Linux comes with various GUI based email client to stay in touch with your friends and family, and share information in newsgroups with other users. The following software is similar to Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail and is used by both home and office user.

Webmail interfaces allow users to access their mail with any standard web browser, from any computer, rather than relying on an e-mail client.

However, e-mail client remains extremely popular in a large corporate environment, small business, home and power users. An e-mail client (also mail user agent (MUA)) is a frontend computer program used to manage e-mail. Mail can be stored on the client, on the server side, or in both places. Standard formats for mailboxes include Maildir and mbox.

The following are top five amazing piece of cross-platform software from various projects to make your life easy with wide variety of plug-ins / add-ons.

#1: Mozilla Thunderbird

It is an e-mail and news cross-platform client software package by Mozilla Foundation. Thunderbird can manage multiple e-mail, newsgroup and RSS accounts and supports multiple identities within accounts. Features like quick search, saved search folders , advanced message filtering, message grouping, and labels help manage and find messages. Just like Firefox, the tons of extensions and themes for this client makes it very secure and flexible to to enhance your productivity.

Fig.01: Mozilla Thunderbird

=> Download Mozilla Thunderbird

#2: Claws Mail

Claws Mail is a free, GTK+-based, open source email and news client. It is very light lightweight. Like Firefox , the wide variety of plug-ins for this email client makes it very flexible and secure. Claws Mail runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Unix-like systems such as Linux, BSD, and Solaris.

Fig.02: Claws Mail in Action

=> Download Claws Mail

#3: Spicebird

Spicebird is a collaboration client that provides integrated access to email, contacts, calendaring and instant messaging in a single application. It provides easy access to various web services while retaining all the advantages of a desktop application. It is developed by an Indian company called Synovel. It is a free, open source and cross-platform software.

Fig.03: Spicebird in Action (image credit Spicebird project)

=> Download Spicebird

#4: Zimbra Collaboration Suite (Open Source Version)

Zimbra is a client and server platform for messaging and collaboration. The web client integrates email, contacts, shared calendar, VoIP, and online document authoring in a rich browser-based interface. This is more like MS-Exchange and Outlook combo. In other words it is compatible with proprietary clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail, both through proprietary connectors, as well as the open-source Novell Evolution, so that mail, contacts, and calendar items can be synchronised from these to the ZCS server. Zimbra also provides native two-way sync to many mobile devices such as Nokia Eseries, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone with 2.0 software.

Fig.04: Zimbra (credit offical Zimbra website)

=> Download Zimbra Collaboration Suite (Open Source Version)

#5: Sylpheed

Sylpheed is a free, GTK+-based, open source email and news client. It is very light lightweight. Sylpheed runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Unix-like systems such as Linux, and BSD.

Fig.05: Sylpheed in Action

=> Download sylpheed

Other Email Clients For UNIX Like Operating Systems

1. SeaMonkey – Mozilla SeaMonkey is an all-in-one Internet application suite that includes an Internet browser, email and newsgroup client, HTML editor, IRC chat, and web development tools. It includes a pop-up blocker, junk mail controls, and a tabbed interface.
2. Pine (Alpine) – Alpine is a rewrite of the Pine Message System that adds support for Unicode and other features. Alpine is meant to be suitable for both inexperienced email users and the most demanding of power users.
3. Evolution or Novell Evolution – Evolution provides integrated mail, addressbook and calendaring functionality to users of the GNOME desktop.

Recommendations:

1. Claws Mail – Highly recommended for netbook user due to lightweight usage.
2. Mozilla Thunderbird – The wide variety of add-on for this email client makes it very flexible, secure and easy to use. Highly recommended for desktop and power users.
3. Zimbra Collaboration Suite ~ Open Source Edition or Businesses Editon – Highly recommended for business and corporate users due to its support for a broad range of email clients and mobile devices via "over the air" sync.

ZeeVee, a startup venture focused on helping people watch high-definition Internet video on their TVs,  recently introduced a new version of its free video browser – formerly known as Zviewer.  Now called called Zinc,  it was originally designed for the ZvBox, the firm’s PC-to-TV-over-coaxial-cable appliance.  The application runs on any Windows XP or Vista computer and the company’ website reports that a  Mac version is also in the works.

Once installed on a PC (a Mac version should surface by April), users can easily navigate to tons of internet-based TV content from the likes of CBS, ABC, etc. Also of note, this version bakes in access to your Netflix Watch Instantly queue, providing access to 15,000 feature length movies and tens of thousands of TV shows. For now, ZeeVee’s committed to keeping the application free, and it believes its superior UI will win folks over. The full release is waiting just past the break, and those interested in giving it a go should find a live download waiting right here.

Flock is the first major browser geared toward social-networking addicts.  Available for both Windows and Mac users, it will do absolutely nothing for you if you’re looking to get away from MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogging, and other Web 2.0 mainstays.  If, on the other hand, this is one addiction you’re looking to feed with a shovel, this app has everything you need to stay one step ahead of the bleeding edge.

Based on the same code used for Firefox and sporting that browser’s security and performance features, Flock is specialized for social networking.  Customize it with the various site that you use–including Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, and MySpace — and it displays a list of your friends in a panel on the left side of the screen.  You can see status messages, profile updates, and any photos and videos that have been added as well as update your own information, and share images and links with your friends by just by dragging and dropping.  If you’re the type of person who constantly checks Facebook or MySpace, this is the browser for you.

Most of Flock’s special features revolve around its nine special menu buttons and the sidebar that sits below them.  Nine buttons at the top of the collapsible sidebar make accessing any of your social-networking or frequently used Web sites easier than Twittering your breakfast.

Each button either helps you get your message out faster, such as dragging and dropping photos into Flickr, or helps you read blogs quicker, as with the integrated RSS reader. The People button turns the sidebar into a nifty way to track your social-networking accounts. Bloggers can set up Flock with login information for their LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, or Blogger accounts, and then write and post entries to one or all directly from the browser.  Most regular Firefox extensions work, too. Even though it’s resource-heavy, Flock is the only way to go if Twittering, Facebooking, or YouTubing is how you spend most of your time online.

Where most browsers make you go out and find all of the sites and pages you’d like to see on the Web, Flock works in reverse: It brings the information to you!

If you’ve ever maintained a blog and experienced the dreadful ho-hum web-based interfaces of WordPress, Blogger etc.,  then l’ve got a tip that will get your fingers moving happily again!  First, I should state for the record that I am not a Microsoft fan.  I prefer my Mac or Linux workstation in just about every situation but…

The whole Windows Live team is doing some really kick @$$ things these days.

I’ve been using Windows Live Writer (WLW) on my various WordPress blogs for a few months and now I wouldn’t use anything else.  It’s super easy to change between blogs, or if you have one post you want to post to both places, just select it from a drop down menu.  If you change the theme of your blog, you can even download the look and feel into WLW as well so you can see what your post looks like before you publish.  Way cool.  It’s also simple  to manipulate the placement of photos in your blog (left, right, center) and also a snap to insert video from YouTube or Vimeo.  The capability of scheduling your blogs for publication at a later date is a handy feature for those of us who have flurries of creativity followed by days of writer’s block.  Ever find a typo in your post and want to update?  Just fix it in WLW and republish –  it’s smart enough not to duplicate the post.

Bottom line:  Windows Live Writer is unquestionably and undoubtedly the best blog writing program on any platform.  Period.  Bar none.  It is the one reason I keep a Windows machine around (well, I guess Unreal Tournament and Office are pretty good reasons too).  I have yet to find any program on the Mac that remotely comes close to Live Writer in terms of functionality and just general program goodness.  If someone knows of one, I would love to know.

Best of all — its free and you can download it now at Windows Live.

The Windows operating system has always been insecure — and I don’t mean as in self-esteem!

The Conficker/Downup/Downadup/Kido computer worm that first surfaced in October 2008 and is believed to activate today (April 1, 2009) only targets the Microsoft Windows operating system.  You heard that right,  it only affects Windows – not MacOS or Linux. Unfortunately, in this situation one out of three is bad – and, as usual with Windows security, its very bad news for the internet as a whole.   So far however, the news is good this morning and hell has not broken loose on the backbone segments of the net.  But the day is young.

I am certainly not an Anarchist nor do I approve of the malicious activities of virus breeding script-kiddies, but it would be helpful if some “minor catastrophe” occurred as a result of Conflicker. If hundreds of businesses stop production because of this worm, the public should think about an alternative operating system platform.  In my humble opinion, Linux (the GNU Operating System) is the best choice for the cost ($0) or MacOS for every other reason.

If this worm proves to be very troublesome, what’ll happen?

Websites like MySpace.com and WhiteHouse.gov are running the Microsoft IIS web server. If these servers are infected, they will go down. Or, they will become spam websites, displaying advertisements and sending out thousands of spam and denial of service emails. 

WhiteHouse.gov is, obviously, a governmental website, and if it becomes a spam website, displaying advertisements and sending out thousands of spam and denial of service emails to other countries, that’s a national threat (well, sorta).  Also, who knows what other servers WhiteHouse.gov might be connected to within their extended computing grid.  Missile systems, Air Force navigation systems, Presidential Teleprompters?  Lets pray Microsoft has nothing to do with those!

Thankfully Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia are all happily running GNU/Linux on their servers. These are among the most popular/stable web sites as well — coincidence?

On the other hand, WhiteHouse.gov is most likely running the Microsoft IIS web server because the person they have in control of the servers, their “Webmaster”, only knows how to use Microsoft Windows.   Therein lies the problem – in the humble opinion of this Webmaster.