What email client and newsgroup reader do you use, and why?

[Tom Urtis]

Hey everyone, having a bad email hair day, and since hair is something I cannot afford to lose any more of as evident by my photo, I'm wondering what email client and newsgroup reader do you use, and why?

Regarding email, I've been using Outlook for the past 10 years but am getting tired of its unreliability. For example, today and yesterday I can only receive emails but cannot send any. This happens a couple times a month, I don't send out or receive excessive amounts of emails, and my In and Out boxes are totally cleared. I run my businesses off a dedicated server and I'm sure nothing is wrong with that or my ISP. My download and upload speeds are 20 and 2 MbPS respectively so that's not the problem either; therefore surmising it's Outlook yet again being Outlook.

I can use my domain web mails but I want my email client to do what it is supposed to do. I've kept Outlook for this long because most of my clients use it, and it's easier to test my code when doing projects that involve Outlook programming.

Maybe the Outlook problems happen at the same frequency as those of other email clients, as the grass is always greener. I've seen surveys on line about user satisfaction levels but those can be misleading because people tend to take the time to complain about something more than praise it.

I don't spend too much time on Usenet newsgroups and have used Outlook Express for that, honestly no complaints there, but it would be interesting to hear what anyone's experience is, good or bad, regarding whatever email client(s) and newsgroup reader you use, and which ones you recommend.

Thanks !!

 

[Greg Truby]

Hi Tom,

I don't know if the version of Outlook is important... I have no trouble at all with Outlook 2007. But, I rarely have had trouble with Outlook in previous versions either. Then again, I have tech support guys to hold my hand when I do have issues. And I have no idea how often they deal with things behind the scenes that I never know about. At home, I've been using Outlook 2007 also, with no problems so far (other than my hp desktop completely failing which I pin on Vista more than on Outlook).

I do not read newsgroups from work because I cannot. The only reader I have access to is Outlook Express, and I can't get it to launch here. At home I use the built-in newsgroup reader that shipped with Vista. The only newsgroups are ever visit are for MS MVP stuff (some legacy stuff seems to die hard).

I haven't heard any users say they like Lotus Notes. I hated "cc:mail" when we had that prior to changing over to Outlook in the late nineties.

 

[RoryA]

In Windows I use Outlook for email and OE for newsgroups; in OSX I use Entourage for both. No problems with any thus far (as long as you keep Outlook's pst files down to size)

 

[Tom Urtis]

Thanks for the replies Greg and Rory. I've got the problem partially fixed but not yet working the way I want it to be. Still mulling over trying a different email client, but any program has its faults too, be it Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, or whatever. At least the situation is better this week but it's sooooo tempting to just swap programs when something doesn't work the way you want.

 

[SydneyGeek]

I used Eudora a lot in the early to mid 90's -- it was the default at my then workplace. I always found that it was good as an email package, and didn't suffer from Outlook's size limit in the same way because each mailbox is a separate file in Eudora.
Also used Thunderbird for about a year, and was pretty happy with it but when I decided to migrate to Outlook 2007 I struck problems. TB will import from a number of email clients but export, should you need to, is limited.
Also, the 2 I mentioned don't have calendars so if you like to use Outlook for scheduling, you will need another app for that.

Can't comment on newsreaders, I hardly use them, and when I did Outlook Express was what I used.

Denis