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Why Desktop Email Still Trumps Webmail
p3net writes "Shortly before the release of Thunderbird 2.0 RC1, Wired held an interesting interview with Scott MacGregor, the lead developer of Thunderbird. He presents some views as to why desktop email clients still triumph, even in this much-dominated web age. 'Some users want to have their data local for privacy and control. Furthermore, you can integrate data from different applications on the desktop in ways that you can't do with web-based solutions, unless you stick to web solutions from a single provider. For example, you can use your Outlook address book with Thunderbird. We'd like to continue to expand the kinds of data you can share between Thunderbird and other apps (both web and desktop applications).'"
I haven't tried it yet - I've been using Sunbird - but the additional features that lightning provides will help Thunderbird on the road to becoming a more complete Microsoft Outlook competitor. If only we could convince someone to write the Exchange competitor on an open database...
From the Sunbird / Lightning page http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightnin
You may prefer Mozilla Sunbird if...
you prefer your calendar to be separate from your email client
you don't currently use Mozilla Thunderbird for your email
you don't like adding add-ons [such as extensions or themes] to your applications
You may prefer Lightning if...
you send or receive meeting invitations via email
you already use Mozilla Thunderbird for email
you customize your applications with add-ons [such as extensions or themes] You can follow the Mozilla Calendar Weblog here >> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar/
I was a huge advocate for these types of programs... Then Gmail came out. I rationalized sticking with them in that I didn't want Google reading my email. Then I started using Zimbra. It doesn't make sense to have thick clients anymore, when the web apps can do everything that the desktop apps can, and there is a solid open source program for hosting it yourself.
The Zimbra guys even have connectors for Evolution and Exchange if you want to stick with thick desktop apps, but if there is one thing Gmail has proven is that users are willing to give up functionality for remote accessibility, and with Zimbra, they don't even have to do that.
Didn't we already see this?
More to the point: desktop applications are inherently preferable to the individual user. The argument can be made that a corporate environment, in which more than twenty people may need to use a program with limited seats in a license, or in which more than five people need to work collaboratively on the same data set, a client-server type may be more appropriate. Webapps are a client-server type of application in which the client is the web browser and the server is the application running within the web server. Viewing it as such may help to expose the odd nature of allowing so many middle layers to persist.
Desktop apps are important not only for security but also for efficiency and to prevent the gratuitous overconsumption of network resources.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
But on the other hand Webmail is catching up when you consider some of the features of G-Mail.
Gmail has the distinct advantage of being both web accessible while at the same time also accessible via any pop3 e-mail client.
Sort of a "cake and eat it too" scenario.
I currently use Thunderbird to keep track of the 4 accounts that my wife and I use. I also have the ability to access my mail online should I not have my laptop with me. I also have the ability to use GMail as an offsite backup of my mail should I ever have a total OS crash and need to reinstall. The large amount of storage on the gmail servers plus the ability to re-download anything stored on the gmail servers means that I can restore my local copy of my emails.
If more webmail sites used gmail's strategy, webmail would likely catch up to pop3 and possibly surpass it
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
An additional balance is all about data security.
On the one hand Google do better backups than I do and I'd be amazed if I ever lost data from my Gmail account
On the other hand do I want sensitive data stored on someone else's server?
You decide...
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
One of the main things I don't like about web mail is I've not seen one that lets me just drag a file or picture right into the message pane. If I want to email 8 pictures to someone, I normally have to click "add file," locate it, then do that 8 times (and many make me upload them one at a time as well, so that takes even longer). Another thing is the ability to get all 5 of my email accounts at once, instead of having to log into 5 different web pages.
The discussion about local e-mail clients vs. web clients is similar to discussions about digital cameras and pistols.
.45 will do the job, it has _stopping power_." There will usually be folks on the other side who say "Those are nice, but I prefer a .22 Pistol. It's small enough that I'm much more likely to actually have it on me if something happens in public. A heavy, bulky gun that's sitting on the dresser is much less useful to me when I'm in danger than a small .22 that I can carry every day."
When talking about cameras to buy, some folks advocate SLR, expandable, large cameras that have huge optical zoom, attachment points, and a huge slew of features. Other folks will say "I'll take an Elph" (or some other small format, quality camera that's the size of a pack of cigarettes. The most common argument the big camera people will use is something to the effect of 'yes, but you're sacrificing 20% image quality' (or something along those lines. A common response? "Sure, but I'm about X times more likely to actually HAVE the camera on me when something interesting happens. A big camera that takes slightly better pictures that's at home is less useful to me than this."
Concealed pistol arguments have both sides too. "I prefer the 9MM Glock" or "Nothing less than a
E-Mail clients seem to be heading in the same direction. T-Bird has some great features and rationales for using. It does stuff that can only really be done from a fixed location (private mail, etc), and yes, it can integrate with desktop apps. But... I rarely use those extra features. I've switched to webmail knowing that I'm trading off some features, but the payoff of being able to actually GET to it wherever I am has paid off many more times than not having integration into MS Word or something.
Different audiences, different needs, but both sides have their reasons.
For example, you can use your Outlook address book with Thunderbird.
And Outlook also works with just about any mass mailing worm, virus, or trojan out there!
I'd like to see you try that with a web client!
Nope, I'm stickin' with Outlook.
That's the main reason I like using Apple's mail.app. I can write emails when I'm somewhere where I don't have an Internet connection and then send them later when I do. Also, if you're somewhere with a slow connection, it only affects the sending and receiving, whereas, in my experience, a slow connection affects all of the navigating through messages and almost everything else you might do with Web mail.
Graphically, I also think most clients are nicer to look at. That may not be that important to most people, but it is to me.
That said, I like that I have the option of using Web mail when I'm near someone else's computer. (Ideally, I think I'd use IMAP so that my folders, etc. from my client would match the ones I see when I log on using the Web. I've actually been looking for a provider that offers IMAP where I could also transfer my domains so I'd still have everything in one place. I'm also looking for a price that would be competitive with GoDaddy, who currently handles my email and domains.)
I'm just sayin'.
I host my own personal mail and use horde exclusively - at work I use Outlook because I need considerably more horsepower than a web client is able to give me.
.psts for the string 'digital sender' in a bit more than half a second. 709 hits that I can browse because the word order number is in the subject line.
Today I had to pull page counts from ten HP 0299c digital senders and the scanners IP addresses were spread out through ten different work orders - using an outlook plugin called Lookout (this company was eaten by Microsoft but you can still find the plugin if you look around) I was able to search a bit less than 4gb of email archive in two different
You'd play hell doing that with a webmail client.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
You mean this one?
Tools -> Account Settings -> [your account] -> Composition & Addressing
Check "Automatically quote the original message when replying"
And select "Then, start my reply above the quote"
Granted, that's not the default, and not everybody will bother to change it, but there is indeed a configuration option. Even if it were the default, some people would probably change it back to what it is now anyways. If you're participating in a long email thread, you can always trim out old quotes yourself every three or four replies so it doesn't get out of hand.
Two other important questions related to the one above...
Do you own your own email server? If the answer is no, do you have your client options set such that email messages are deleted from the email server once they are grabbed by your client?
I don't think that data are any more secure on non-web clients unless the user is actually aware of what makes their data more or less secure.
Actually, Zimbra has that as well. As well as salesforce.com integration, and integrated mashups via Zimlets.
The privacy angle is bogus. If you are using somebody else's mx, then they can archive all your mail anyway, even if you are using a desktop application. If you are using your own mx, then there's nothing stopping you installing a webmail application on your own server.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Just as the time came when everyone went from centralized servers to desktops, the time is coming where everything will move back to centralized servers.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I was forced to give up using Thunderbird at work, because some people I started working with elsewhere in the organisation relied on Exchange+Outlook calendaring facilities. In other words, I ought to be a prime target for Lightning. I'm also a geek who understands more than a pretty UI about what's involved with actually doing this.
What do I see at the top of the lightning page?
Do you know how many of those I care about at work? Exactly none. And neither does pretty much anyone else in the target market for this product.
What I do care about is how well it integrates with Exchange Server, and whether its notifications for meetings and such are compatible with the business standard Exchange+Outlook combination. However, the word "Exchange" does not appear anywhere on the product home page; nor does "Outlook".
In other words, either their web page is terrible, or this isn't even close to making Thunderbird into a serious Outlook competitor. Given that the current version of Lightning is 0.3.1 (as in, starting with "0.") I'm going to go with the not-even-close version, and so it just about everyone else.
I'm afraid TFA was much the same: yet more of the popular "many eyes make secure software myth" (seriously, are we still peddling that nonsense?) and more cries about the greatness of Thunderbird due to its extensibility (does anyone reading this actually use Thunderbird with any extensions, never mind the natural way they are routinely used by Firefox users?).
Sorry to be so negative. I'm grateful to those who spend their time writing Thunderbird and giving it away to others, I really am. But it's starting to suffer from the two major diseases of the OSS world: a mistaken belief that users care more about philosophy than functionality, and a mistaken belief that OSS is somehow immune to the normal problems with software development just because some of its popular applications haven't (yet) been compromised as badly as the mainstream commercial players. I like the product, but until its marketing stops talking crap, I'm going to criticise the marketing.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Deleting is easier. Attaching is easier.
Try getting to your old email messages from the hospital to find the phone number of your friend's mother at the critical moment. I delete and attach so few messages it really doesn't matter if it takes a couple more seconds with a web client than a desktop app. Having access to my email from anywhere in the world at any time is far more valuable. I will never go back to desktop email.
A lot of posters here talk about certain features with a desktop client against a web client not realising that none of this has anything to do with weather the mail is web based or local. The interface can look the same weather on the desktop or a server ( at least in theory) the question is what difference the location of the actual process that handles the input and output makes. There are advantages and disadvantages to both schemes.
Web based:
Can be accessed from any computer that has a browser.
Mail cannot be read while offline
Desktop based:
Requires a configured mail client
All mail can be downloaded at once and read at a latter date when an internet connection is not available
It would appear to me that this means Web based mail would be more attractive to Desktop users who can't easily move their computer arround and who are likely to have a permanent internet connection whereas Laptop and Notebook users would prefer a local client as wireless availability can be limited and it is easier for them to move arround. Of course, you coudl always go with my aproach. I use a web based e-mail but keep a local copy on my desktop. That way I can read my mail from anywhere I want and I also have it available if my connection dies ( which is rather often unfortunately ). Best of both worlds in my opinion.
You don't need to sort by date, because you can search by date. Search for :after:2006/3/1 before:2006/4/1 to find emails from last March, for example.
People assume desktop clients mean POP3, probably because that's all that GMail offers. Well, of course that's what GMail offers - because they don't want you to know about IMAP.
My provider offers webmail AND IMAP support. I can view my mail on my computers using Thunderbird. Or, if I don't have Thunderbird available or configured, I can just log into webmail. All my mail is synchronized between the server and the client. If I delete something in webmail, it's deleted in Thunderbird - and vice versa.
Oh, and I can view my mail on my PDA, too - without using the crappy Google client. And with IDLE support, I get new messages the instant they arrive - on both my PC and my PDA. And I can set up rules on the server to filter mailing lists and other emails into folders.
People think GMail is the end-all of mail because the only other thing they have used is some ISP's crappy POP3 mail.
Thunderbird displays all 6500 messages in my inbox at the same time, on the same screen. Which webmail can do that? Thunderbird downloads mail to my local system, so I can access it offline. Which webmail does that? Thunderbird supports S/MIME encryption and signatures.
Easy, pay a little extra money for email with a provider that offers IMAPv4 access. That way you have your email stored on a server and can still access via webmail. Cost a little more but better then leaving it with Google. It scares me how much data people are willing to leave with companies that a vested interest in cataloging everything they can get their hands on and have limited set of ethics.