Ugh- why are people still using POP3???

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,920
2,161
126
Email client - settings - never delete emails from server

I usually set my email client to delete the emails off the server after something like 45 days.

So 45 days of new email will come in when she sets up again? Also, how does she check her spam folder?
 
Feb 25, 2011
16,992
1,621
126
Oh, you are 'that guy' :D

I migrated one of "those" guys recently when his employer went with GMail for Business. He wanted to keep everything, so I used Thunderbird to import his old Eudora mailboxes (13 years' worth) and upload them to the IMAP server...

Felt dirty somehow. But it worked like a charm.
 
Last edited:

WhoBeDaPlaya

Diamond Member
Sep 15, 2000
7,415
404
126
I migrated one of "those" guys recently when his employer went with GMail for Business. He wanted to keep everything, so I used Thunderbird to import his old Eudora mailboxes and upload them to the IMAP server...

Felt dirty somehow. But it worked like a charm.
Heh, most of my mails are from my own domains (bluesmoke.net, bluesonic.net). Availability is generally not a problem and neither are backups (my home scratch drive gets duplicated to my portable 1TB that I take to work everyday and gets backed up to an offline drive).

I'm amazed that its still trucking along. Heck, even still have it pulling mails from school (using GMail) and work (IMAP).
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,568
13,803
126
www.anyf.ca
For some reason I am suddenly missing Outlook Express. Specifically the one that came with win98. Something about that receiving new mail icon that made me excited that someone actually sent me an email and I could not wait to see what it was. I knew if it took more than a minute it must be a good one that has an attachment. Then, the appearance of a new email, in bold, with the (1), followed by this sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVAiuh0s79s

Oh the memories, and how I now take email and technology for granted, as I give an evil eye to the 3000 emails in my spam folder that I will not even bother to open one by one.

I also remember that sending mail icon, oh how I dreaded waiting with the utmost fear of getting that error message about the server timing out after 120 seconds, which happened nearly any time I tried to send an attachment. The wonderful sending mail icon would be replaced with the evil yellow exclamation mark error icon. I would disconnect and reconnect in hope I get on at a better speed, then try again. Eventually it would work.

I think I need to setup a win98 VM with OE for that nostalgic feeling. :p
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,920
2,161
126
For some reason I am suddenly missing Outlook Express. Specifically the one that came with win98. Something about that receiving new mail icon that made me excited that someone actually sent me an email and I could not wait to see what it was. I knew if it took more than a minute it must be a good one that has an attachment. Then, the appearance of a new email, in bold, with the (1), followed by this sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVAiuh0s79s

Oh the memories, and how I now take email and technology for granted, as I give an evil eye to the 3000 emails in my spam folder that I will not even bother to open one by one.

I also remember that sending mail icon, oh how I dreaded waiting with the utmost fear of getting that error message about the server timing out after 120 seconds, which happened nearly any time I tried to send an attachment. The wonderful sending mail icon would be replaced with the evil yellow exclamation mark error icon. I would disconnect and reconnect in hope I get on at a better speed, then try again. Eventually it would work.

I think I need to setup a win98 VM with OE for that nostalgic feeling. :p

Outlook Express was a solid piece of code. Too bad they ruined it when it turned into Live Mail or whatever bloated crap they called it.
 

BillGates

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2001
7,388
2
81
Holy crap, forgot all about Eudora. Blast from the past!

I like POP3 since I have limited webserver space - my Outlook PST is probably over 1GB. As long as I keep my Outlook closed when I'm not at home, I can get mail on my phone, then pull it off the server with Outlook when I get home.
 

Sa7aN

Senior member
Aug 16, 2010
204
1
0
"Hi, my email keeps getting stuck while downloading a 25 MB attachment"
"Hi, I'm fine with deleting 5 copies of the same email at different locations."
"Hi, I'm used to not having the same sent items in my folders on my phone/computer/at home/etc"
"Hi, I leave a copy of the messages on the server so I can't empty my mailbox without logging into webmail."
"Hi, I'm from 2001 when people had 10MB mailboxes and were forced to POP messages to keep them empty."

Getting frustrated with people today Freakin' get with the 21st century and start using IMAP or Exchange or equivalent. :mad:

I'm mad bro.

cox doesnt even offer imap.... ive had to deal with it with a cust computer transfer for the last 2 weeks
 

ahenkel

Diamond Member
Jan 11, 2009
5,357
3
81
Oh walking someone through setting up their POP3 ISP provided email on their iPhone makes me wanna climb a tower with a high powered rifle. Also my Chex Mix bold party blend smells a little fishy
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,920
2,161
126
They don't?

LOL- they scan the webpage for keywords and display ads. So does Amazon. So does every news website. So does most of the Internet. It's why nearly everything is free.

Can you imagine the logistics and manpower involved in reading people's email? You'd have to have 10's of 1000's of employees sitting there reading millions of "FWD : FWD : FWD : FWD : FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!!!" emails all day long. It would the the most expensive and worst job in the world.
 

Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
18,811
198
106
So 45 days of new email will come in when she sets up again? Also, how does she check her spam folder?

That is one of the big drawbacks to server level filtering.

I run a forum, and from time to time an email provider decides to block newsletters and activation emails. Someone signs up, does not receive their activation email, contacts me wanting to know where their activation email is. I tell them to get in touch with their email provider.
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,920
2,161
126
That is one of the big drawbacks to server level filtering.

I run a forum, and from time to time an email provider decides to block newsletters and activation emails. Someone signs up, does not receive their activation email, contacts me wanting to know where their activation email is. I tell them to get in touch with their email provider.

The problem is server level filtering is 100% necessary, otherwise ISP and company email would be unusable. We filter close to 900,000 messages a day as it is. Things that have a really high spam score don't even get sent to a customer's spam folder, it just gets obliterated.
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,391
1,780
126
The POP3 protocol is actually more stable than IMAP. Around 2003, IMAP was pretty loose and caused quite a few problems between server flavors and clients available. I've actually seen IMAP servers crash on occasion from differences in the way clients interpret mail folders and indexes.... I've never seen that happen with POP3.

Now, I'm not sure it's as much of an issue as most code has been standardized.
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,920
2,161
126
The POP3 protocol is actually more stable than IMAP. Around 2003, IMAP was pretty loose and caused quite a few problems between server flavors and clients available. I've actually seen IMAP servers crash on occasion from differences in the way clients interpret mail folders and indexes.... I've never seen that happen with POP3.

Now, I'm not sure it's as much of an issue as most code has been standardized.

Yeah, that got ironed out around 2005. It's rock solid right now.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,568
13,803
126
www.anyf.ca
LOL- they scan the webpage for keywords and display ads. So does Amazon. So does every news website. So does most of the Internet. It's why nearly everything is free.

Can you imagine the logistics and manpower involved in reading people's email? You'd have to have 10's of 1000's of employees sitting there reading millions of "FWD : FWD : FWD : FWD : FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!!!" emails all day long. It would the the most expensive and worst job in the world.

Actually there has been incidents of google employees stalking people through their services. Though it was isolated (some girlfriend/boyfriend thing or something like that). They normally don't actually read any content, but they can if they want to.
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,920
2,161
126
Actually there has been incidents of google employees stalking people through their services. Though it was isolated (some girlfriend/boyfriend thing or something like that). They normally don't actually read any content, but they can if they want to.

Inside track: Nearly EVERY mail service has people that do that. I know back in the day where everyone used POP, if someone called and complained they had a stuck attachment, we would go into their mailbox and clear the attachment out for them and then resend the message.

We also helped ourselves to the attachment...which was often a hilarious or very inappropriate photo (email was the original version of sexting). However, nobody goes around reading random inboxes.
 

acheron

Diamond Member
May 27, 2008
3,171
2
81
I keep trying to move my parents' email off of POP3, but no luck.

Mostly unrelated, but speaking of obsolete protocols, remember connecting to the net with SLIP?
 

CWM

Junior Member
Mar 2, 2013
1
0
0
Well my reason of using POP3 is... I want to control my mail... Put it in the folders I want etc.. I am still stuck using *COUGH* AOL MAIL because I DO NOT trust gmail at all.. Had a VERY BAD experience back in 2007... I lost over 1,000 msgs just poof! GONE... not even in ALL MAIL and had contacts start dissapearing randomly and I would add them back few weeks later going to send them something.. GONE...

ill never use IMAP Again!