I’ve been using Thunderbird as my primary email client for a couple of months now. I started with the released version and then moved on to daily builds. I still use Outlook to maintain my contacts and calendar but I rarely use it to manage my email because, well, it’s too dangerous and, since I’m on dial-up, too slow. Too dangerous because of all the HTML-based email viruses (virii?), the web beacons and the other sneaky things that marketing types put in their mailings (if it were easier to switch between HTML and plain-text mode these things wouldn’t be as much of an issue for me). Too slow because … well, I don’t know why it’s too slow but when I’m at home on my dial-up connection it takes a lot longer to sync up my IMAP email than when I’m on broadband. No, it’s not just a dial-up/broadband difference! — Thunderbird gives me quite acceptable performance whether I’m on dial-up or broadband. And my settings are the same in both cases — I don’t download the message bodies, just the headers.
Anyway, Thunderbird is a great client but as they continue with their development the UI is slowing down a bit so I’m looking for a new email client. Prior to Thunderbird I used Pine almost exclusively and I still use it as my backup client. I’ve been looking at PocoMail. If anyone has recommendations either post a comment or drop me an email. You can use comments — at — tonys-links — dot — com.