Albert

Shareware; $15

Current Version: 2.2.1

From Dean Davis, author of other Orchard favorites such as WeatherMan, comes this unusual application that is hard to really classify, since - while it is indeed a POP3 email client - it is not really for sending or receiving emails, per se. Albert, as its author aptly describes, "is a nifty little application that can launch AppleScripts by sending it an e-mail. You can use any e-mail account to send Albert a command. Albert looks at the Subject line of each e-mail for the word 'Albert:', then launches the script with the name that follows 'Albert:'." It's an interesting application; version 2.2.1 adds/changes the following:

• Fixed bug where Albert would stall in checking Email state.

AutoMail

Shareware; $19.99

Current Version: 2.8.1 (April 17, 2003)

From the Info-Mac abstract: "AutoMail is a program designed to help you create customized e-mail messages with a minimum effort. Data can be imported from any database and merged into user-editable templates. AutoMail, thanks to its SMTP agent, doesn't require external programs to send the messages, and the support for AppleEvents allows for totally automated operation." Version 2.8 solves some compatibility issues with Jaguar. If you experience errors reading from disk within AutoMail, this update will correct the problem.

Balzac

Freeware

Current Version: 1.0 Beta Build 29 (October 31, 2007)

Balzac is a new email application for OS X 10.4 and above that aims to provide a simple view on your mail whilst allowing fast, sophisticated searches of past correspondence. It has been written to utilise all the advanced services available in OS X, from the address book to the built in spell-checker. The list below is a short summary of the most interesting features of Balzac:

• Dynamic views on your mail (ie 'Smart Folders')
• User defined categories - messages can be in several categories at once
• An inbox which shows you messages from the last few days
• Fast searches on header fields or text content of all messages
• Customize the way you view your mail with HTML templates for list views and message views
• Send custom HTML email using templates
• Security features for viewing HTML email
• Supports Growl notifications

Build 29 adds/changes the following:

• Fixed bug in whitelister dealing with numeric HTML attributes
• Removed spurious status messages in Leopard
• Worked around date parsing bug in Leopard causing inbox to display as empty

Correo

Open source; $0

Current Version: 0.3 (December 6, 2007)

Correo is a new (as of early 2007) email client from Nick Kreeger, who is an active contributor to the download manager of the excellent Camino web browser. The goal of Correo is to create a native Cocoa mail client that uses the Mozilla mail/news library and the Gecko browser view that Camino uses. The project is still in the early stages of development, but there are many planned features, including plugin capability (to allow development of extensions such as PDA synchronization), a tabbed window interface, address book support, keychain access, and various other to-be-determined features.

Once Nick gets the core feature set working on this application, he will release all the work to the open source community, so the project can grow.

Version 0.3 adds/changes the following:

• Leopard Support
• Enhanced IMAP support - subfolders now load properly
• Improved Character Encoding Support

Direct Mail

Shareware; $59.99

Current Version: 2.1.4 (September 2, 2008)

DirectMail is a shareware mailing-list and bulk email program for Mac OS X 10.3 and later, featuring a simple and clean user interface and a low price point. DirectMail supports the creation of plain text, rich text, HTML and combined HTML/plain text multipart/alternative emails; includes mail merge, address importing, multilingual capabilities; and is capable of direct connections to recipients' email servers.

Version 2.1.4 makes the following changes:

• Fixed: No longer crashes when adjusting split views.
• Fixed: No longer crashes when closing document windows or quitting Direct Mail.
• Fixed: URLs with pipe ("|") characters and/or parentheses are now correctly tracked.
• Fixed: Rich text messages with images now always generate correct MIME types.

Directory Widget

Donationware

Current Version: 1.0 (September 5, 2006)

Directory Widget is a new widget from Andrew Starr (perhaps best known to Orchard visitors as the eMailman) that provides uniquely useful LDAP lookup functionality.

Directory Widget will look up directory information (e-mail addresses and more) from many colleges, universities, and other institutions (for example the National Institutes of Health). Although it uses LDAP (Lightweight Directory Address Protocol), the end user does not need to understand what LDAP is. The widget comes preloaded with settings for over 70 directory servers. Additionally, the user can add more servers to the widget. eMailman, LLC plans to release updates with additional servers. A partial list of current servers preloaded into the widget is at http://www.emailman.com/ldap/widget/serverlist.html.

The widget defaults to the most recently used directory (or users can have multiple instances of the widget running so that their most frequently used directory is always available). Users can easily select from a different directory or add more. Users can then search by full or partial names. Results can be viewed with just names and e-mail addresses or with the full results returned by the server.

Companies and institutions can contact eMailman, LLC to discuss site licensing or customized versions of the widget.

Email Merge

Shareware; $39

Current Version: 2.1.1 (December 14, 2002) / 2.3.6 (February 16, 2007)

Email Merge is a program for creating a mailing of individualized email messages. It combines a database and an email message to create customized email messages. Email Merge can be used for invoicing, sales, list management, student grading and even personal messages. Email Merge is compatible with Apple Mail (OS X 10.3 or later), Entourage, Eudora, Mailsmith, PowerMail, Outlook Express, Emailer or QuickMail Pro. Features include:

• Imports directly from FileMaker Pro, clipboard or text file.
• Verification of outgoing messages, email addresses and attachments.
• Supports HTML email (Entourage and Outlook Express only).
• Database features, included sorting and finding duplicates.
• Messages can be sent using different accounts.
• Attachments can be included with messages.

Email Merge 2.3.6 - the latest version for Mac OS X - works around a problem between Apple Mail and the system Address Book.

Email Merge contains comprehensive documentation, context-sensitive help and a tutorial. Email Merge for Mac OS X costs $39 for one license. Upgrades from Email Merge for Classic Mac OS cost $19 per license. A site license for an entire office costs $349. Once a license is purchased, the 20-message restriction on merging is removed.

eMail Verifier

Shareware; $30.00

Current Version: 3.4.1 (October 14, 2008)

eMail Verifier verifies the validity of email addresses by quickly communicating with the potential recipient's mail server without actually sending mail. eMail Verifier disconnects as soon as the mail server informs the program whether the address exists or not. Email Verifier can verify over 10 e-mails per second. It can verify single e-mails or huge lists.

Version 3.4.1 adds/changes the following:

• [Fix] Progress bar again visible.
• [Fix] Several interface fixes.

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner

Donationware

Current Version: 4.8 (November 27, 2007)

If you have ever tried to switch from Eudora to Apple's Mail.app or to Thunderbird, you may have found the process frustrating, if not impossible. Eudora Mailbox Cleaner is "a simple application which provides easy one-step migration for your messages and other mail related data." It includes the following functionality (and it really works as advertised):

• Mailbox Importing (from Eudora or Thunderbird to Apple Mail or Thunderbird): Direct conversion from Eudora or Thunderbird mailboxes to Mail.app *.mbox packages or Thunderbird mbox/*.msf files. Aside from being faster than the "Import Mailboxes..." in the respective applications, the following problems are fixed as well:
  • Date for sent messages is set properly (i.e., not the date when the messages are imported).
  • "To: " headers will not be lost when importing sent messages into Mail.app.
  • text/enriched (Eudora's "rich text"), text/html, and multipart/... messages are imported properly.
  • Message status flags (sent, replied, forwarded, etc.) are preserved upon import (if this does not work for you, see the remark below).
  • Attachment recovery: if the original attachment of a message can be found inside Eudora's "Attachments Folder," the attachment will be re-encoded and attached to the message using proper MIME-compliant encoding.
• Nickname Importing (from Eudora to the Mac OS X Address Book or Thunderbird):
  • Directly import Eudora nickname files into the Mac OS X's Address Book or as address book in the default Thunderbird profile. Nicknames marked as "Do not include this nickname when syncing" in Eudora will be ignored.
  • All group information will be converted from Eudora to the Address Book and mailing lists will be imported as well.
  • Accented characters will import properly into Thunderbird and won't show up as gibberish like they do when using the Thunderbird import.
  • See the remark below if auto-complete of addresses in Mail does not work after import.
• Filter Importing (from Eudora to Apple Mail):
  • Directly convert Eudora filter files into rules for Mail.app.

All of these features have been tested importing files from the English versions of Eudora (5.1 through 6.2 on Mac OS X) to Mail.app (version 1.1, Mac OS X 10.1.2 up to version 2.0.7, Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger") and Thunderbird (version 0.7.1 through 1.5 in Mac OS X). The import from nicknames into the Address Book has been tested for Address Book 3.0.3 (Mac OS X 10.2.6) through 4.0.3 (Mac OS X 10.4).

Version 4.8 adds/changes the following:

• Nickname import: if no information about a contact's full name is found in the appropriate fields but the information is available in the email address field (e.g., email address entered as "First Last <email@address>"), add that information to the correct fields in the address book instead of discarding it. This works for contacts as well as mailing list members.
• Preserve label information for messages imported to Mail in 10.4/10.5 - Eudora's standard labels (1-7) will be mapped to the same text colors in Mail, the custom labels (8-15) will be mapped to background colors for easier distinction between the labels.
• Properly deal with stray newline characters in message headers when importing mailboxes from Windows Eudora to avoid corrupt messages.
• Make sure that the generated Date headers comply with the format as defined in RFC2822 (we had the order of day and month inverted earlier).
• Don't try to recover attachments/embedded files whose earlier presence is quoted in an HTML message.
• Properly recode custom headers used in Eudora filters to UTF-8 to fix the issue where no rules would be present in Mail after import.
• Parse Date: headers lacking the weekday in the date string - even though this format clearly violates the RFC, it seems to be fairly common for some mailers.
• Prevent attachments from being displayed twice in the imported messages (with the first attachment not containing any actual data).
• multipart/... messages with the first part being HTML no longer show up as empty after the import if the original Eudora message started with an empty line before the HTML content.
• Fix crash when importing Windows nickname files when the file contains a trailing EOL.
• Fix a crash when calling CFRelease() which could occur due to incorrect TOC information for a message.
• Fix an Address Book.framework related crash when running on 10.2.8
• Properly import nickname files from Mac Eudora if they contain only a single entry - that entry was ignored before.
• Fix potential cosmetic problem in the summary dialog when importing Eudora filter and/or nickname files only.
• Adapt the "Rebuild Mailboxes" AppleScript to work correctly in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner makes use of many features of CodeWarrior's PowerPlant framework, so it cannot be ported to Xcode to make it a "Universal Binary." It runs well, however, on Intel machines using their "Rosetta" emulation.

GyazMail

Shareware; $18

Current Version: 1.5.8 (July 31, 2008)

GyazMail is a multilingual e-mail client for Mac OS X, developed from scratch to be simple, easy-to-use, and feature-filled. The main features of GyazMail are as follows:

• Multiple accounts
• Storing individual messages as single files (RFC 822 format)
• Multiple character set support, including UTF-8 (Unicode)
• Main window with 2 or 3 panes
• Complete customization of display fonts & window colors
• Message threading
• HTML message display
• Junk (Spam) Mail Filter (SpamSieve) support
• Ability to search messages across multiple folders and with multiple criteria
• Rules and Filters for incoming messages
• Templates and Editable reply header for outgoing messages
• Sends messages individually or in batches
• POP3/IMAP/SMTP support
• SSL/TLS support
• IPv6 support
• Remote message function
• Fully customizable keyboard shortcuts
• Synchronization with Apple's Address Book (Mac OS X 10.2 or later)
• Mail address auto-completion
• Numerous Dock-related features
• Message import (Unix Mailbox, Apple Mail)
• Message export (Unix Mailbox)
• Regular Expressions support (Oniguruma)
• AppleScript support (iCal e-mail Notifications, iPhoto Mailer Patcher)
• Growl support

The following features are planned for the future:

• Encrypted Mail / Digital Signatures support
• Spotlight support
• LDAP support
• More AppleScript support
• More Localizations
• NNTP support
• More

The download may be tried for free for 40 days before requiring purchase.

Version 1.5.8 adds/changes the following:

• Improved handling of attachments.
• Made IPv6 addressing priority in environments where IPv6 addressing is active.
• Support for Growl 1.1.4.
• Upgraded regular expression library to Oniguruma ver. 5.9.1.
• Other minor improvements.
• Corrected possible crash when downloading multiple junk mails from an IMAP account.
• Corrected possible crash or freeze during communications errors with IMAP accounts.
• Fixed bug that could causes crashes or other errors when deleting IMAP accounts.
• Fixed bug that could cause display of "Unable to get the 'AXParent' attribute of element" error message when creating a new message.
• Fixed error preventing crash report saving under Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
• Fixed bug causing slowdown when working through unread messages under Leopard.
• Improved compatibility with WebKit of OS 10.5 Leopard and Safari 3.1.
• Fixed bug causing double display of "Open Link" option in contextual menu of HTML message contents.
• Fixed bug preventing proper input of Japanese subject and body text when clicking a mailto URL in a browser.
• Corrected display order of fields in message list and address dialog.
• Other minor bugs squashed.

Submit another review!

Intego Personal Antispam

Commercial; $49.95

Current Version: "X5" (10.5.2) (September 17, 2008)

Intego, Inc. produces the Intego Personal Antispam spam filtering software add-on for Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage.

Features include:

• Filters your e-mail and weeds out spam
• Filters spam with Bayesian analysis
• Filters spam by address, message content, layout and more
• Filters spam with a whitelist of your contacts
• Filters spam with a blacklist of known spammers' addresses
• Filters attachments for common file names
• Learns from the spam you receive
• Does not slow down your e-mail program

The latest "X5" version (10.5.2) adds the following new features:

• This update addresses some minor issues and improves overall stability. This update is recommended for all Personal Antispam X5 users.

IntelliMerge

Commercial; see text

Current Version: 5.1 (August 8, 2006)

IntelliMerge is dynamic e-mail merge software (i.e., a bulk mailer) designed to simplify keeping in touch with customers, family, and friends. It features an integrated message editor, recipient database system, conditional merging logic, duplicate checker, and high performance message mailer.

IntelliMerge 5.1 introduces the following enhancements:

• AutoSubscriber: IntelliMerge now downloads and processes subscribe and unsubscribe requests over twice as fast as previous release. The AutoSubscriber tool now includes an option to save
• IP Tracking: IntelliMerge can now provide the IP address of subscribe and unsubscribe requests through the AutoSubscriber to prevent abuse.
• Enhanced Invalid E-Mail Checker: IntelliMerge's invalid e-mail checker has been rewritten, offering more better, more accurate invalid e-mail verifications before mailing.
• CSS support: IntelliMerge now includes external style sheets
• Plain text equivalents: for older e-mail clients
• Firefox & OmniWeb previews: check out your message before mailing by launching your browser of choice. IntelliMerge no longer needs to launch Safari to preview a message.

IntelliMerge is available for $99; upgrades to IntelliMerge 5.x from any previous version are $39.

LDapper

Freeware

Current Version: 1.2.3 (May 26, 2000) / 2.0.4 (September 3, 2006)

From Carl Bell, the author of Mail Drop, comes this simple, free LDAP client for finding email addresses. See the LDapper read me for more information.

Version 2.0.4 adds/changes the following:

• Fixed a divide by 0 error when searching.
• Progress bar in search "sheet" now goes all the way to 100% when finished. (This always bothered me.)
• Window sizing preferences, etc., are now always saved rather than only being saved when it was explicitly closed.
• Resizing column headers in search window no longer select/sort the column.
• No longer causes "group member should be added to the database first" console messages when exporting to Address Book.
• Copying an entry in a browser window now copies the entry's dn and not the word "goober".
• Universal binary.
• Now requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later.
• Address Book importer no longer uses separate bundle.
• Now uses the Mac OS X LDAP framework rather than compiled OpenLDAP code. It believe that the version is OpenLDAP 2.2.19.

LDapper author Carl Bell notes: "LDapper 2.0 is a Mac OS X application and will not work with older versions of the operating system. There will be no more 'classic' versions of LDapper. Version 1.2.3 is still available for Mac OS 9 or earlier."

MacSOUP

Shareware; $20

Current Version: 2.8.2 (November 7, 2007)

From the Info-Mac abstract file: MacSOUP is an offline reader for news and mail (it can be used for news only, if you prefer Eudora or another email client for mail). It works either with a Unix shell account (in conjunction with uqwk), or with a TCP/IP connection (MacTCP or Open Transport). Features: fetches only article headers in a first pass; lets you select which articles you actually want to download; true references-based threading, with a graphical display of the thread tree; kill file (with regular expressions); and multiple mailboxes with mail filters.

Version 2.8.2 makes the following changes/enhancements:

• Fixed possible crash with the address completion window.
• Fixed problems when running under Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5): Very low data rates when connecting to the server; Bogus error message when clicking in the All Groups or New Groups window.

Magellan Pro

Current Version: 1.5.1 / 1.5.3 (November 29, 2004)

Magellan is a multilingual email client ($35, shareware) that offers a number of unique features, such as:

• Send and receive multilingual e-mail. Any languages will correctly be sent and received.
• Send and receive e-mail message containing any plural languages.
• Not only unicode but newly created MultiScript encoding is adopted.
• Read messages in "View." View is an epoch-making management way of e-mail messages, different from folder or filter system.
• Work under less RAM than other e-mail software and has an appplication size of only 1.1MB.

Although no information is available regarding what's new in version 1.5.3, version 1.5.2 added/changed the following:

• Better support for OS X 10.3 Panther.
• Improve Error recovery.
• Improve Spellchecker relations.
• Fix the Font list bug in Panther.

Magellan Pro requires Mac OS 8.6 or later and Text Encoding Converter 1.3.1 or later.

Mail Forward

Shareware; $15

Current Version: 4.1.7 (November 20, 2008)

Internet users who have Unix command line access to their accounts usually have simple email forwarding capability that's easy to set up and maintain. Mail Forward is useful for those who don't. From the Mail Forward home page: "Mail Forward allows you to forward mail from up to 20 Microsoft Hotmail or standard POP e-mail accounts to any e-mail address. Mail Forward works by accessing your Microsoft Hotmail In Box or POP mailbox and forwarding each piece of mail through your SMTP mail server. As each message is successfully forwarded, it is cleared from the Hotmail In Box or POP mailbox. The Hotmail or POP account e-mail address is used as the return address for the forwarded mail, so if the mail is undeliverable it will be bounced back to the original account."

Version 4.1.7 adds/changes the following:

• Modifications to accommodate login change for Yahoo! accounts.

See the version histories ("Classic" and Mac OS X) for more information. Mail Forward is $12, shareware, and requires an Apple Macintosh or compatible with a PowerPC, 68030 or greater processor, using Mac OS 7.6.1 or later.

Mailsmith

Commercial; $99

Current Version: 2.1.5 (March 10, 2005)

Bare Bones Software, maker of the fabulous BBEdit text editor, produces the Mailsmith email client, which offers very sophisticated email filtering, a clean user interface, and a BBEdit-like editing capability. Versions 2.0 and later include integrated support for SpamSieve and PGP.

Mailsmith requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later; Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later is strongly recommended.

Mailtron Gateway

See text

Current Version: 1.3.2 / 3.0 (March 20, 2006)

Mailtron Gateway is a POP (and for Mac OS X, a POP/IMAP) email gateway from Studiotron Software that allows multiple people at a single domain to share a single email account. The license key that is required after the initial 30-day usage period is free for "Classic" Mac OS. Version 3.x (for Mac OS X only), however, comes as a fully-functional demo that runs for 30 days (except that he fetchmail daemon will not automatically run after a system restart) and can be registered for $69. The Mac OS X version features "industrial strength" mail forwarding using fetchmail, and automatic protocol detection, including IMAP.

Version 3.0 - the latest release for Mac OS X - adds/addresses the following:

• Fixed compatability with Mac OS X Tiger folder privileges.
• Integrated Kagi registration keys.

MaxBulk Mailer

Shareware; see text

Current Version: 6.0 (November 11, 2008)

MaxBulk Mailer is a shareware bulk email program, the first I can think of for the Macintosh. Bulk email is a very, very bad thing when used improperly, and unfortunately I can't think of very many cases when it has been used properly. From the MaxBulk Mailer home page: "MaxBulk Mailer is a new full featured MacOS bulk mailer able to send commercial mailings to up to several hundreds of emails address very easily. MaxBulk Mailer is fast and fully customizable. It uses mailings as documents with configuration data, mailing text and mailing list built-in. MaxBulk Mailer does not promote spamming. This software is to be used very carefully and always using your customer addresses." Yeah, right. Remember, folks: there are laws regarding spam now. If you do download and use this, use it for valid reasons (e.g., you maintain an opt-in email list). Spamming is just not cool.

Version 6.0 adds/changes the following:

• [New] Remote List Management thru Maxprog List Manager (MLM) allowing you to use lists from your web site.
• [New] General Blacklist to prevent sending messages to given addresses whichever the list you have selected.
• [New] Support for creating and re-using message templates.
• [New] New Test Mode allowing to simulate full and partial deliveries with real data.
• [New] You can now add and reuse text using the built-in favorites library (Cmd/Alt key to overwrite the existing text)
• [New] 'Base href' tag and preference in order to set the location of external online pictures to be used in messages.
• [New] Possibility to export and import back selected settings for backups or for transfers between computers.
• [New] Import from a web page menu including the possibility to drag'n'drop a URL to the recipient list to get addresses extracted.
• [New] You can now set tag data type between Text, Number, Date and Boolean, affecting sorting and conditional statement results.
• [Upg] It is now possible to set the resume period after a connection drop.
• [Upg] Possibility to edit the HELO/EHLO string used when starting a SMTP/ESMTP transaction.
• [Upg] The delivery ID can now be changed or reseted from the preferences.
• [Upg] Support for 7bit, 8bit and Base64 encoding for messages in addition to Quoted Printable.
• [Upg] 'Precedence' header added to settings panel.
• [Upg] 'Errors-To' header added to settings panel.
• [Upg] Mac OS Address Book import now allows you to overwrite selected list addresses.
• [Upg] Group setting now can be set to 2, 3 and 4.
• [Upg] Test Mode can be activated/deactivated from the Delivery panel.
• [Upg] Selected list name added to delivery report.
• [Upg] New [List Name] tag in order to insert recipient list name in message body or subject (Pro only).
• [Upg] New [Month Number] tag in order to insert the month number in message body or subject (Pro only).
• [Upg] New [Test Mode] tag to be used for example inside a conditional statement. It contains 'Yes' or 'No' (Pro only).
• [Upg] Default list and account preference new 'Automatic' choice to use last list or account.
• [Upg] It is now possible to select and play a sound when the delivery is complete.
• [Upg] The Cc and Bcc fields now support tags (Pro only).
• [Upg] The Reply-To field now support tags (Pro only).
• [Upg] It is now possible to clear the history ('Window -> Clear History' menu).
• [Upg] New Recipients -> 'Check All', 'Uncheck All' and 'Check Selection' menus.
• [Upg] 'History' button added to the toolbar to give faster access to the deliveries log.
• [Chg] Preference panel has been redesigned and enhanced.
• [Chg] The 'Window -> Deliveries' menu has been renamed 'Window -> History' (Cmd-H).
• [Chg] The 'Deliveries' window has been renamed 'History'.
• [Chg] The 'Partial Delivery' window has been redesigned.
• [Chg] Dropping a connection log to a list will mark the email addresses as sent rather than deleting them.

MaxBulk Mailer is shareware, available at two price points: "Standard" ($49.90) and "Pro" ($59.90), which adds the following features:

• Styled text support - Bold, Italic, Underline, Color, Font...
• Conditional message contents depending on optional tags value.
• 20 Custom Tags for advanced mail-merge.
• Ability to process tags in subject.
• 13 date tags, Long Date, Short Date, Abbreviated Date...
• Quick selector in order to check/uncheck recipients.
• Recipients creation directly from Filemaker (Mac OS).
• Full AppleScript support (Mac OS).
• Hyperlink manager. Allows you to insert text and HTML hyperlinks tags with one click.
• Full MySQL and postgreSQL database support.
• Secure SSL connection support.
• Possibility to use several servers at once.
• Cc and Bcc support.

Microsoft Entourage

Commercial

Current Version: 2004 Service Pack 2 / 11.2.1 (October 20, 2005)

Microsoft produces a lot of software, but one of the only essential commercial Internet programs for the Mac to come from our friends in Redmond, WA is Entourage (part of Microsoft Office 2004, and available separately), which allows Mac OS X users to work with Microsoft Exchange servers and do all the nifty things (messaging, scheduling, etc.) that their Windows counterparts have been doing for years.

The Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.1 Update fixes a synchronization issue in versions of Microsoft Entourage that have been updated with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Service Pack 2 (11.2.0). The issue might cause data loss when Entourage attempts to synchronize with an Exchange mailbox that was moved to a different server running Microsoft Exchange Server. This update also resolves issues with setting Exchange server permissions and printing calendars.

Note: Mac OS 8 & 9 users should use Microsoft's Outlook for similar capability.

Microsoft Outlook

Commercial; $0

Current Version: 2001 (June 27, 2001)

Microsoft produces a lot of software, but one of the only essential commercial Internet programs for the Mac to come from our friends in Redmond, WA is Outlook 2001, which allows users of Mac OS 9 to work with Microsoft Exchange servers and do all the nifty things (messaging, scheduling, etc.) that their Windows counterparts have been doing for years.

Note: Mac OS X users should use Microsoft's Entourage for similar capability.

Mozilla

Open source; $0

Final Version: 1.7.13 (April 27, 2006) / 1.2.1 (December 3, 2002)

Mozilla was the original name for Netscape Navigator, back when it was first being developed in 1994 by Marc Andreesen and his friends from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA - the people who developed Mosaic, the world's first graphical web browser). The name was supposed to imply a supercharged, "Godzilla" version of Mosaic; Mozilla was forced to change its name to Netscape when the people at NCSA threatened to sue over trademark infringement. Behind the scenes, though, Netscape Navigator and Communicator have always been known as Mozilla; type "about:mozilla" into the "Location" field of any version of those browsers and you'll see evidence of that.

In the early 21st century, with the "Mosaic"-inspired name no longer an issue, Mozilla became the name of the open source project upon which the Netscape series of browsers was based. Continuously developed by programmers around the world rather than by just a handful at a large corporation, it changed constantly, and improved all the time.

Today, however, Mozilla is no longer under development, at least under the "Mozilla" moniker. The primary components of Mozilla - its web browser and email/Usenet client - were broken off into separate, optimized development efforts, known respectively as Firefox and Thunderbird. The combined application suite has, as of early 2006, been reincarnated as SeaMonkey, which I will be adding to the Orchard soon.

Nonetheless, I include Mozilla here for historic purposes, since people will still find it useful and functional for some time, and it represents one of the only opportunities for users of "Classic" Mac OS to access a more modern browser that is largely compatible with today's more advanced web standards.

While Mozilla 1.7.13 was a minor update to Mozilla 1.7 that added some security and stability fixes, version 1.7 made a huge number of feature and performance enhancements. The online release notes have the whole picture.

Mozilla is fast (once it's loaded, which can still take a while) at rendering web pages. Mozilla is a breath of fresh air, and while the interface elements seem a little slow compared to other browsers, pages render remarkably quickly. This latest release is more than worthy of your daily use. Two of my many criteria for determining a browser's usefulness are: 1) how long I keep it open for browsing before quitting out in frustration; and 2) how long it keeps itself open before crashing. Mozilla wins on both fronts. Download it and try it for yourself; I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised.

FYI: If you use OS X and like Mozilla - but don't like the way it looks - you should proceed, posthaste, to download the Pinstripe Theme for Mozilla, which lets the browser breathe through a beautiful Aqua interface, just like all of your favorite OS X apps. Mozilla's just not complete without it.

Mozilla 1.7 requires a Mac OS X later to run (version 1.2.1 was the last "official" release for OS 9, although the Web and Mail Communicator Project has a modified, unofficial release of version 1.3.1 available for OS 9), and it comes with optionally-installable news, email, and IRC (yes, IRC; Mozilla includes an incomplete IRC client called "Chatzilla" rather than AOL Instant Messenger) components. The mail and news clients are surprisingly well thought-out and pleasant to use, although I will probably always maintain that it is better to use separate, dedicated email and newsreading software rather than taking a "swiss army knife" approach; the separate tools are still superior at what they do. (Personal note: this is why I actually use Firefox for my regular browsing rather than the combined Mozilla suite...for email, I use Eudora.)

Mulberry

Open source; $0

Current Version: 4.0.8 (February 22, 2007)

Once commercial software but now re-released by original author Cyrus Daboo as freeware, Mulberry is a well-loved IMAP and POP3 email client that is available not just for Mac OS X, but for Windows and Linux as well.

Version 4.0.8 adds/changes the following:

• Add option to automatically adjust timezones to new US rules as of March 2007.
• Update built-in timezones to new rules for March 2007.

Please note that there is no official support for Mulberry now - community support via mailing lists and other such resources will be used instead.

As of November 2007, Mulberry is now open source; see the Mulberry wiki for more information.

Musashi

Freeware

Current Version: 3.5 (June 16, 2008)

Musashi is an absolutely gorgeous e-mail client that supports multi-user, multi-user mail box sharing, drag & drop operation, and Japanese character sets on the appropriate OS versions. Background send and receive and searching and filtering are also supported. The user interface is spectacular. This software is worth a look for those who find Eudora Light a bit long in the tooth and for whom Eudora Pro is too overwhelming a tool.

Version 3.5 - the latest version for all platforms - makes the following changes:

• Musashi 3.5 is a freeware.

Unfortunately, as of March 2008, it appears as if Musashi development has ceased, and the project is now in "archive" status on Sonosoft's web site, but is at least still available for download as freeware.

Netscape

Freeware

Current Version: 9.0.0.5 (December 11, 2007)

Please note: As of February, 2008, Netscape will once again be discontinued. This time, however, it will be discontinued for all platforms, and support for all versions, past and present, will be discontinued as well. See Tom Drapeau's blog post for more information.

Once the universal choice for browsing the web, Netscape's presence today has been marginalized by many other browsers, largely due to the stagnant 4.x series that introduced little innovation, and to the 6.x series, which merely showed amateurish promise.

Netscape 9 is a bundled Web browser / authoring environment / email / newsreader / instant messenger offering based upon the Mozilla project's browser and renderer work.

The primary components of Netscape and Mozilla - both the web browser and email/Usenet client - were broken off into separate, optimized development efforts, known respectively as Firefox and Thunderbird. The combined application suite has, as of early 2006, been reincarnated as SeaMonkey, which I will be adding to the Orchard soon.

In its older (7.x) incarnations, Netscape represents one of the few remaining opportunities for users of "Classic" Mac OS to access a more modern browser that is largely compatible with today's more advanced web standards. Version 7.02 was the final release for "Classic" Mac OS, and it remains available, below.

Version 9 is available for Mac OS X 10.2 and later, represents the first new release of Netscape for the Mac in over three years. It's a universal binary, and it offers the following:

• Visual Refresh - Netscape Navigator 9's theme has been updated to save screen-space and leave more room for the websites you visit.
• URL Correction - Navigator 9 will automatically correct common typos in URLs. For example, if you accidentally type googlecom, Navigator will fix it be to google.com. The browser will watch for nearly 30 different types of common mistakes and correct them for you (asking you to confirm, if you choose to enable confirmation).
• News Menu and Sidebar - The latest news is built right into the browser, under the News menu. Provided by Netscape.com, you can customize the menu to only contain the news sections you want to monitor. You can also open the News sidebar to always keep an eye on what's happening.
• Link Pad - The Link Pad is a new sidebar feature that allows you to save links/URLs that you want to visit later without cluttering your bookmarks. Just drag a link over the Link Pad status bar icon and drop it to save it in the Link Pad. By default, clicking on an item in the Link Pad will open it in the browser and remove it from the list, saving you the step of deleting it.
• News Tracker - The Netscape Tracker sidebar lets you monitor breaking news as it happens, via Netscape.com.
• In-browser voting - Share your opinions with the world! The icons in the Navigator address bar let you share interesting stories you find and vote on stories shared by others.
• Extension Compatibility - Navigator 9 shares an architecture with the latest Mozilla technologies; as such, Navigator 9 will let you install extensions that are compatible with Firefox 2.
• Sidebar Mini Browser - You've always been able to have bookmarks open in the sidebar, but we've improved this functionality and extended it to all links, not just bookmarks. Additionally, we've added a navigation toolbar to the sidebar for even easier split-screened browsing. Just right-click on a link and select "Open Link in Sidebar" to get started!
• Restart Netcape - A smalll but oft-requested feature: you can now restart Navigator (and keep your current tabs intact) by selecting "Restart Navigator" from the File menu.
• Resizeable Textarea - Drag the bottom-right corners of text fields in forms to add more typing space.
• Tab History - Opening a link in a new tab will give the new tab the same history as the source tab for a more seamless tabbed browsing experience.
• OPML Support - Netscape Navigator supports importing and exporting your bookmarks in OPML, a popular format for sharing lists of newsfeeds.
• Throbber - By popular demand, the Netscape 7-style throbber is back. Click on it any time to visit Netscape.com.
• Combined Stop/Reload button - To save space in your toolbar, we've combined the stop and reload buttons. Because you never need both at the same time, the toolbar will only show the relevant half of the pair.
• Friends' Activity Sidebar - If you are a member at Netscape.com, you can keep tabs on what your friends find interesting. This sidebar lets you view your friends latest votes, comments, and story submissions.
• Sitemail Notification - This icon will sport an exclamation point when you have new Netscape.com sitemail messages waiting for you.
• Since Navigator 9 is based on the newest Mozilla technologies, there are additional features in Navigator 9 that were not available in Netscape Browser 8.x. You can read about those new features in these release notes from Mozilla.

Version 9.0.0.5 adds/changes the following:

• These security fixes included in Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11 have been included in Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.5.

Netscape 9 is as fast at loading and viewing/navigating pages than just about any browser available for the Mac - even though the interface elements are somewhat clunkier. Even so, Netscape Communicator 4 (updated on 8/20/2002 to version 4.8) is still available (see below) for those who might prefer its quirks.

I have chosen not to review the non-browser components of this release, but I generally recommend people use separate, dedicated email and newsreading software (although the email component has gotten rave reviews in many publications). The Swiss army knife approach just doesn't cut it for me (pun very much intended) when it's not a matter of my pockets feeling bulky.

Nisus Email

Commercial; $29.95

Current Version: 1.6.1 (May 7, 2002)

Nisus Software, Inc. produces Nisus Email, a simple but full-featured email client whose claim to fame is its ability to allow you to compose messages in your favorite text editor or word processing program.

Please note that, while the software remains available, it hasn't been updated in quite some time.

Opera

Freeware

Current Version: 9.24 (October 18, 2007)

Opera, the browser that has been a favorite of PC users for years, has finally arrived on the Macintosh in recent years. Similar in scope to Mozilla, Opera includes not just a web browser, but an email client and Usenet newsreader as well. Both of these are quite capable, and worth a look if you prefer an all-in-one application to suit the bulk of your Internet communication needs.

Version 9.0 - available for Mac OS X only - was a major revision to the Opera software, adding many key new features, not the least of which included:

• Content blocking
• BitTorrent support
• Widgets
• Search engine editor
• Site preferences
• Integrated source viewer
• Universal binary
• Full-screen integration with Intel Mac remote
• opera:config for advanced settings configuration
• Universal binary.
• Initial support for AppleScript.
• Support for IPv6.

Version 9.24 makes the following additional changes over version 9.23:

• Avoided a vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player. Details will be disclosed at a later date.
• Fixed an issue where external news readers and e-mail clients could be used to execute arbitrary code.
• Fixed an issue where scripts could overwrite functions on pages from other domains.
• Fixed user interface glitches in OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

The online release notes have much more detail about these new features. I would daresay that, as of the 9.0 release, Opera has become a browser that is worthy of attention on the Mac once and for all. It's quite stable, capable and customizable, and it renders pages very well - on a par with Safari and Firefox. Its breakthrough feature remains its ability to magnify and reduce pages (graphics and all) to just about any size of your choice, which is a real boon for those with disabilities. Its RSS reader is much more thoroughly developed than that in Safari and Firefox as well. Be sure to come back here again for more thorough review soon.

Opera is entirely free, eschewing the built-in advertising that was once its hallmark. Competition in the browser space is a good thing for Mac users. Let's hope that Opera can shake up the Mac browser world in a big way.

PGP Desktop

Commercial; see text.

Current Version: 9.9 (August 26, 2008)

PGP, commonly known as "Pretty Good Privacy," is commonly used to secure Internet email communications. PGP Corporation produces a series of privacy-oriented products, including the PGP Desktop file encryption/decryption system, available in "Home" and "Professional" editions.

Version 9.9 adds/changes the following:

• Introduces Whole Disk Encryption, with pre-boot authentication.

PGP Desktop is available for Mac OS X in several editions, including the following:

• PGP Desktop Email
• PGP Desktop Home
• PGP Desktop Professional

Pricing starts at $99 for the home edition. See the online store for more information.

POPFile

Donationware

Current Version: 1.0.1 (May 27, 2008)

From the POPFile home page: "POPFile is a free, automatic mail classification tool. Once properly set up and trained, it will scan all email as it arrives and classify it based on your training. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one, like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox." (The technical scoop: essentially, POPFile is a local proxy server for pre-processing mail between your "real" email server and your email client.) POPFile is written in Perl and runs on Mac OS X; the online Quick Start Guide explains what's involved in setting it up. Note: the author is looking for assistance in making the software easier to run on the Macintosh.

Version 1.0.1 adds/changes the following since version 1.0:

• When POPFile starts up it no longer complains about a missing IMAP file if IMAP has not been installed.
• Fixed a bug in the IMAP module that allowed for unintentional reclassification to the unclassified bucket.
• Fixed a bug that causes segmentation faults when displaying messages which have very long To, Cc or From headers in the POPFile UI.
• Fixed a bug that causes a few warnings during the corpus upgrade process.
• Add code to check for unexpected NULL characters in email messages (to avoid SQLite problems).
• POPFile's Brazilian Portuguese language file has been renamed. The new name does not include any spaces.
• The simplified and traditional Chinese language translations have been updated.
• POPFile's log file now includes entries showing when POPFile starts up and shuts down. This makes it easier to read the log file.
• The startup messages in the log file have been made easier to read by splitting the long entries into shorter lines.
• The IMAP module now issues a log message when it fails to connect to the server.
• Deletion of messages from the message history has been made faster.
• When upgrading an existing installation the installer now recommends upgrading the existing SSL support files.
• The installer and all of the NSIS-based programs have been built using the latest NSIS compiler and newer versions of the plugins used to download files from the internet. These NSIS-related improvements should reduce the number of false alarms from various anti-virus packages.
• The latest version of the SQLite command-line utility is now included.
• The links to the wiki have been improved.
• The (outdated) manual is no longer included in the download. All documentation for POPFile is online and can be found at http://getpopfile.org/docs/

The online roadmap has more information on various releases, including all past, present and future.

POPmonitor

Shareware; $25

Current Version: 2.1.3 (December 19, 2003)

POPmonitor lets you delete unwanted e-mail from your mailbox without downloading it to your computer first, and allows you to trash messages with large attachments without the need to download them to your computer first. Just login, select the unwanted messages and click 'Delete.'

Version 2.1.3 makes the following changes:

• Improved existing filters and added new powerful filters
• Improved ISO character set decoding to properly deal with encoded characters such as &#000;
• Fixed bug where ISO character set decoding was not carried out while applying message body filters causing some filters to incidentally skip messages that should have been flagged or deleted
• Fixed issue where the Check All Accounts menu item would be enabled only if at least one account window was visible
• Fixed cosmetic issue where message without subject is now titled 'Untitled message' when shown in a separate window
• Enlarged text fields in the Create Filter window to allow easier editing of keywords
• Added warning dialog to the Create Filter window to notify when a filter's keyword string exceeds the 243 character limit
• Fixed bug where multi-line subject would be truncated
• Fixed bug where missing From e-mail address could cause unexpected message actions
• Fixed bug where incorrectly formatted e-mail addresses cou