Any Windows substitute for Mail.Msg?

[Ed Plowman]

Looking ahead to the possibility that Compuserve Classic/HMI Mail will die before I do, does anyone know if there's any Windows mail program out there that would approximate what Tapcis Mail does? One that would:

1. allow me to scan and mark for download all msgs into a continuously updated single file that distills the plain text portion from the graphics junk?

2. allow me to easily manipulate the separate messages within the file?

Some of the forum software I've seen comes close; if a forum software developer would create a version for email use, that could do it.

Or am I expecting too much from a Windows developer to match the simplicity, speed, and flexibility of DOS? (dig, dig)

ed p.

[Judy G. Russell]

Generally speaking you need two programs to do what Tapcis alone does: one program that will allow you to mark what you want to download and what you want to delete as junk (check out Mailwasher (http://www.mailwasher.net/)) and a second program that will actually download and handle the mail (I recommend either Eudora (http://www.eudora.com/) or Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/)).

[Ed Plowman]

Judy,

Yes, I can do that already. I go into my adelphi.net mailbox and delete the junk, then call up Thunderbird to download what remains.

But as far as I know, Tbird doesn't download the mail into a continuously updated single file (like Mail.Msg), right? That's what I'm really looking for.

ed p.

[Gary Maltzen]

Ed,

Have you looked at Pegasus Mail (http://www.pmail.com/)?
Free
Selective Download
Content Control

[davidh]

But as far as I know, Tbird doesn't download the mail into a continuously updated single file (like Mail.Msg), right? That's what I'm really looking for.

I believe that Netscape, Mozilla, Thunderbird, and Eudora use the MBOX/MBX format for message files. That is, the messages are in a single file, in the INBOX (file), for example. Deleted messages may still remain in such MBOX files until they are later removed somehow (such as compressing mail boxes). Another way of looking at it is that such MBOX files are possible to export/import between computers or between users on a single computer, if so desired. Some such programs (of those mentioned) may use the MBX format but put a DIFFERENT or NO file extension on the file name of the mailbox file(s).

Pegasus mail supports MBOX format but does not use it as its native format, but you can have mail boxes in MBOX format in Pegasus and treat them pretty much as regular mailboxes, I think.

MBOX format is one of the original mail file formats that was developed for TCP/IP (POP3/SMTP) email programs, originally on UNIX type systems.

If you particularly want to do selective download WITHIN a single email program (as with TAPCIS) then Virtual Access and Foxmail are email programs that allow this. Probably Pegasus too as mentioned by somebody else in this thread. Virtual Access has an advantage that you can make filters to automate the selective download. Virtual Access is pretty cool, I think, because IIRC you can download just headers of messages but they go right into the regular message base (unlike TAPCIS which kept the headers in separate files) so you can search/sort on subject lines, sender, etc. with ONLY the header and then decide later whether to download body or delete msg, etc.

I currently mostly use Foxmail. The main feature that I don't like about it is that it uses built-in components of Windows (i.e. MS Internet Explorer components) to display HTML messages, thus being a security liability. Therefore I configure Foxmail to only display HTML on demand, i.e. when I click, but NOT automatically, so I can look at the sender first to decide whether to allow HTML viewing inside Foxmail program. Eventually I may switch to Pegasus, for security. But I haven't yet looked for utility to convert the Foxmail files to MBX format into Pegasus. The other thing I'm concerned about is UNICODE (e.g. for Asian languages display), I'm not sure if Pegasus supports it.

Virtual Access might not be under development any longer and support may be scarce, but it is a very powerful email program (but not always easy to use).

Pegasus puts a very strong emphasis on security and would be a good choice if that is a concern.

Thunderbird and Netscape and Mozilla all support RSS (blog feeds), if that is desirable to you. One advantage of reading groups/forums with RSS is that it often can be done WITHOUT registration and WITHOUT giving out one's email address.

Pegasus and Foxmail are relatively lightweight applications which will run fairly well on low horsepower PC's. Thunderbird, Netscape, Eudora "fatter".

Another thing to consider is whether the email program allows secure POP3 and SMTP (receive and send). Newer programs and program still under developement support security / authentication protocols such as SSL. Older programs may not. As security concerns become more and more important over time, protocols such as SSL might eventually become mandatory requirements of most POP3/STMP email service providers. Of the programs I've mentioned I think all or most support SSL, but perhaps not Virtual Access.

There are good text based email program still available, such as CROSSPOINT (DOS, windows console, and linux console versions, german or english interface) and MUTT (windows console program). But I suspect that these may be less user friendly to set up.

BTW, I believe that Virtual Access ($10 or free) and "The Bat!" (~$50?) (and MUTT free) support threaded view of email threads, which may be useful for those who participate in mailing lists that support threading (e.g. yahoo groups).

David H.

[Dan in Saint Louis]

But as far as I know, Tbird doesn't download the mail into a continuously updated single file (like Mail.Msg), right?
Yes, its name is "Inbox" but it is a text file.

[Judy G. Russell]

Most programs put mail into one continuously updated single file, but you may have to deal with one for in- and one for outgoing.

[ndebord]

David,

I'm curious about which version of Foxmail you are currently using. I've used 1.6, 2.1, 3.1, 4.xx and 5.xx. Right now I regressed to 3.1 which is less bloated than the others. I commonly use its remote function to read headers so I can delete stuff from the server instead of downloading everything.

You can export to OE or Messenger format, then from there probably convert to MBX. Haven't tried that though.

The filtering is decent enough to allow your incoming mail to go to different sub-folders imo too.

[Guerri Stevens]

Hi, Ed, nice to see you here!

I am using Thunderbird. The file format is not text, but you can set it up to show you messages in text format (no special fonts, no graphics). You can set up filters so that messages go into separate folders. For example, I have two Email accounts and I have mail directed to different folders for those accounts. I also play the Dixonary game, and have messages from that directed to a third folder.

You can manually move messages from one folder to another (TAPCIS's move/save functions). And you can set up filters to run that will move messages automatically to another folder based on age, sender, and various other items.

You can save messages to a file, but I don't remember whether text is an option. I think it is, but the resulting format may not be what you want.

I depend on whatever spam filtering is offered by my Email providers, so I don't manually filter messages before downloading. I do have a limit set for the size of messages to be downloaded, though, because I have a dial-up connection, and people willy nilly send large photos or other graphics.

I think that these features are common among the popular Email clients.

[Dan in Saint Louis]

I am using Thunderbird. The file format is not text
Maybe not, but here is a clip of how it looks in Notepad:

From: "EEPN" <Penton@replycentral.com>
To: ""<dan@landiss.com>
Subject: Please Renew
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: Proximity Mail www.ProximityMarketing.com (c) 2004
Message-ID: <E15741-6C8714CE@ReplyCentral.com>
Reply-To: e15741_6C8714CE@replycentral.com
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 14:16:58 -0500
X-Qmail-Scanner-1.23: added fake MIME-Version header
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.1.371 [267.14.16/224]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


With the busy holiday season past and the new year looming ahead;
it's time to fulfill your first "New Years Resolution" to.......

RENEW your complimentary subscription to EEPN Magazine!

http://www.emaildelivery.net/rd.aspx?15741;6C8714CE;42918A3378E8B&QSL1=618569016&QSL2=LANDISS


If web renewal is inconvenient and not your prefered mode,
just fill out and return the form that will be attached to
your January Issue.

Thank you in advance for your timely renewal!

Tina Beyer-Bunch
Circulation Market Development Manager
Penton Electronics Group
Penton Media, Inc.
1300 E. 9th St.
Cleveland OH 44114 U.S.A.

[davidh]

I'm curious about which version of Foxmail you are currently using.

You can export to OE or Messenger format I'm using 1.6 on one PC and 4.1 on another.

In 4.1 I see a menu item to IMPORT from OE but so far nothing about export.

IIRC, I started using Formail after you had recommended it in the old TAPCIS forum on CIS.

David H.

[davidh]

Maybe not, but here is a clip of how it looks in Notepad: I suppose one might call TAPCIS message files more like plain text because of the fact that the TAPICS headers are shorter and more human-readable and because of the fact that the POP3 headers move to the bottom of the message in email and are non-existent in FORUM message files.

David H.

[Dan in Saint Louis]

I suppose one might call TAPCIS message files more like plain text because of the fact that the TAPICS headers are shorter and more human-readable and because of the fact that the POP3 headers move to the bottom of the message in email and are non-existent in FORUM message files.

David H.
I see, more like "edited text". I like having the headers available, they have helped several ISPs shut down infected machines in three countries that were bombing my mailbox with viruses. When I show the ISP the IPAddress of the originating machine, they can no longer say "some other guy did it".

[davidh]

I like having the headers available, Foxmail lets me view the headers BEFORE actually downloading the body. Since many emails today, even legitimate ones, have NO PLAIN TEXT part, I need to have the email program (or browser, etc.) display/render the HTML part to read the message. So if I'm suspicious of the sender, I use that feature to help decide if I really want to view the message (with the buggy IE browser).

David H.

[Dan in Saint Louis]

Foxmail lets me view the headers BEFORE actually downloading the body....... to help decide if I really want to view the message
That's way too many steps for me. I make a mail pass, let the junk filter do its thing, and mark as junk the ones it missed (to train it).

I can imagine that those not yet enjoying broadband might find the two-step dance less time-consuming, but on DSL a quick click on the "Mark as Junk" button is quite acceptable.

[ndebord]

I'm using 1.6 on one PC and 4.1 on another.

In 4.1 I see a menu item to IMPORT from OE but so far nothing about export.

IIRC, I started using Formail after you had recommended it in the old TAPCIS forum on CIS.

David H.

David,

Interesting! I remember talking about Foxmail 1.6 way back when I was using an early version of Opera and it had a really bad email component. On their website, there was talk of this great Hong Kong email program called "Foxmail" and so it all started.

If you have not yet tried Foxmail 3.1, do test it out. It was a short-lived release and right afterwards, the author(s) redid the code starting with 4.xx. I found the new versions overkill for my needs. The one complaint I have about the 3.1 version is that I never found the help file that went with it. So I used the 4.1 help file. Works just fine, although disconcerting when you don't find some of the features it touts!

[davidh]

If you have not yet tried Foxmail 3.1, do test it out. It was a short-lived release and right afterwards, the author(s) redid the code starting with 4.xx. I found the new versions overkill for my needs. The one complaint I have about the 3.1 version is that I never found the help file that went with it. So I used the 4.1 help file. Works just fine, although disconcerting when you don't find some of the features it touts!

Currently my main concerns are in order of decreasing priority:

1. security [ Foxmail uses MS IE for HTML :( ]
2. SSL POP3 (for gmail)
3. UNICODE (for foreign languages, mainly Vietnamese)

Pegasus 4.x is ok on 1 and 2. Don't know about 3.

If I'm too lazy to convert mail files over to MBOX format, I might even go back to 1.6, just for security, even tho' I'd have to give up 2. and 3.

I have 1.6 on my 11 year old Win95 system set up to use LYNX to read HTML messages (no javascript, no java, no vb script, no graphics hooray). Heck, maybe I'll drop all the way to MS-DOS and TAPCIS or CROSSPOINT :)

David H.

[davidh]

You can export to OE or Messenger format, then from there probably convert to MBX. Haven't tried that though. Box2Fox (ou Fox2Box) ;-) (ajouté le 27/10/2004 - téléchargé 3864 fois - taille : inconnue)
Outil de conversion directe et par lot, des boîte aux lettres Foxmail en boîtes aux lettres au format mbox ou inversement.
Multilangue, gratuit, efficace. http://foxmail.free.fr/www/downloads.php

Looks like this might do the convert from fox to box. I may try it out.

David H.

[ndebord]

Currently my main concerns are in order of decreasing priority:

1. security [ Foxmail uses MS IE for HTML :( ]
2. SSL POP3 (for gmail)
3. UNICODE (for foreign languages, mainly Vietnamese)

Pegasus 4.x is ok on 1 and 2. Don't know about 3.

If I'm too lazy to convert mail files over to MBOX format, I might even go back to 1.6, just for security, even tho' I'd have to give up 2. and 3.

I have 1.6 on my 11 year old Win95 system set up to use LYNX to read HTML messages (no javascript, no java, no vb script, no graphics hooray). Heck, maybe I'll drop all the way to MS-DOS and TAPCIS or CROSSPOINT :)

David H.

David,

Well, like you I have the view messages in HTML function turned off in Foxmail 3.1. IF I get an html email, I see it in text first and only then click on the HTML function to see it in IE. Not ideal, but a workable kludge imo.

Lynx is something I used for a short period of time, but never seriously and if only they had kept Tapcis function, I'd still be a CIS consumer, instead of moving to a different ISP (ISP.COM, which FWIW is only $8.95 a month).

[ndebord]

Box2Fox (ou Fox2Box) ;-) (ajouté le 27/10/2004 - téléchargé 3864 fois - taille : inconnue)
Outil de conversion directe et par lot, des boîte aux lettres Foxmail en boîtes aux lettres au format mbox ou inversement.
Multilangue, gratuit, efficace. http://foxmail.free.fr/www/downloads.php

Looks like this might do the convert from fox to box. I may try it out.

David H.

David,

My french is painful at best, so think I'll pass on that. I just export to OE and then go from there with email archiving.

[ndebord]

David,

re: SSL for POP3

Now that is something that Foxmail 3.1 doesn't handle, so down the road if more outfits emulate GMail's irritating proprietary format (Aren't they beginning to sound a lot like MR BILL with their "It's our way or the Highway" refrain?

[davidh]

re: SSL for POP3 ... if more outfits emulate GMail's irritating proprietary format Earthlink is my ISP. They are "requiring" users to login / authenticate to their SMTP server. I forget whether they additionally require SSL encryption for sending mail (SMTP). One can still send mail to the old Earthlink SMTP servers without SMTP authentication when one is already using an IP address belonging to Earthlink (i.e. one is logged on Earthlink dial-up or broadband). Probably the main motive for these precautions is the reduction of spam.

Google SSL POP3 does do the SSL POP3 on the "standard" port [995?] for SSL POP3.

I don't know enough about the protocol to know the exact motivating factors, but if the password is passed in encrypted form, it would certainly increase security, even tho' the message content might be unencrypted on the non-encrypted legs (hops) of the journey to the final destination.

However, whether SSL has other benefits such as reducing spam, I don't know.

Since, even with the use of SSL POP3, Google is essentially giving me a free permanent POP3 email address, without any chance of making any money from my reading their ads (except when I check my spam folder), I'm not really going to complain a lot about it.

Actually, I sort of like the text-only targeted ads, for the following reasons:

1. faster loading
2. less visual annoyance
3. less temptation to evil
4. sometimes the merchandise is something actually I might like to buy and keep, besides just a spur-of-the-moment tease

BTW, although I think I might be in favor of censorship (or taxation) of multimedia portrayal of felonious behavior, I'm glad that Google is fighting the Justice Dept. The privacy of it's customers is a significant determinant of the good-will value of its business. After Yahoo in china caved to chinese gov't on release of ID's of human rights activists, I'm glad Google is fighting such threats even if only for selfish reasons and only perhaps a perceived but not real privacy threat.

D.H.

[earler]

Smtp is one of the very early standards, formulated long before there were problems of spam, viruses, etc. In other words, there is almost no security involved. Virtually all isp's allow sending mail through their smtp servers once one is logged on to the service. Most won't allow sending mail through their servers otherwise. Some will allow this, however, if you provide your user name and password. This is clearly to avoid nasty people from using your email address to send spam, porn, illegal information, etc.

The most effective brake on spam would be to institute a small charge, say $0.001 per message sent. Given that spammers use the fact they can send millions of messages without charge, it is a no brainer for them to operate. The revenue from such a charge would be small to each isp, or it could be devoted to improving the telecommunications infrastructure in the sparsely populated areas of the country.

Given that such a charge if instituted by say the usa would be of no real value is reducing spam much since spammers would merely send their stuff from overseas. Therefore, the best solution would be for the un to institute this charge, with the proceeds to be used to provide telecommunications in the 3rd world.

-er

[Gary Maltzen]

Google is essentially giving me a free permanent POP3 email address"Free" and "permanent" may not necessarily be synonomous...

[Gary Maltzen]

However, whether SSL has other benefits such as reducing spam, I don't know.SSL merely provides an encrypted tunnel between the client and the server; there is nothing inherently spam-reducing about an SSL connection. OTOH, if the server issues discrete/revokable SSL certificates to each client and verifies the certificate before allowing a connection there is some prospect of at least controlling sending access.

[ndebord]

SSL merely provides an encrypted tunnel between the client and the server; there is nothing inherently spam-reducing about an SSL connection. OTOH, if the server issues discrete/revokable SSL certificates to each client and verifies the certificate before allowing a connection there is some prospect of at least controlling sending access.

Gary,

How would a discrete SSL certificate be issued by the ISP's server? And does
such a solution exist today?

[davidh]

"Free" and "permanent" may not necessarily be synonomous... True, Gmail is still in beta and there's no guarantee they'll keep all features. OTOH, I might die before the service is ended or changed.

D.H.

[Gary Maltzen]

How would a discrete SSL certificate be issued by the ISP's server?I can use OpenSSL to generate or sign SSL certificates. Of course, since I am not a recognized CA (Certificate Authority) you will have to decide whether to accept on faith my signature. Verisign and Thawte (among others) can provide you with an authenticated SSL certificate. See also FreeSSL.
And does such a solution exist today?I can use "STunnel" under Linux to provide an encrypted stream and limit connections to (public) certificates I have on file.