Unlike webmail, POP3 email accounts require a piece of software to read your emails. Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird and Mail are all POP3 email clients. These programs have components which retrieve mail from a remote mailserver, deliver it into a local inbox, and connect to this inbox to read the mail. This means that when you use a POP3 email client, your emails are stored on the hard disk of your computer.

POP3 has several clear benefits. The fact that your emails are stored on your hard disk means that you can read and edit them even when you are not connected to the internet. You can write messages to send later, and there are often advanced features such as MailMerge and the ability to set send dates for composed emails. Processes such as changing views and opening new windows are often faster because there is no need to wait for a page to load, as in webmail. Your mailbox is only limited insofar as your hard disk is limited, and there are no limits on the size of emails that you can send. Also, opening attachments is very quick because they are automatically downloaded onto your hard disk.

However, there are a few problems with POP3 mail. Ease of opening attachments can be a problem if you suspect an email of containing a virus. Scanners provided by antivirus software are not always able to filter out all viruses. Some email software automatically opens the first email in a mailbox in a separate frame, meaning that the images in spam emails can be automatically downloaded (although you can usually prevent this in the Preferences menu of your email client). Rogue JavaScript may also be a problem. Because all of your emails are stored on your computer, it can be relatively easy for others to read your private mail; even if you password-protect your email client, someone who knows what they're doing may find other ways to access your emails. Also, you do not have the advantage of being able to read your emails in any location, as you do with webmail.

By Natalie Catchpole

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