My dad asks me this all the time, too, but a real mail client is just so much more efficient than a web page: plus it’s a real app, none of this “type a 3 page mail message, hit “send”, get some sort of a server error, oops, your content is gone” crap. I can sort, move, find messages hundreds or thousands at a time, not just what fits on a screen. I can filter on complex rules and automate other apps with it.
Web mail’s fine for when I’m on vacation, or for folks like my dad who get 15 emails a month at the outside, but it’s a very poor substitute for even the simplest of the real mail apps.
I can do all of those things* in my email accounts. I’ve never lost an email due to a server error though I can imagine it happening–but all my accounts save a draft seemingly every ten seconds so it wouldn’t be that big a deal.
*except, possibly, automate other apps with it–I do not know what that means.
Weird. I’ve been using it since day 1 on my win8 (now 8.1) machine, without so much as a hiccup - I use it to manage half a dozen different mailboxes each on two different accounts - thousands of messages in various folders. No problems at all.
Well, that doesn’t really surprise me. It’s a competing product.
Mozilla’s official stance on Win8 is:
Half a billion people use gMail everyday. This includes governments in 45 states, over 5 million business and a bunch of universities using Gmail pro services. (There was a massive sigh of relief when my uni switched to Gmail from their previous proprietary CMS.) Some percentage of the country also use Yahoo and Hotmail.
I don’t think it is either. I’ve had absolutely no problems using Thunderbird with POP email on Windows 8.1 (or, for the month I had it, plain old Windows 8).
While, early on, moving to webmail did seem like a step down, it really doesn’t feel that way now. The only reason it may seem that way is that you are unfamiliar with the interface and all you can do with it.
I assume the same sort of thing is why, when I use a dedicated app, it always feels like step down.
And, yes, Thunderbird works on Windows 8. There have been so few under the hood changes that it’s unlikely for a regular application that works in Vista to not work on subsequent versions. Only apps that directly target features that are not in Windows 8.1 or that require the use of special drivers seem to fail. And even a lot of those work fine.
In general, if it’s a regular program, and you get it for free, I’d suggest installing it and checking before searching online. I never would have even thought to search for Win8 compatibility with something like a currently developed and constantly update email client like Thunderbird. If Win8 compatibility broke, they would drop nearly everything to fix it before the official release of both the program and the OS.
When I initially installed it, it almost worked. I had my wife and son send me test messages, and I got them, but I got nothing else. My old laptop sitting nearby would continue to ding and notify me of another incoming email, but the 8.1 machine wouldn’t get them.
For a day or two, it went like this, old machine getting mails, new one wasn’t. Comcast was zero help. I’ve searched for Comcast settings, finding a page here and there that suggest a different port or something, but Tbird just won’t get random emails.
'tis confusing, and I’m usually pretty good at these things.:mad:
Are you talking about two machines trying to receive the same test email?
Is it possible that the old laptop was downloading the email and deleting the server copy (this was pretty much the standard for POP3 accounts, back in the day) before the Win8 machine got to see it?
If I pop mail at work, it isn’t on another PC here at the house.
A new install, however, will down load every damn thing I haven’t deleted from the gmail site.
**ducati -**Go into the TB settings on your old machine (or both machines, if you’re still planning to use the old one) and tell it to leave a copy of the email on the server. Or just delete TB on your old machine, or have it stop accessing the account, or however you want to set it up.
Or, you know, switch to using Outlook.com or gMail, which doesn’t have this problem.
BTW, sounds like you have a new PC. I highly suggest that
make sure it is running Windows 8.1 instead of Win8. Upgrade to Win8.1 if it’s not already installed.
Go to the PC brand (ex Dell) and update all the drivers for your new PC.
Use Microsoft updates and make sure your PC is fully updated.
Keep in mind that the PC’s shipped for Christmas were probably put on a boat in August or September. Win8.1 was just released. There are a ton of fixes, tweaks, new functions, bug fixes. It can make a night and day difference in your PC performance.
I got the Dell Venue Pro tablet in mid Dec, which I like a lot. The before and after performance difference was noticeable. One thing was the battery life almost doubled.
So, in addition to checking out the Comcast mail beta, I would definitely spend a football game updating both from Microsoft and from the PC brand.
Sorry, Uncle D ain’t ***that ***thick! All machines are set to leave messages on the server.
Which is hoot, since checking online at Comcast there are zero messages whatsoever!
This is an HP 8.1 machine, ordered direct from them, but updating all drivers is a good idea I suspect.
