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Contents 
Introduction
Avoiding e-mail worms
Barca
Calypso
Eudora
Lotus Notes
Outlook
Pegasus
Pine
The Bat
Mozilla Thunderbird
Specifications
Final words
Editor's choice
About RMIT |
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It is a sad fact of life that we are being constantly bombarded with e-mail viruses, worms, and Web bugs. These critters are designed to either damage computer systems or to spy on us to determine our browsing habits, or, even worse, to seek out passwords and other private data stored on our machines. The manufacturers of all the reviewed software are very much conscious of security issues.
Various means of thwarting such attacks exist, depending on the nature of the attack. For example, a browser may automatically, or optionally, disable scripts which have the potential to carry such nasties. Simple e-mail clients may not have the capacity to read and process the code and thus avoid trouble by default. One of the software packages reviewed here, Barca 1.1, has its own scripting language to avoid viruses written in more common languages such as JavaScript or VBScript. Of course, exotic but harmless scripts will also be filtered out unless you are e-mailing to someone else with the same brand of e-mail client software.
Another method of stopping e-mail viruses is HTML stripping. This is a process by which HTML tags with the capacity to interact with system functions are removed -- leaving only the formatted text of the message.
Scripted viruses such as these are particularly insidious because the user does not have to activate the virus in anyway (say by opening an attachment). Simply viewing the message exposes the computer to the troublesome code -- which may then activate an attachment of it's own accord.
Virus scanners are generally capable of checking incoming and outgoing e-mails for viruses. Make sure yours is up to date!
If you are infected by a virus it will probably head straight for your address book and spread itself to all your clients, colleagues, and friends. Again, the effectiveness of this may depend on the format of the address file. Address books may be encrypted or an unusual format may stump a marauding code segment.
There may be something to be said for choosing a lesser-known software package. Consider the amount of malicious code designed specifically to invade Microsoft products. This is not necessarily a condemnation of Microsoft, it is just that they happen to be the biggest target around -- and it's true, there are those that don't like the company. By being a little unorthodox you can avoid a whole lot of trouble. But be careful in the package that you pick. Swapping to Thunderbird shouldn't be a problem, however if you swapped to an e-mail client like Calypso you would have to manually re-enter all of your addresses.
One last security issue is the protection of the message itself. Hackers could potentially intercept sensitive messages being sent from or received by your computer. Message encryption can be applied by software familiar with the S/MIME protocol.
Scratching for Support
Suppliers of freeware generally cannot offer the kind of technical support that companies like Microsoft and IBM can offer, however support still exists. A quick search of the Net will uncover at least one news group devoted to your favourite e-mail client or even an e-mail address linked to volunteer technical staff. Unfortunately, you probably won't be able to call by phone and ask for step-by-step instructions to solve your problem.
What about Opera; another free browser with a built-in email client. I mean, if you are going to give top honors to a free client, then you should look at the other free client also. This review justified itself largely based on the failing security of outlook, but if that's your main concern, don't get thunderbird no matter what. I mean, come on, IT'S OPEN SOURCE. It doesn't get any less secure than that. It doesn't have the market presense of outlook, but if it ever does look out -- there will then be incentive to use it as the vehicle for viruses, and it will be childs play since it's open source.
Opera, with it's email client, is free, not open source, and actually attempts some things that are revolutionary. I don't think that it would win your shoot-out, since it tries to be different and takes a lot of getting used to. I don't even think that I like it the best of the ones that I try, but I respect it for what it is trying to do and the fact that it is much more secure than outlook.
Just my 2 cents; I'm tired of hearing about Mozilla/Thunderbird when I have seen time and again that it is an inferior product to my current favorite.