I just finished the move to POP3-free e-mail, using IMAP instead for my e-mail needs. I’ve been using Outlook to manage my mail and calendar for the past seven years, ever since I figured out what the program did over and above Outlook Express, Eudora and PINE.
Throughout those seven years, I have searched for the perfect e-mail service. To be the perfect e-mail service, it had to let me access my e-mail from everywhere, let me easily send and receive HTML mail, keep track of a tremendous amount of e-mail that I may never file away into folders, and not burden me with stupid ads embedded into the messages I send. Likewise, I looked for the perfect e-mail client, which supports all of the above, as well as being a secure client. Yes, I know that Outlook has never really been the best choice when it came to security, but it does what I need, and I’m not that stupid when it comes to e-mail and opening attachments of unknown origin.
I knew that my IWU e-mail account was only a temporary address, so throughout college I looked for alternative e-mail services. I switched ISPs like underwear (that is to say, about once or twice a year) since leaving the dorms. I had long since ditched Juno, which has only gotten more ridiculous as of late. I could not go to AOL simply because it was AOL, and the same went for MSN. When Microsoft bought Hotmail, I wondered when the end of my free spam box inbox would come, and am surprised that after eight years I’ve still got it. MailandNews.com didn’t work out because it had some spotty service issues about five or six years back. And then I finally bought my own domain and got a web host almost two years ago. I must say, that has probably been the best thing for me in terms of creating my permanent place in (yes, I’m going to say it) cyberspace.
And now, I’ve finally left POP3 behind with my ask-mark.com e-mail accounts and I have moved entirely to IMAP, allowing me to read my unfiled mail from any of a number of clients, including the web. Hopefully this will make my life easier. If not, I can always go back to POP3.
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