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[ Go to March 1997 Table of Contents ]
WinLab Reviews
-- by Neil Randall
EMail Connection 3.1 is such a mishmash of good and bad design that it can't unseat Eudora Pro 3.0 as our Recommended List mail reader. EMail Connection collects mail from Internet accounts, online services and faxes. You get digital signatures through VeriSign's Digital ID, as well as encryption through RSA's public key technology and support for the S/MIME security standard. The program grabs e-mail addresses as they arrive in your inbox, so you don't have to construct your address book by hand. The package's message storage system makes intelligent use of nested folders, and its excellent draft folder saves messages you're currently working on. Its message filtering, while not as rich as Eudora Pro 3.0's, is as much as most users will need. EMail Connection's best features aren't new. The search system is superb. A preview window lets you read your messages without opening them, and it's a full window, not the little snippet Microsoft Outlook provides. You can configure the program to require a password for opening your mailbox. If nosy people are your major concern, consider EMail Connection. Otherwise, this package has too many drawbacks. It's a 16-bit program, and message URLs do not function as live links. It offers no server control beyond deleting mail-and it can't even do that once a message is downloaded. Finally, it has the nasty habit of continually downloading the same messages if you choose to leave mail on the server. This program needs an overhaul.
Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc.
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