Re: email client popularity [was Webmail is implementation, not Internet

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 9:12 AM, John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> 
wrote:

> --On Tuesday, June 17, 2014 12:38 -0400 Scott Brim
> <scott(_dot_)brim(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:51 AM, John C Klensin
> > <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> wrote:
> > > The things that I think have security (or significant
> > > operational) impacts include tracking beacons embedded in
> > > messages to tell the sender (at least) when or if they were
> > > read (privacy problem), embedded large images or text that is
> > > automagically downloaded when the message is opened or earlier
> > > (potential DoS attack), embedded malware and scripts of
> > > multiple flavors even if not intentionally hostile, and so on.
> > Yes, there are many traps for the average user on a MUA that
> > tries very hard to look spiffy. I like mutt ... but an
> > alternative is to use a GUI MUA that where you can keep its
> > behavior conservative. Thunderbird is not bad at that.
> But not so good at some other things.
>
> <mini-rant>
>
> I use email heavily enough that I'd happily pay a hundred or two
> USD a year for something that was optimized for IMAP desktop and
> laptop use, that has good MIME support (not just patches on an
> earlier approach),
..

> . except back to the conclusions that some people
> are more or less happy with whatever they are using and that a
> lot of people (who presumably don't deal with the combination of
> very high mail volume and the periodic need to work offline) use
> some flavor of "webmail".
>
> Sad situation, IMO.
> </rant>
I am still looking for a calendar program written by someone who
understands that there are multiple time zones and that when I travel from
one time zone to another I probably want to get up at different times etc
without having the change affect appointments when I return.

Seriously, is it so difficult for someone to understand that when setting a
recurring appointment it is necessary to be able to specify the time zone
so that the correct daylight savings adjustments are made?

I gave up waiting for those features in Outlook after waiting ten years.
But they do indicate just how 'STUCK' software gets.

I don't know why such obviously necessary features don't get into product
but I am pretty sure the 'security' and 'usability' are the reasons we are
stuck with insecure and hard to use products. Whenever a product group has
a requirement that they aren't up to hacking they will squawk 'security' or
'usability' as the reason.

It is the same here, someone will suggest ending some feature and someone
will pop up saying that it is absolutely essential to keep it going because
it is necessary to support the mail system in Timbuktu which still runs on
DEC10s talking UUCP. And of course the guy who actually lives in Timbuktu
is protesting that they are pretty sure they never had any DEC 10s to start
with and they mostly run Ubuntu.


As for being a low volume mail user, I am currently using 10Gb of my 15Gb
free Gmail allowance. The reason I use Gmail to do my IETF mail is that I
can't wait half an hour for IMAP or POP to sync each time I want to read
mail.

I don't give my work email out nearly as often as my gmail account which
means that I get my corporate email in an acceptable length of time.