Update on Eudora 6
Three months ago I started trying out the early beta of Eudora 6 for the Mac. Eudora is, in my opinion, a much better alternative to Microsoft’s Outlook Express. The program’s main new feature is a very good Junk mail filter, which does a very good job of that. I also use the new mailbox drawer (opens to the side of any mailbox window), which presents a clickable list of all your mailboxes, allowing easy switching between my many mailboxes without having to open new windows all the time.
If you have a prior version of Eudora 6 for the Mac, and are using it in sponsored mode (free but with ads), and are enjoying the spam filter, then enjoy it for as long as the beta operates–because the new download (v. 6.0b31) no longer includes the spam filter in any but the paid mode ($40 for a 1-year license, with support). The older version should work, and there’s not much difference between the early betas and the new general release.
Me, I paid my $40–it’s a good program, and worth it–I now depend on the Junk filter, it makes the spam pretty much evaporate.
The PC version includes a format painter (a la MS Word, I presume), but lacks the mailbox drawer. All other features are shared. I highly recommend this program, especially the Mac version (which has superior layout to the all-in-one window design in Outlook).
Downloads are here.
My mom recently bought a new laptop for her work in Washington, DC. Her main problems these days seem to stem from Outlook Express, so I recommended that she try Eudora. Although I’ve long since switched over to Linux for my own computing needs, I’m glad to see that Eudora is still around as an alternative to Outlook Express. If I were a Windows or Mac OS user, I would certainly give it a try.
This post calls my attention to one feature that you might want to add to your blog, a “mail this post to someone” form. As it is now, I’ll have to compose a new message to let me mom know that you, too, recommend Eudora. What a bother! 😉
How does it differ from ‘Mail’, which is obviously free?
From what I experienced with both programs, Eudora is a much more feature-rich email client, and much more “mature” (polished) than Mail.
Mail has an OK spam filter, but I don’t think it works as well as Eudora’s, and I had trouble getting it to work at all sometimes.
Eudora also has tons of settings and features, which are rather sparse in Mail. It also has the ability to tag with colors, and set the level of urgency/importance to an email, both features which are lacking in Mail (and important to my business).
Eudora also feels snappier, more compressed (more info is displayed in a smaller space), and is generally easier to use in my opinion.
Maybe with Panther they’ll fix the color thing, and maybe the urgency level–but I’ll still stay with Eudora. I’ll come back in a year or two and see what they’ve come up with then.
Do you know if it supports secure IMAP connections? There is a severe shortage of decent e-mail programs for the mac.
UltraBob:
It supports POP and IMAP protocols, with Password, Kerberos and APOP authentication. Check out the free download–it is complete except for SpamWatch in Sponsored mode (postage-stamp ad).
Eudora certainly qualifies as “decent,” at least.
I can’t get the “new mail alert” to work with Eudora version 6 on a Mac running OS X. Any suggestions?
If I understand your question correctly, then try:
Open the SPECIAL menu
Select the SETTINGS… command
Choose the panel called GETTING ATTENTION from the left menu
And select one or more of the four options under “When Something Exciting Happens.”
This will cause one of the alerts to go off whenever you receive new email.
Did you try that already?