There’s more than one superior alternative to Outlook Express, actually, and the best part is, they’re completely free. It’s not hard to be better than Outlook Express, which is well known for a history of security flaws that can expose your computer to viruses, poor handling of multiple email accounts, awful IMAP support, and a complete lack of spam handling features. I have a pair of email programs for you to try that deal well with all of those things: Mozilla Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail.
The Blue Thunderbird of Paradise
Mozilla Thunderbird is an open source email program by the folks that bring you the popular Firefox web browser. Thunderbird is a very good all-around email program that handles all the basic email tasks quite well. It has a good spam filter that you can train to catch the sort of spam you receive, and a fast search mechanism to help you quickly pull up what you’re looking for. Thunderbird also has simplified setup for use with popular web based mail services such as Yahoo! Mail and Gmail, so it’s a good choice if you want a desktop client for either of those services. Finally Thunderbird has a robust extension system that allows you to easily install plugins that expand Thunderbird’s feature set.
That yellow ribbon means it's Live
Windows Live Mail, from Microsoft, is the successor to Outlook Express and Windows Vista’s Windows Mail, and is usable on either Windows XP or Vista. Windows Live Mail handles multiple email accounts easily, and deals with IMAP (in which mail is stored remotely) well. Like Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail has a spam filter built in. That is reason enough to upgrade to either of these programs. It doesn’t seem to have as simple or complete search mechanism as Thunderbird, but it does come with a built in calendar, which Thunderbird lacks.
As part of the Microsoft’s Windows Live initiative, the Windows Live Mail installer gives you the option of installing 6 other Windows Live programs at the same time, which you may or may not want to try. It also integrates with Microsoft’s Windows Live ID system which provides a universal login to a variety of Microsoft services, such as Xbox Live, though this feature is entirely optional; you do not need a Live ID to use Windows Live Mail. Microsoft loves to leverage and monetize all their properties, so the installation process will ask you if you want to set your default Internet search provider to Windows Live Search and your home page to MSN. It even checks the boxes “yes” for you. Thunderbird is rather more polite.
Either program will import your existing email, address book and account settings from Outlook Express, so switching ought to be a snap. Be sure to have the email account settings as provided by your ISP or email provider handy, just in case.
Here are the links to the download pages for both programs again:
Comments on this entry are closed.