Yahoo! Comes Out With Browser-Free Webmail Client
By Rico, 7:07 am Sun Jul 27 2008 - Rundowns - 4 Opinions
There’s perhaps another reason for more people to start using Yahoo Mail. Thanks to its acquisition of Zimbra Inc., Yahoo was able to recently release a version of its popular web mail service that works without a browser. (Why is this important? See “So Where’s the Browser-Free Gmail Client?“)
The Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop, while it uses internet-based technologies like JavaScript and AJAX, doesn’t require a browser to run. It’s a standalone app the users can quickly hide and call-up, and requires less resources than a full-featured browser like Firefox.
Even better, the Zimbra Desktop allows users to manage multiple email accounts. Right now, we’re using it to manage our Yahoo Mail and Gmail. Zimbra also groups individual emails into conversations, mimicking Gmail’s well-loved feature.
Zimbra is far from perfect though. First-time users will have to wait hours while the mail client synchronizes with your webmail servers. And we did encounter the requires-reboot bug as detailed by Stephen. But, the breadth of options available is literally staggering; the Zimbra Desktop has equivalents for everything you do on your Yahoo Mail—and Gmail. It’s possible to use email aliases, set signatures, and maintain contact lists, for every email account you manage with Zimbra.
In short, while Google has been taking its time making Gmail available through alternative means—none of which apparently work without a browser—here comes Yahoo with Zimbra. So Where’s the Browser-Free Gmail Client? Just ask Yahoo.
The Yahoo Zimbra Desktop can be downloaded here (38MB for Windows, 34MB for Mac, 44MB for Linux).
Eugene
12:12 pm Sun Jul 27 2008
But if you already have a browser, why waste computer resources by installing Yet Another Application&tm;? Besides, if you’re using webmail in the first place, then you’re likely into other web-based activities as well and you’d have your browser open anyway.
Technograph
1:01 pm Sun Jul 27 2008
Yes, but our experience is that we need a separate app to manage our webmail, because it can get lost in all those browser tabs. The appeal for Zimbra is that it keeps all our webmail accounts in one, easily accessible place. And btw, we forgot to mention: it allows offline management (though we haven’t been offline long enough to check it hehe).
Luis Cruz
1:01 pm Mon Jul 28 2008
I don’t know – a 30+MB download for a mail client reeks of bloatware to me. I bet it’s got a whole bunch of features that I wouldn’t really need in my mail client. I’ll stick with Thunderbird. It’s a 6+MB download, and it does everything I need it to do.
As for missing Gmail’s conversations structure, I’ve been able to replicate it by switching over to IMAP (instead of POP) and displaying message threads (left-most column in the list of messages).
Technograph
9:09 pm Mon Jul 28 2008
Actually, the most important consideration for us right now is: do we really want to copy all our email to another company’s web server? But you’re right, 30+ MB is a bit too big.