The "light-weight" aspect is very important for me, too, no matter what I could use in regard to my hardware resources.

Slypheed does exist for Windows: http://sylpheed-claws.sourceforge.net/win32/. Can't say anything about the quality of this port, though. I started using it, because it's a very light-weight and easy-to-use program, but even now that I'm currently sitting on a very much faster computer, it's still my e-mail client of choice.

As for Amiga systems, YAM is a very good choice.

Edited by Mr Creosote at 13:34 on July, 26th 2003

I've never seen one that lets you choose. A few progs these days are starting to come with their own version of the gecko engine, but most just use IE. The only ones that let you choose at all are ones that don't show any html within the program, but just launch links. Those ones will almost always use your default browser. (I'm talking about windows progs here since I know next to nothing about progs for linux/unix, mac, amiga, etc.)

No, it isn't for Windows. Good programs let you chose the "engine" to interpret html anyway.

Is Sylpheed a windows prog? If so, it must be about the only windows prog (other than certain browsers) that doesn't use IE's engine to render html.

html display is mainly a security problem. If you choose to have it interpreted, people can embed virii disguised as wavs and such. On the other hand, seeing all the html code is really bad as well. That is why I have my e-mail client set to filter out the text of html e-mails which works in 99.99999% of all cases - they look just like mail written in plain text then. And if that doesn't work, I can still first look at the attachments and then decide whether to have the html displayed or not. Oh yeah, and Sylpheed doesn't use "IE's engine"

They don't seem to have added any way to turn off html when reading email, but you can turn off the graphical smilies.

Personally, I prefer seeing the email in it's original form regardless whether that form is text or html. I have seen the results of html emails displayed as text in certain lame webmail systems that can't handle html emails, and it always looks like shit. I'd rather see annoying ad images, or huge red letters or whatever that I can quickly scan through to find what I'm looking for or to see if there even is anything worth looking at there than to have to sift through a bunch of html code to see if it's pure spam or if there's actually something there. With that in mind, and considering the fact that most standalone email progs that can disply html use IE's engine to do so, having an email client/web browser combo OTHER THAN IE is a good idea. That way the client will use mozilla's engine or opera's engine or whjatever instead of IE's.

The only thing that really matters to me in an email client is convenience. I don't use email much so A) When I do use it, I want something that's as quick and convenient as possible. and B) Because I don't use it very often, features and bugs mean very little to me.

Edited by Cypherswipe at 11:00 on July, 26th 2003

It's been a while since I last tried it (version 0.99 or something), so it might have changed. What I really hated was the graphical smileys ( ) and that there was no way of disabling html display. In any case, I'd always keep webbrowser and e-mail-client apart. It's not such a great idea to have 'all in one'.

The moz client works fine for me, what's your objection to it?

Actually, the Mozilla e-mail client.... sucks There is always Mozilla Thunderbird (search the Mozilla site) if you want to go with Firebird as browser and want a related product. Personally, I'm using Sylpheed, but I doubt that'll be an option for your friend

If you install moz, then you've got your email client right there. If you install firebird... :shrug:. Phoenix mail is pretty good.

nope, haven't seen the comp yet and my friend doesn't know what Mhz means so asking her would be rather pointless...

you don't know the specs yet?

I think there are plenty of good clients out there... Just to name a few (for Windows):

Phoenix Mail - http://sourceforge.net/projects/phxmail/
Mail Warrior - Official site seems to be down, check here if you want to try it.
Vivian Mail - http://www.deepsleep.de/e/vivianmail/index.htm

They're all freeware including the common features. And, most important, they're not bloated with unnecesary stuff.

I'm supposed to go and configure a comp at a friends house somewhere next week for internet-use. I was thinking about which programs I would install and decided to go with mozilla (or firebird depending on the specs of the comp) as internet-browser but I wouldn't have the faintest idea what e-mail client I would install. I myself don't use any seeing as I have a web-based account at my uni's network but I really would prefer to avoid installing MSOutlook (for obvious reasons) but I'm simply a total newbie in this area seeing as I never needed one myself. Could any of you guys recommend an easy-to-use but still secure client? I would greatly appreciate it...