New Email Poll - What Email Solution Do You Use?

[dlevens]

I am curious how things have changes since my last poll, especially with some new solutions out there like gmail.

 

Also in a post please add any tips and tricks you have come up with to best handle email organization, virus defence and spam blocking.

 

After you vote please at least post how you voted and why you currently use that solution.

 

Dennis

[dlevens]

I will start things off. As of this post my current email solution is gmail. For those of you not familiar this is google's email solution which is currently in beta. http://gmail.com where you get 1000mb free and some new novel ways to view email in conversation threads, and no more folders or sorting.

 

I used to do my email here at TCH where I had my own installation of squirrelmail but have recently switched over to gmail.

 

Currently all my email comes in still to my domain as I use somename@**** as my primary email address. When someone emails me it first goes to TCH, then using a filter it is then forwarded to my gmail account.

 

This allows me to still keep my email address that everyone already knows, also allows me to filter all email through Spam Assassin, and then end up in my gmail account where I get 1000mb free. Gmail also has spam filter so my email is filtered twice for spam and gmail has virus protection (something we do not have here).

 

In my testing I have discovered a few tips that might help many of you here at TCH.

 

You have filters and forwarders in your cpanel. Filters ALWAYS are read before a forwarder.

 

Below is a screen shot of 7 email tests I did to see what is required to have Spam Assassin still filter my email but then forward my email to gmail. Now you will see there are only 3 of the 7 ways where my email is filtered by Spam Assassin but still gets forwarded to an external account (gmail). Of those 3 options only one option leaves a copy in my mailbox here at TCH and also puts a copy in my gmail. The other two are identical in that they do not leave a copy behind in my email box at tch but still filter in Spam Assassin and still forward to gmail.

 

Keep in mind that tests 3 and 4 have the same outcome because as mentioned earlier filters always read before forwarders and if you have a filter the forward is then NOT read or used. The same goes for tests 5 & 6.

 

 

For me the perfect solution was setting things up like test 4 because I did not want or need a second copy of my email at TCH as it would fill up my space, and this gave me Spam Assassin filtering at TCH and then spam filter again and virus scan at gmail.

 

To better understand the screen shot see the below info:

TCH Mailbox = Did I create a mailbox at tch for the test account

TCH Forwarder = Did I create a forwarder for test account in cpanel

TCH Filter = Did I create a filter for test account in cpanel

TCH Inbox = Did the test email make it to my test accont inbox at TCH

Gmail Inbox = Did the test email make it to my test account inbox at gmail

 

For the last two colums the YES means the email made it there but Spam Assassin did not filter it. YES - SA means the email made it there and Spam Assassin DID filter it.

 

Hope this all makes sense, and make sure and share your own experience and suggestions.

 

 

Dennis Levens

[LisaJill]

I use mail.app on my pc - you didn't include any local solutions, only webmail type ones (other than other, which I chose).

 

I like having my private and confidential stuff locally, that way it stays with me and it can be backed up. I use gmail for other stuff but it's not my main email.

[TCH-Rob]

I had to go with other as well. I use Kmail, I keep my mail localy and am not a fan of webmail. I dont scan for viri at the moment but after I do some fine tuning on my system I will be setting up a local spam/virus resolution on my computer and my skip using SA on my domain accounts.

[derelekt]

Yeah I dont like webmail too much myself, I enjoy the rich featuresets present in local email clients. I personally use Outlook 2003 but I am thinking about trying out thunderbird. Outlook 2003 filters dont seem to work very well consistantly.

 

-alex

[TCH-Bruce]

Still using a pop3 client, spam assassin and K9 local to catch spam. My virus software strips off virus attachments.

[TCH-Thomas]

I use my domain adress downloaded via pop3 to my computer for friends & family.

For friends & family sending me large attachements I use gmail.

My isp adress is used by tch and some old mailinglists.

For "probably gonna send me junk stuff" people I use yahoo or hotmail.

Edited October 7, 2004 by Jikrantz

[GroovyFish]

I use my domain email address as my main address with Outlook 2003. I use Spam Assassin and McAfee. I do have a gmail account, but I used it mainly as an address to sign up for things or people sending large attachments.

[Etanisla]

For personal stuff, I use my personal domain and KMail. For all of my mailing lists, I use my personal domain with an address just for that mailing list (like FedoraLover@suchandsuch for the Fedora List). Anything sent to that address but is not from the list is spam anyways and will automatically get filtered.

 

I use my Gmail address as my point of contact for my websites, for any public coorespondence, and for online shopping. Also, as a drop-box if anyone needs to send me a large file.

[BrettWho?]

I've been using my domain + Mozilla Thunderbird.

 

I want a program like Outlook or Thunderbird that is good but I can also minimize it the icon tray and have it notify me when I get a new email.

[TCH-Bruce]

I want a program like Outlook or Thunderbird that is good but I can also minimize it the icon tray and have it notify me when I get a new email.

You can use a program called PopTray (www.poptray.org) that sits in your system tray to notify you of new mail. You can also build filters with it to purge spam before downloading. It can also be linked to your favorite email client to respond to messages.

 

Oh, did I mention it's FREE?

 

And welcome to the fourms!

[BrettWho?]

I want a program like Outlook or Thunderbird that is good but I can also minimize it the icon tray and have it notify me when I get a new email.

You can use a program called PopTray (www.poptray.org) that sits in your system tray to notify you of new mail. You can also build filters with it to purge spam before downloading. It can also be linked to your favorite email client to respond to messages.

 

Oh, did I mention it's FREE?

 

And welcome to the fourms!

I actually found out that Outlook 2003 can be minimized to the icon tray after playing around a little more. But I'll check out PopTray to see if I like that any better. Thanks for the welcome.

[TCH-Don]

The advantage of poptray is that it shows just the headers

and you can delete from server without downloading.

[TCH-Bruce]

And PopTray won't eat up as much memory as Outlook while it's running.