What Should I Choose?

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If you use the Internet through an online service, your choice of e-mail software will be limited or non-existent. Each service provides its own e-mail program, which starts automatically when you dial up the service. There isn't much choice. Luckily, however, most of these proprietary e-mail packages are full-featured, and offer the same benefits as many of the Internet e-mail programs you might choose if you had the choice.

Note:

A few online services do let you use alternate e-mail programs. CompuServe, for instance, can be accessed through Microsoft Exchange, the Windows 95 e-mail program, if you set it up correctly. See the Help system in Exchange to learn how to set this up.

If you use an ISP or LAN Internet connection, you will find your options more broad. If you are a Windows 95 user, you can use Microsoft Exchange (see Figure 3-2), which comes free with Windows 95. (It is also the default e-mail program for users of the Microsoft Network online service.) Its features are competitive with the best e-mail programs, plus it offers the capability of sending and receiving faxes and integrating e-mail from various sources into a single in-box. If you use The Microsoft Network, CompuServe, the Internet, and your company's e-mail system, and you want to have all your mail in one place, Microsoft Exchange is a good choice.

Note:

If you own Microsoft Office 97, and use Outlook, be aware that Outlook supercedes Exchange, so you will do most of the mail management from Outlook that you used to do in Exchange.

Another excellent choice is Netscape Mail, which comes free with Netscape Navigator versions 2.0 and above. It offers almost all the features described earlier in the article, both the essentials and the extras. Although it doesn't allow you to manage e-mail from multiple sources, or send faxes, users with a single e-mail address will find that it meets all their needs very well. It also is available for many platforms (Mac, UNIX, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and so on.), so that you can find a version for your system no matter what kind of computer you use.


If you are using the Internet through your company's LAN, you may already have a good e-mail program in place. Lotus's CC:Mail, for example, can manage Internet e-mail too along with your company's LAN e-mail. Or you may have access to Microsoft Mail through your LAN, another full-featured program that also handles your Internet mail.

There are many other e-mail programs available�some for free or as shareware, and others in retail boxes at stores. No matter which program you pick, you should evaluate it using the criteria listed earlier in this article, to make sure it will do everything you want it to.