If you could use your email in a decidedly “computery” way, would you do it? Would you trade the way modern email looks and feels for something old-school?
Below is a video showing modern email in a web browser (something everyone is familiar with), and the Alpine email client; something very old-school but still works with any POP or IMAP account – even with SSL enabled.
Since I use my AOL Mail which fully supports IMAP (and yes, Gmail would also work), I can bounce around between browser, Thunderbird and Alpine depending on my mood. All the mail is synchronized since it’s all on-mail-server.
If after seeing the video below you really like the idea of back-to-basics mail with Alpine but need instructions on how to set it up, post a comment and ask!
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I prefer Alpine for the fact that it is fast and powerful. I guess I just got used to text based email and flashing ad’s annoy me to no end. I am a little older so I trust that has something to do with it as well. The younger generation probably will not gravitate towards text based email even though it is more powerful.
Depends on the communications medium. The younger generation has absolutely no issue with SMS, and that’s nothing but plain text.
Perhaps you should have saved this one for retro friday….
Almost did, but doesn’t qualify for two reasons. Text isn’t retro at all, and Alpine in Windows can be used with a mouse.
The irony is, I’m old enough to remember that type of email program– but I could NEVER go back to it. I’ll still stick with Thunderbird and access my webmail that way– but at least with Thunderbird I can turn off all the flashy bells and whistles and just see the text.
But I’m noticing that a lot of people prefer pure webmail over the email client because they want to access their email from anywhere. I just prefer to look at my email when I get home– because nothing that needs IMMEDIATE attention ever really comes via email– that would come straight to my phone as a Call. Too many people want me to check my email all the time so they can get IMMEDIATE action from me at ANY time. Sorry. . .No. I control my life, not my webmail.
I use an “older” type email program–Forte agent. It’s not really old in the truese sense. It just doesn’t have the flash of webmail, Thunderbird, and other mail clients. It’s strictly a workhorse, not a beauty contestant in the mail client pageant.
It’s more sophisticated then Alpine but not as “modern” looking as web mails like Gmail or AOL mail. It’s mostly text-only, but it does have some limited HTML support. In text mode, it strips the text from HTML messages (like Alpine does) and is therefore more secure, since it doesn’t expose the user to HTML malware. IN the HTML mode, it uses a special HTML view that doesn’t allow scripts to run. You lose some of the benefit of HTML that way, but it’s much more secure.
Forte Agent is also a newsgroup reader, and probably known to be the best for various reasons. For die-hard Usenet fans, Agent is the way to go. It’s NOT free, however. There used to be a version called Free Agent that was only for Usenet news, no email function, and it probably is still able to be found somewhere on the net. It’s not been updated for years and has been discontinued. Regular Agent is still available. Development is stagnant right now but every now and then Forte puts some effort into the product and comes out with worthwhile improvements or a full version upgrade.
I use it for reasons of security but it also strips out the advertisements in HTML mail, except for some of the test of the ads, which is OK for me. If I want to see a so-so HTML rendering of the message to see a picture or other images, I can turn it on with a key press. It also has some very advanced features I haven’t found in other email clients. It has a powerful filtering language that you an learn if you wish to make Agent do what you want with messages. Other features are found in other programs but they are not usually as good as those in Agent. And you won’t see all of these features in any other one email client.
If I had to pick between AOL mail and Alpine, I probably would pick the webmail client. If Alpine had a little more support for the mouse, I might go for Alpine. All I usually need to see is text. Images just distract from the task at hand in many cases.
I should have added that Agent is like alpine on Steroids. Nothing like Thunderbird or Web Mail.
Hi there.
My MAIN reason for staying with Outlook Express is simple… DRAG & DROP!
I am currently back with JUST XP PRO 64bit after having tried a dual boot of 64 bit W7 Pro/XP Pro. One of the things I got excited about is that LIVE MAIL in W7 allows for the DRAG & DROP I am so use to with OE!!! I have tried Thunderbird and would still be using it if I could drag a message onto the desktop or into a back-up folder on a drive of choice.
I use gMail, but was frustrated with not being able to save THOSE email to my hard drives, UNTIL I discovered ‘Gmail Backup, which does EXACTLY THAT for you… what a deal!
I would actually prefer the ‘OLD SKOOL’ way of email as I do NOT care for the distractions of the newer way/interfaces, IF I was able to DRAG & DROP.
Sure do LOVE PCMech, even though I do not take full advantage of what you offer. At least you good folks are THERE for me… THANK YOU, Dave and crew!
You can drag-and-drop mails as EML files in and out of Thunderbird since version 3, however the issue is that you can only do one mail at a time and not with multiple mails selected.
The ultimate as far as Thunderbird import/export management is concerned is ImportExportTools, located here: http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.html This is an actively updated add-on that will import/export single or multiple EMLs or MBOX files.
You can drag-and-drop mails as EML files in and out of Thunderbird since version 3, however the issue is that you can only do one mail at a time and not with multiple mails selected.
The ultimate as far as Thunderbird import/export management is concerned is ImportExportTools, located here: http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.html This is an actively updated add-on that will import/export single or multiple EMLs or MBOX files.
I love simplicity and for that I really appreciate the look and feel of Alpine. I do prefer something that at least supports HTML based emails, so I’ll give the edge to webmail.
I go back to the days of good old PINE, and from time to time do play with the idea of using something simple and robust instead of state-of-the-art concoctions. But it has been just a daydream so far (so much to do, so little time…). PINE was great, and I do not see why Alpine should not do just fine these days.
If I could attach files and so on, I’d use Alpine 2.0, it’s faster and the new emailing systems aren’t that interesting anyway. Though for those pesky most of the time animated ads, you can always (on firefox), download the adblocker and you won’t have to deal with them ever again.
You can attach and view attachments easily in Alpine. Attaching is self explanatory, viewing attachments such as images or other files simply launches the appropriate associated program for it in the Windows environment.