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Comment by robbrown451

4 years ago

There are. I used Eudora up to 2005. Incidentally, I can't look at my email history before 2005, because, you know... formats become obsolete, hard drives die, etc.

Do those clients work on my mac, my chromebook, my windows box, and my android phone?

Call me crazy, but I prefer web apps for that kind of stuff. I'm also glad I don't have to download an app to use Hacker News.

As an independent developer, I am quite pleased that I can target one platform, the web, without having to deal with all the mess of multiple native apps, and worry that people won't run my simple app because they don't trust me not to delete their hard drive, and so on.

>Do those clients work on my mac, my chromebook, my windows box, and my android phone?

Yes.

>Call me crazy, but I prefer web apps for that kind of stuff. I'm also glad I don't have to download an app to use Hacker News.

Web means HTTP, Email is POP3/SMTP/IMAP. Different protocol, different programs. That you can use a website to view and send emails is not the default case and is merely a interface to those protocols.

  • I understand how email works. "Default case" is a matter of interpretation. Most people today use web based email (at least on computers as opposed to mobile devices), and it is much easier for most people to set up and get working than using a native client. The vast majority never think about wire protocols. I have implemented both HTTP and SMTP in C etc back in the day, but that is not relevant here.

    Regardless, I said my preference is to use web based email, that's all.