Program:

Hotmail Popper

Purpose

Use Hotmail with a POP emailprogram (like Thunderbird)

Cost:

$0.00

Betterthan:

Using web mail accounts with aweb browser

Web site:

http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/

Download:

Download now (1.6MB)

Comments:

Hotmail is a nice free webmailprovider, and using a web browser to send and recieve mail is helpfulsometimes, like when you need to get your mail from several differentcomputers.  But it can be a pain, too.  Sometimes you want toread or write email when your computer is not connected to theinternet.  And I don't like how long it takes for me to go throughmy email: Click one, wait for it to load.  Delete it, wait for itto load.  And don't even talk to me about sendingattachments.  That can be a 20 minute job, especially if you havemore than one file to attach.  Microsoft Outlook does have theoption of managing your webmail account, and I tried this.  Theproblem is that it doesn't save your messages on the computer, so itstill has to access them everytime you open your inbox on theprogram.  This doesn't make it any faster than a webbrowser.  This is where Hotmail Popper comes in.  You keepthis little program running all of the time and then any mail programcan get access to your Hotmail account.  Your messages are storedon your computer, so you don't have to worry about what to do with themwhen your 2 MB gets full.  It's also easy to compose messages,even with attachments, and then send them.  I tried the programwith Outlook and it worked most of the time.  Now I'm using itwith Thunderbird and it works great.  I haven't had any problemsand it's making my Hotmail account much more useful.  It's onlyslightly tricky to set up.  When you set up Thunderbird with yourHotmail account, you'll need to set the server name to 127.0.0.1 andthe outgoing server to the same.  If you have problems with this,let me know and I'll help you.