Question

Define e-mail client. Describe two e-mail clients. Describe two Web-based e-mail services. List the pros and cons of e-mail clients and e-mail services. Provide your opinion of using an e-mail client and an e-mail service. provide the costs associated with the two e-mail clients and the two Web-based e-mail services you described.

Answer 1

E-Mail Client:

An email client is a program or web application that is designed to receive, write, send, and keep your email messages. It is a desktop application that enables configuring one or more email addresses to receive, read, compose and send emails from that email address through the desktop interface. It provides a central interface for receiving, composing and sending emails of configured email addresses.

Two E-Mail Clients:

1. Apple Mail (Mac):- Apple's Mail application, also known as Mail.app or simply Mail, allows you to collect all your email from across the web and various email servers in one place, and it actively engages your email as you read it.

For example:- If you get an email with an invitation to a meeting next Thursday, Mail will detect it and make it simple to kick that appointment right over to iCal.

Like the integration between Windows Desktop Search and Outlook, Mail is integrated with Spotlight to make deep messaging your messages easy.

2. Thunderbird (Windows, Mac, Linux):- Thunderbird is an open-source offering from Mozilla. It is a solid email application that sports the same extensibility of its code-sibling Firefox. The addition of Lightening, a Thunderbird extension, adds scheduling and task management functionality to Thunderbird.

Two Web-based email services:

1. Outlook.com:- It is a free web- based email service provided by Microsoft. Users can access it on the web. Microsoft has combined Hotmail and Windows Live into one email service and has added support for contacts and your calendar.
2. Yahoo! Mail:- It is a web- based email service launched in 1997 through the American parent company- Yahoo!. It provides four different email plans: three for personal use and another for business. You can switch among email, chat and text- messaging options. You can send and receive email messages in 21 languages. A Yahoo! Mail account also provides unlimited message storage, email search, contact lists, personalization, spam blockers and virus scanning.

Pros and cons of email clients:

Pros:

1. You can track multiple email accounts all in one place, without signing in and signing out of accounts.
2. A desktop email client is independent of internet connectivity and bandwidth
3. You can access pre- downloaded emails offline.
4. You don't have to pay for cloud storage to backup and store large email database files.
5. You can backup your mail database as often as you wish and store it in place you wish.

Cons:

1. You are tied to an operating system such as Windows, Linux or Mac.
2. It might take some time to install and configure a desktop email client.
3. Syncing between multiple computers and devices can be problematic.
4. It may not be worth installing a desktop email client in order to track one email account.
5. You might not want to keep your mail data on the computer you are using.

Pros and cons of email services:

Pros:

1. No installation is required as computer applications are rendered in the browser.
2. You are not tied to any platform such as Windows, Linux or Mac.
3. You can use a cloud- based email service across devices without worrying about conflicts and synchronization.
4. You can log-in to your web- based email account from anywhere.
5. You can keep all your email data off your computer.

Cons:

1. There is no guarantee that your free web- based account will always be accessible.
2. When you use the browser, you may feel tempted to browse the websites under the other tabs.
3. It will often provide fewer features than the desktop version.
4. Free Web-mail puts contextual advertising next to the emails you read.
5. It is not very convenient to click through new browser tabs and switch back and forth.

Opinion:

In my opinion, Thunderbird is the best email client to use as it is supported on many operating systems like Windows, Mac and Linux. The addition of Lightening feature adds scheduling and task management functionality to Thunderbird and makes it a solid email application.

In my opinion, the best web- based email service to use is Outlook.com because it provides many features like using it offline, dragging emails between tabs, scheduling emails, setting an expiry time, etc.

Cost:

The two email clients- Apple Mail and Thunderbird described above are free of cost.

The two web- based email services- Outlook.com and Yahoo! Mail described above are free of cost.