Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 20:25:44 -0400
From: "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: apology for yahoo's mess
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 9/12/2013 4:32 PM, Tamar Lindsay wrote:

> Does google do any better?
> Does chrome do better than
> firefox for that?

I gave up on web-mail shortly after I first tried to use it.  They all
have at least one fatal flaw: you have no control over when or if your
user interface changes.

Mail on the internet is done using standards.  If you run software that
sends e-mail that meets the RFC standards, it doesn't matter what
software that is...you can send using telnet if you want (and I have,
just to show it could be done...but that was before the cryptographic
authentication schemes started getting used by mail servers).  Yahoo,
G-Mail and the other web-mail user interfaces use those standards on the
back-end. What they do between you and the internet is up to them...and
they often aren't real smart and they almost always aim for the common
denominator, not any special needs you might have.

That's why I use Thunderbird.  With a few plugins, and for my setup, it
has the same capabilities I'd want from Outlook, but doesn't have the
hassles.  With a few more plugins it beats what I could get from
Outlook...and I have control over when or if it gets changed here.  If I
want to go through the hassle of getting the source code, I can make it
do anything I want (but I don't want to go through that hassle, and the
as-shipped version is just fine anyway).

If you don't like free software, there are good alternatives you can pay
for, like Eudora.

You can even use Yahoo groups with a mail program...you don't have to
use Yahoo's interface.  I'm writing this in Thunderbird, and I can't
remember the last time I tried to send a message while actually on Yahoo.

-- Mike B.