Is Mail ancient history?
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I recall people saying AIM would replace mail … what, 15-20 years ago? Is AIM - or the parent service, AOL - still around?
Yes, indeed! I still have my original AIM and ICQ accounts from the 90's. Mostly now I use Jabber (XMPP) for IM'ing. MyOpera has an XMPP server running, though I wouldn't use it now with just weeks to go. There are plenty of other places to get an XMPP account for those instant messages.
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From my perspective, texting is something informal that I do only for brief messages or for which I want a faster or very brief response, much like making a quick phone call. Texting doesn't lend itself readily to more formal or to longer communication of information, attachments, etc., which instead fall better into the eMail realm. Most of my messages are sent and arrive via eMail, in large part because it is a slower-paced form of communications (much like writing postal mail, but delivered quicker and cheaper) which allows more thought and clarity than the hyper-abbreviated snap-statements usually intrinsic to texting or even brief voice messaging. To paraphrase a famous line: eMail is an elegant tool, for a more civilized age.
I've used POP3 for many years, most of those under various PocoMail versions which I first adopted back in the days of concern over HTML eMail exploits (since Poco has its own HTML engine that blocks the auto-executing code that was so problematic in earlier days before most other eMail browsers took preventive measures). Likewise, Poco's built-in foldering and filtering were outstanding, as were its configurability and polish… it was (and is) to eMail what Old Opera was (and is) to web browsing. Sadly Poco is no longer being developed, just as Old Opera is now essentially abandoned, though both are still quite useful.
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There will always be a place for an email client but I think the world is moving away from that means of communicating and I'm moving with it. Outlook.com is a phenomenal webmail program that is evolving faster than other comparable programs. I love the new features (Sweep, drag and drop, integration with Skydrive/Calendar/People) and the quick access I have via my phone, iPad and Surface. I think you'll find, particularly among the younger set, that the older email style is more or less no longer in the game. We use an email client at our place of business but at home, both my wife and I have abandoned it.
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Mail standards are important, but have not evolved enough the last ten years. We need mail that is encrypted and signed by default, but it was only ever common to corporate users of Lotus Notes - which hardly anybody use any more.
Improved mail is important, but it is difficult to get to where we need to be because it takes cooperation between the client and the server, and it is difficult to improve mail security without breaking too much backward compatibility.
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As a replacement for "snail mail", e-mail is not. There is really no such thing as verified sender, registered (mail that has to be signed for) ... or any form of privacy. ...We had e-mail which offered all that and more. It was called X.400. It failed because most users preferred "free" and most developers preferred easy.
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Mail is always a part of the Internet. Webmail is just another web service. I don't want Internet to be reduced to only Web.
I love mail clients, faster, more convenient, customizable and standard than any webmail. For a long time i technically supported and discretely promoted the Foxmail chinese mail client with French users, then choose (2008) the smart and reliable integration of many clients in Opera Desktop Internet Suite. M2 is a great piece of software and i know a french guy at Opera Software worked to make it better. Bravo.I only use webmails when i can't do a better job… and only to read/write texts, only words, without html "bling-bling" part !
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Mail is always a part of the Internet. Webmail is just another web service. I don't want Internet to be reduced to only Web.
I love mail clients, faster, more convenient, customizable and standard than any webmail.Standard email clients may be many things but they are not faster and more convenient. Nothing could be faster or more convenient than webmail. I'm not trying to promote it by any means, since I fully agree that there will always be a place for it (at least in the foreseeable future) but we need to keep the discussion real. Even Mozilla more or less abandoned it, turning it over to their community for development. MS places far more emphasis on Outlook.com than Windows Live Mail (and yes, Outlook itself is still available via the Office suite but in truth, that has more business applications than most consumers need or want). I access my mail all day with my smart phone and my tablet: that's convenience.
Check out this article (one of many… search for more):
http://www.tested.com/tech/494-web-mail-vs-desktop-mail-client-what-do-you-use/
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@bv:
… We need mail that is encrypted and signed by default…
+1. That's one of my fondest dreams… eMail protocols and software with built-in robust encryption and signing, able to automatically apply it and decode from it on a more-or-less ordinary basis. In this age of perpetual snooping, I'd venture to guess the market for that would be real, vast, and immediate...
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@bv:
We need mail that is encrypted and signed by default
And you can bet that the moment you lock down your email to that degree, you're going to guarantee that you'll become a target for the NSA and other like-minded government agencies. If you take the trouble to try and hide your messages, you've simply placed a target on your back. No thanks. nothing I do via email needs that level of privacy. I'm not a country nor a corporation needing that level of protection. If I need my communications to be that private, I will definitely take means other than the internet.
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@bv:
… We need mail that is encrypted and signed by default…
+1. That's one of my fondest dreams… eMail protocols and software with built-in robust encryption and signing, able to automatically apply it and decode from it on a more-or-less ordinary basis. In this age of perpetual snooping, I'd venture to guess the market for that would be real, vast, and immediate...
There are a number of projects working on providing this. Here is one called Virtru I read about today. This article in The Register subjects the beta to critical review.
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Mail is always a part of the Internet. Webmail is just another web service. I don't want Internet to be reduced to only Web.
I love mail clients, faster, more convenient, customizable and standard than any webmail.Standard email clients may be many things but they are not faster and more convenient. Nothing could be faster or more convenient than webmail.
I own multiple email accounts for different purpose (hobby, personal, job, web buying…). Using an email client to manage all of them in one place is a MUST... A webmail or multiple webmail cannot offer the same service, performance, a better message searching/sorting across accounts. When i have to switch between all webmail for all different accounts it's for me a nightmare and a big loss of time :evil:
Even Mozilla more or less abandoned it, turning it over to their community for development.
It's mainly because email or newsgroups client don't make so much money income than web browsers !
If Google pay Mozilla for making an email software compatible with Google business, they'll invest in it for sure
Same thing for Opera Mail now… Opera Software don't want to loose money for a such not bankable product...I access my mail all day with my smart phone and my tablet: that's convenience.
I use IMAP/SMTP agent to manage all my email accountS with my phone/tablet too !
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http://www.darkmail.info/
"Silent Circle and Lavabit are developing a new way to do email with end-to-end encryption. We welcome like-minded organizations to join our alliance."http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/11/01/lavabit-and-silent-circle-form-dark-mail-alliance-to-thwart-email-surveillance/
"The new protocol will be based on Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), a set of open Extensible Markup Language (XML) technologies for real-time online communication, including instant messaging, presence, multiparty chat, voice and video calls, online collaboration, gaming, file transfer, Internet of Things applications including the smart grid, and social networking services."Silent Circle Instant Messaging Protocol
https://silentcircle.com/static/download/SCIMP paper.pdf
The protocol is placed completely into the public domain, and the implementation code is open source. -
I don't think mail is going away, but it's being replaced in some areas. For example, if I want to send a message to someone I know I will probably just use Facebook. I don't even have the e-mail address of most people I know.
But for work, school, etc. I prefer regular e-mail. Any time more than a few messages start flying around Facebook and those other alternatives just don't cut it.
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But for work, school, etc. I prefer regular e-mail. Any time more than a few messages start flying around Facebook and those other alternatives just don't cut it.
Same here. That reminds me of my office sometimes trying to work a problem via text messages. After a few texts, sometimes spanning hours, I get fatigued with the issue and just wish it could all be dumped into one e-mail, or better yet, just pick up the phone and talk it out in five minutes. E-mail leaves me a record of the issue and is more easily archived.
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Mail is there to stay, but whatever it's used for has changed and will probably keep changing. I'm happy that all the superficial chatter has moved to Facebook and Whatsapp and the like; my mailbox contains a higher percentage of really relevant things, stuff that I want to keep. [Although I'm still impressed at how fast and efficiently I still find stuff from years ago with M2].
At work, I wish that many things would NOT be done via email that are. Sometimes I wish for folks to use a chat client, sometimes I wish that they'd just call me on the phone instead, many times email is abused for a nonexistent task + ticket system. The fact that email does all these things shows how flexible it is, and so whatever we'll do in the future, email will be there with us. What we will need then is M2 on steroids.
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@bv:
We need mail that is encrypted and signed by default
And you can bet that the moment you lock down your email to that degree, you're going to guarantee that you'll become a target for the NSA and other like-minded government agencies. …
Not if the protocol is changed so that everything is always encrypted. When the default is secure mail - like it is for paper mail - rather than open postcards, it will be the users of old mail software that does not encrypt and sign who will stand out. They might be suspected of using steganography
I do not fear government agencies except that they have proven to leak significantly. What I fear and want protection against is criminals and shady corporations with questionable ethics.
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I'm afraid I do fear the government. When we're tapping the phone conversations of one of the leader of one of our closest allies, I fear that anything is possible under the guise of national security. And I do not believe that any encryption will protect us from prying eyes and furthermore that encryption precautions will do exactly what I said: make us an even bigger target. I refuse to transmit anything of importance to me via email (any kind of email). Anything and everything today can (and will) be hacked including the Pentagon. The only truly safe way to transmit information is to actually speak with the other person face to face. That being impossible, I suppose the next best method is via a landline. Sure they can be tapped but the probability of that is negligible.
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…. I suppose the next best method is via a landline. Sure they can be tapped but the probability of that is negligible.
International telephone lines have been routinely tapped for decades by surveillance systems like GCHQ in the UK. Current internet surveillance is simply a development of that to reflect changing technology.
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The reports of the death of mail are premature. At work it's in use constantly and I can get to it anywhere. At home I use POP on around 8 or 9 different accounts and merge them into a single inbox in Outlook (full software version). Hugely convenient, and much more powerful than any of the message/social alternatives.
Chat may have moved off email, but for any serious communication email can't be beaten.
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Phone lines can be tapped. Conversations between people face to face can be recorded. However, the probability of that sort of communication between ordinary people being intercepted versus encrypted email being targeted is relatively remote I would guess.
No one is saying that email is dead; at least that's not my argument. However, the importance of email for the average person online today is greatly reduced from what it was in the 90's. Folks here are not particularly "average" and so it doesn't surprise me that we would see a bolstered defense of email. Most people I know have a few accounts… two or three, one of which is a throw away account. Having many accounts is simply not viewed as important. And I would venture to say that by far, most communication is on social networks, texting and phone calls with email much further down on the list.