Your many email options
Webmail, POP, IMAP and Thunderbird ... what will work best for you?
Despite the prevalence of texting and instant messaging, email is still very popular. Yet, I often see a look of consternation on someone’s face when I ask if they use webmail or an email program. It may sound complicated but by understanding a few essential aspects of email you’ll be able to answer this question and understand the email options available.
There are basically two types of email. The oldest is called POP wherein you use an email program to get and send messages and all your emails are stored in folders on your computer unless you delete them. With POP you usually use an email address provided by the company you pay for internet access, called an Internet Service Provider (ISP). For example your email address might end with cogeco.ca, sympatico.ca, or nexicom.net. Outlook Express was an early free email program bundled with Windows XP and was essentially a barebones version of Outlook which was part of the Microsoft Office suite. There were also other free email programs such as Eudora.
Then came webmail. With this type of email, called IMAP, you get an email address from a webmail provider, such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Windows Live Mail and you access your email using a browser, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome or the Edge in Windows 10. You view and compose emails in the browser and they are stored on the webmail company’s server. These days most ISPs have a website where you can login and check your POP email just as you would read webmail, which is mighty handy if you’re travelling. When you get home your messages can still be downloaded and saved on your computer with an email program.
There are good and bad things about each type of email. With POP email you can store thousands of messages for memories or business purposes on your computer and you don’t need an internet connection to read them. The great advantage of webmail is that you can access your email on any computer or mobile device and you can change your ISP but your webmail address will always be the same.
The advent of smartphones and tablets have complicated things by combining both types of email in a single app. On your iPad, iPhone, or Android device you have an email app or you can download Inbox specifically for Gmail. The nifty thing about a mobile device’s app is that it can access either your webmail or POP account and download the messages to your mobile device where you can read them and reply or compose new ones. Thus, you can access your POP email on your tablet and then download your email to your computer when you get home.
Microsoft has been trying to move everyone to webmail, especially its Live Mail services, and away from POP email and discontinued its free email program called Windows Live Mail 2012. Windows Mail, the email program that comes included in Windows 10, is actually designed to mimic the email app on a tablet and download your Gmail, Hotmail or other webmail messages. It can be used for POP email but it is a very basic program with few customizable settings.
However, there is a way to get both POP and IMAP email in one program on your laptop or desktop. Thunderbird (www.mozilla. org/en-US/thunderbird) is free and, besides having tons of features including a Canadian spell checker, it can handle not only POP email but also check your webmail and let you save the webmail messages in folders on your computer. To give it a try, download Thunderbird and set up one or more accounts using your email address and password for each one. Thunderbird will try to automatically set up the server settings for POP and webmail accounts. If you need help or more explanation about email visit either the Cogeco help site (https://tinyurl.com/y8wl3btv) or Nexicom’s (http://kb.nexicom.net/?cat=5). Bell’s help site (https://tinyurl. com/ya7yxf24) lists various email programs except Thunderbird, although Thunderbird will work fine using the Bell email settings.