browser vs. pop3

[rossid]

Do I have the terms right?

I use Yahoo email. Today I clicked on a feedback link and it looked like an Outlook 2007 email popped up. It asked me to configure POP3, SMTP, or some type of servers.

What are your thoughts on which is better?

How do I set up pop?

[middletree]

Pop is just incoming email that you need some software for. Outlook, Outlook Express (two dissimilar programs with similar names), Thunderbird, etc. SMTP is the term or outgoing email using such programs.

I personally prefer them over webmail, but GMail is starting to convince me that webmail need not be so bad.

[Sam!]

If you use regular Yahoo! mail, you can't use POP3. POP3 is a way of downloading email messages from a server and storing them on your own computer. Of course, once the message is on your computer, anything you do to it is not recorded on the server. So when you check your POP mail from anohter computer, you won't see your reply (for example). And depending on your settings, once the message downloads from the server to your own PC, it's no longer available on the server--so when you check it from another PC it won't show any new mail.

When you use webmail, everything is stored on the mail provider's server. The message is stored on your computer temporarily (while you view it) but it "lives" on the server. POP3, as James mentioned, requires a program separate from your web browser.

I use a combination of both. I use POP for my personal mail, but I check my work mail with webmail (actually, IMAP, which is very similar to webmail), so that everything stays synchronized when I check it from home.

[rossid]

Makes sense.

Then I thought staying with browser uses their protection. POP may let stuff get in if my protection stinks.

Maybe I should move from Yahoo to Gmail or just add a Gmail account.

[middletree]

Gmail is greatness.

[danbos]

I like gmail as well...I used to use juno on the web, but lately it's been going extremely slow, like taking about 20 seconds to load my inbox...well, actually it'll show my inbox right away, but I won't be able to click anything for 20 seconds. But now, this year I had to get a gmail account for one of my classes for the google documents part of it, and i've started forwarding all my other mail to it now.