I'm trying to help Doug Burnside wean himself off of Netscape. Right now he mostly uses it just for the email feature, and if someone could point to a good third-party email program, it might help. Right now, my favorite emailer (agent) doesn't meet his requirements.

His requirements:

- Must not be Netscape.

- Must not have bugs which occasionally trash the mail database (this rules out any Outlook variant and Eudora).

- Must not be a virus construction kit (this rules out Outlook variants again).

- Must be able to import his existing Netscape mail files, so that he has all his old saved mail going several years back, without ruining their format.

- Must be able to import his existing Netscape address book.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Mozilla?

What's wrong with Netscape, particularly?

Sorry, when I said "Must not be netscape", I meant both variants (Mozilla and Netscape).

I've been reading e-mail with Netscape since 1996 or so. I jumped over to Mozilla when it was at .99-something, and never looked back. Mozilla got noticably more stable as it went from 1.1 to 1.2 and so forth. The new Bayesian anti-spam features are particularly noteworthy.

Of course, Mozilla still has its problems, but I'm sticking with it until something radically better gets stable enough to use. I'm particularly intrigued by Haystack, but it's still early in its development.

Mulberry?

I set up my parents on Pegasus mail, and they have been happy with that. I do not know if it will read Netscape formed folders, but I'm sure there is some kind of conversion utility out there if it doesn't.

Although I will have to echo the comment that Mozilla 1.3 and later has been very stable for me as an e-mail client. The spam filters work well, especially when used with SpamAssasin. One or the other catches over 99% of my spam, and I get over 100 pieces a day.

Checking into it, it seems there is no conversion nessecary for Pegasus. See http://www.interguru.com/MailInformation.htm for conversion howto's for different mail programs.

Still moz, but without the bloat (well, less bloat anyway)

I spent ages trying to find a replacement mail client for OE while handling support email. Apart from the virus problems, OE is a good, featureful (more so than Outlook) stable efficient mail reader. All the alternatives I found were either POP only, focused on bloat like skinnable interfaces or were not free.

It got to the point that I even considered using mutt.

TheBat! (features)

Seems to meet all listed requirements, though the "doesn't have bugs..." one is pretty nebulous, and hard to prove in any instance. Works for me, though.

- Must not have bugs which occasionally trash the mail database (this rules out any Outlook variant and Eudora).

Eudora uses standard Unix style mbox files, with it's own database/index files maintained seperatly. If an index problem is detected, Eudora repairs them in a matter of minutes. I never lost a single piece of e-mail using Eudora from 1996-2001. Only reason I stopped using it was my move to an IMAP server and a PHP web interface.

Whatever client you end up using, IMAP is the correct answer for storing your mail. It greatly lowers the friction of moving from one client to another. I switch between my laptop, my desktop, and a web front-end to our IMAP server, and (so long as I remember not to leave one running while I want to use the other), everything seems to work great.

so long as I remember not to leave one running while I want to use the other

Crappy IMAP server! Crappy IMAP server!

I never lost a single piece of e-mail using Eudora from 1996-2001.

I second this, and actually have been a Eudora user since 1994 when it was a standard part of my University's Internet access package. I can't say that those early versions were particularly stable, but in terms of losing email, that never happened to me. I only recently switched to TheBat! because of its better filtering and other bells and whistles.

Doh,

Mozilla, I already told him. But would he listen?

Of course, this does bring up the Internet theory that all mail clients will always suck in their own peculiar ways.

Edit: As evidenced by the fact that it's often easier for me to telnet to my mail server's IMAP port and issue IMAP commands directly than to figure out why my MUA won't delete a folder. All it's got to do is issue ``. delete INBOX.Trash''. Piece of crap. Not to mention the bigger piece of crap that decided I needed a Trash folder.

There's a good list of clients and reviews of them here.

I was actually going to point Doug at Stroud's, but I thought it would be cooler to see what your opinions were first.

It got to the point that I even considered using mutt.

'ere, now, what's the matter with mutt? I use it both at home, and at work. Best mail client I've used.

It has (unless they've improved it recently) the worst IMAP support of any email client ever. Even before IMAP was invented.

Hi

Have you seen Pocomail - www.pocomail.com ?
It imports both addressbook and messages from Netscape.

Regards
Nicolai