as your Friend.
stige
May 23, 2011 at 6:48pm
I can't stand Outlook simply because searching for emails in it is impossible (although having to file messages I've just sent is also a pain).
I have searched for an email that was in plain view, just to test it, and it found nothing.
Pathetic. gMail search ftmfw.
Baer
May 23, 2011 at 1:54pm
I know Outlook quite well but there were a few tricks in here that I did not know about. Good and useful article.
D00dlavy
May 23, 2011 at 1:48pm
Good article!
Gmail FTW. I've always disliked Outlook. Not my thing. (love Office, though)
