http://www.osnews.com/story/7857/Review_Pine_Vs_Mozilla_ThunderBird Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:30:59 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When you really want shell integration in Thunderbird, you can always write a plugin for it.

Just have a look at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/specs/extensions.html for ideas. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 08:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Walla"

Interesting spelling of voilá (which I've probably spelt wrong as well ^^;;) Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i think the author, Sharif Islam, actaully meant "Wallah".

the only reason i use a gui mail clients is to easily read HTML and other rich formats. sometimes very rarely HTML mail is useful. (such as monthly wghats-on mails from the National Portrait Gallery, UK), for example.

i use Evolution but it keeps crashing on me. i use it in the hope that one day it will be able to do task and calander sharing easily. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Its www.walla.com Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Evolution is rock stable here and I prefer it to Thunderbird. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm not a big fan of thunderbird. It's a bit clunky and it goes wrong sometimes.

Evolution is better in my option, but kmail beats the pants off of both of them. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Evolution is 1st choice under Linux.
For Windows I prefer ThunderBird.
KMail ist gay as hell. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Pine users fear no more for there is Mutt! Mutt is an elegant ncurses MUA with many, many features available. Very good documentation as well. A more liberal license. And for the nostalgic there is "muttlikepine" which makes your Mutt function almost exactly the same like Pine. You don't *have* to use a GUI or X MUA these days, there are still good alternatives available. Details and more at http://www.mutt.org (run it in screen / ssh and never look back Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Because I find it stable and working-good.

"KMail ist gay as hell. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I use opera's M2 in both Windows and Linux, and love it to death. I guess it is all in what you are used to though. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Let me recommend Gnus - www.gnus.org - it takes some time getting used to, but once you do, you'll never look back.

I never got the hang of Pine. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hi hi hi "Pine Vs Mozilla ThunderBird"

Why not Lynx vs Mozilla Firefox ? Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm trying to find a nicer e-mail client I can use here at work instead of horrible old Netscape mail. Unfortunately I'm on Redhat 7.2 and don't have superuser permissions.

Tried Kmail and it's nice, but unfortunately lacks the ability to filter into IMAP folders. This is a major bummer.

Tried installing Thunderbird but I can't seem to get round not having libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 and presumably some other shared libs.

I could probably put up with mozilla mail but I can't get it to play nice with Firefox for some reason.

Can't install a recent verion of Balsa due to library problems, and the one I have here (V1.x something) doesn't do filtering.

Can't install Evolution without root permissions.


As you may have gathered, I'm no Linux expert, but I'd be grateful for any suggestions if there's anything else around that might fit the bill. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You could install thunderbird on a USB Memory stick and make sure your profile data is there too and run it from the stick. (See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=81759 )

Or you could try to set up some kind of network drive where you locate your profile and configure each thunderbird installation from their. (Please note it's only a low priority for the devs to allow multiple thunderbird instances access the profile data simultaneously) Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i use thunderbird for one primary reason: the baysian spam filter. i love it to death.
iv tried evolution, pine, and a gtk1 client i cannot remember the name of and liked them all, but without a similar spam filter i just cant use it.

that being said, is there any way to use a baysian filter with these apps? i dont dislike thunderbird, but evolution would be a nice change for a while Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Another thing that bothered me is I have to install the client in each machine I use. Although IMAP allows me to retrieve all the folders from the mail server but the filters and spam controls do not get imported. For instance, if I create a filter at work, I will have to do the same at home if I want to move those messages in a certain folder. I can install my own mail server and have my own filtering setup, but I am too lazy and would like to rely on the school's server. I also have to train the junk mail controller every time I install a new client. I had procmail and SPAMAssasain in my old setup. The filters that I have now in Thunderbird is as good as those old recipes.

I wonder if an IMAP client could use one of the server-side folders and/or email messages to store some or all of its settings? Then any changes in settings/filters could be reflected in all clients.

Of course there might be security implications - if the settings were stored as an email message of a particular format, it might be possible to get screwed over by receiving a carefully crafted email message from someone.

Or maybe there is already something like this done in some implementations? Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You almost had it right, it's "voilà" (But I guess in English you just don't have to put the accent on the a). Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wanted to try out Mutt but ... call me stupid ... I couldn't figure out how to use it even after reading the documenation. (More specifically, I couldn't figure out how to write my .muttrc so that it would check my imaps account.) Fri, 30 Jul 2004 11:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You could always use the fatal combination: fetchmail + procmail + spam assassin + the MUA of your choice. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 12:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Google for ".muttrc" for lots of sample .muttrc files

"Kmail ist gay.." Anything for linux with a k in front of it is gay IMHO [except of course for the kernel ] Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wonder if an IMAP client could use one of the server-side folders and/or email messages to store some or all of its settings? Then any changes in settings/filters could be reflected in all clients.

Pine has this:
http://www.washington.edu/pine/tech-notes/low-level.html#remote-con... Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? to the previous poster - i use evolution with spam assasin. after abourt 2 montsh of training it - i no longe rneed to train it and it works exrtremely well. saves me a lot of time.

wallah is a joyous surprised exclamation in arabic, which the author Sharif Islam is more likely to have uttered than ... et voila ... although he might be from a francophoen ocuntry. less of the liberal imperialism please! Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? so which email client is straight? Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So that's why the sysadmin keeps winking at me! Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm using the latest Thunderbird on Windows XP and I simply love it. The spamfilter is the best so far. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 14:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Anything for linux with a k in front of it is gay IMHO [except of course for the kernel ]

So that's why everyone looks at me funny when I talk about the "k-ernel"...

As a pine user for going on 10 years now, I can't shake the huge advantage that having my mail available in an identical setup from anywhere (that has ssh) gives me. I tried mutt, but it acted too much like elm. I tried "cone", but never got comfortable with it.

Fetchmail + procmail + spamassassin + pine works pretty well, I only 2-3 pieces of spam a week (filtering rate of 99% or so). Fri, 30 Jul 2004 15:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? iv tried evolution but without a similar spam filter i just cant use it. is there any way to use a baysian filter with these apps? i dont dislike thunderbird, but evolution would be a nice change for a while

Sure. Using Spamassassin with Evolution is not difficult. Just read a good howto first like this one: http://www.atlantawebhost.com/articles/evolution_spamassassin.php

Spamassassin has Bayesian learning (read e.g: http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/BayesInSpamAssassin ), black and white lists, lots of addons etc.
You can also use SA with both Razor, DCC and Pyzor.

I use Evolution + Spamassassin + Razor and it works quite well for me. Only problem is that SA (used on your own PC) like most other spam filters, still prefers to download the spam which can take extra time. There was some program (I cannot remember the name) that deletes spam already on the sever before it reaches your box. That might suit you better if you get very much spam (putting your pals to a white list would prevent the filter from accidentally deleting those mails).

Also, if I remember right, the next version of Evolution will have an intergrated spamfilter. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 15:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? oh yeah, i just set up spamassassin and it is great!
thanks to all who suggested it, believe it or not iv never heard of it until now ^_^;; Fri, 30 Jul 2004 16:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would recommend something more effective like Popfile (http://popfile.sf.net).

Also Mozilla is lacking some important features (well I believe there are just no GUIs for the back-end features which are implemented):

Configurable folder for where Deleted Messages are moved (IMAP).
Identity support (allow choosing from multiple From's for one mail account).
The offline support also need some work, it frequently "loses" messages I have already downloaded.
Faster loading of folders. It takes three seconds to open an IMAP folder, no matter what. Just show me the damn cached messages, and don't ask like the interface is completely frozen. Add the new ones as they arrive, even Outlook Express can do this.
There is no reason to change the title of the application every time I change folders.
There is no reason to open a new window every time I double click on a folder. Maybe I double clicked because I'm tired of waiting for it to load so slowly! Now I have two windows, run slowly.

Unfortunately, the authors are busy adding RSS support, and other useless bloat, but maybe someday the interface will be usable. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 16:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> "Kmail ist gay.." Anything for linux with a k in front of it is gay IMHO [except of course for the kernel ]

Dont say such stupidities please,

Did you know what "pine" means in french ? you'll be suprised. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 16:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In your .mutt/muttrc:

set folder="imap://username@server:993"
set imap_keepalive=60
set imap_forcessl=yes
set imap_authenticators="LOGIN"
set imap_user=username
set spoolfile="imap://username@server:993/INBOX"

If your username includes an @ sign, change it for a % example:

set folder="imap://dave%xdroop.com@mail.xdroop.com:993"

Of course it goes without saying that your mutt must be compiled both with SSL and IMAP support.

And the best part? All this works under the cygwin port of mutt, too! Just because you have to use windows is no reason to deny yourself a decent mail client! Fri, 30 Jul 2004 17:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I use Yahoo! mail. It is accessable from anything with an internet connection, and it retrieves my pop mail from me as well. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 18:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've been using pine since 95. Every time I try one of these GUI clients I don't get it, why use a bit fat bloated GUI client to read TEXT messages. And for you newbie's out there HTML does not belong in e-mail. Even on my windows workstations I'm still using PC-Pine. Combine pine with procmail and there is nothing better. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 19:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If I am logged on to the console of a machine with X running, I usually use evolution. If I'm connected over ssh or a slow connection I'll use mutt. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 20:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I couldn't help noticing the assertion that you need a graphical client to have a folder view. Not true. Mutt has this (not officially yet). http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jrh29/mutt/ The screenshot is fearsome. http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jrh29/mutt/mutt_shot_patch8.png If you configure your ~/.mailcap to run text/html through a filter to textize HTML, you're set. With this and w3m, you can get by on terminal windows alone. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 20:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The Gui mail clients I have tried include Evolution, Thunderbird and Sylpheed (my preferred over the the other 2)- and at the end, I keep going back to Mutt.

It's fast and has tons of configurations which are great for me to kill time. Also switching between folders in Mutt is easy, I just bind mail folders into keys such as F1-F7. I also use it to access my imap account. Basically it does everything I need.

My complete email solution includes mutt, ssmtp, fetchmail, procmail, crontab, spamassassin and bogofilter. Like you I receive lots of mails (and spams) daily. Every 30 minutes fetchmail is executed from cron. Feeds all the incomming mails to procmail. Procmail filters out the ones I want to specific folders. Then the rest go through Bogofilter then SA. All the junks go into a Junk folder. I rarely if ever gets any spam. The settings I have are rock solid for the past several years (technically I just start using bogofilter & spamassassin within the past 6 months when all the sudden my mailbox is filled with spams daily).

Obviously a GUI all-in-one like Tbird is much easer to setup, built in Bayesian spam filter etc . But I just prefer CLI over GUI. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 21:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? O'Wait, wrong holy war. Now I like Slypheed and Slypheed-claws.

1) Slypheed-claws for windows
2) Either Sylpheed or Slypheed-claws for *nix. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 22:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dunno if it's been pointed out already, but is often pronounced [wala]. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 00:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Funny, funny. Thanks for some levity Sat, 31 Jul 2004 14:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I generally install my GUI mail client on one machine, then `ssh -X -Y` to it and run. That way I only need one local setup. Mon, 02 Aug 2004 21:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments