1. About.com
  2. Computing & Technology
  3. Email

Discuss in my forum

Eudora 7.1 Email Program

About.com Rating 4.5 Star Rating
User Rating 4.5 Star Rating (6 Reviews) Write a review

By , About.com Guide

Eudora - Email Program

Eudora - Email Program

Heinz Tschabitscher
The Bottom Line
Eudora is a classic, powerful, flexible and efficient email client that cans spam precisely, too, and shows nary a weakness. Leveraging the statistical spam filter to organize good mail would be nice, though. Some of Eudora's best features (the spam filter and fast search) are only available in the paid version.
Pros
  • Eudora filters spam effectively and easily, alerts you about deceptive URLs in phishing emails
  • Fast index search finds any email fast in Eudora (Windows only)
  • Eudora is rock-solid and rich in powerful features for efficient email use
Cons
  • Eudora does not offer smart folders (though you can save search criteria)
  • It would be nice if Eudora could use its Bayesian filtering engine to automatically classify mail
  • Eudora's remote content privacy protection could be improved
Description
  • Eudora handles multiple POP and IMAP accounts.
  • Powerful filters, labels and a flexible template system for replies help you handle email in Eudora.
  • Eudora includes fast email search, and the "Content Concentrator" trims quoted text.
  • Integrated "SpamWatch" Bayesian spam filtering cans junk precisely and with little effort in Eudora.
  • Eudora's "ScamWatch" alerts you about suspicious links in phishing emails.
  • Another feature dubbed "BossWatch" helps you avoid sending mail to bosses or clients inadvertently.
  • You can read and send richly formatted HTML emails, but Eudora has solid plain text features, too.
  • Eudora Sharing Protocol can automatically synchronize files and folders via email.
  • Eudora gimmicks: usage statistics, offensive vocabulary alert, contextual filing, graphical smileys.
  • Eudora supports Windows 98/ME/2000/3/XP/Vista and Mac OS X.
Guide Review - Eudora 7.1 Email Program
Eudora is a wonderful email client. Over the years, the makers of Eudora have found efficient and elegant solutions to just about all email problems as they have surfaced. Eudora also has solutions for problems you probably do not have (like "MoodWatch", the amusing indicator of aggressive vocabulary), but for the most part Eudora is a flexible, fast and easy to use email program.

Eudora lets you read and write emails in style, of course. Eudora's message rules are versatile, and it's easy to eliminate spam using the precise Bayesian filter, dubbed "SpamWatch". "ScamWatch" looks for spoofed URLs in phishing emails that want to trick you into handing sensitive data to criminals. ScamWatch fares pretty well but does not catch all fraud attempts, so it still pays to be alert.

The same applies to "BossWatch", which alerts you when you're about to send mail to certain domains. Finding mail is solved elegantly and fast with X1 index search.

While you can block Eudora from loading remote content in emails automatically, more flexible controls would be nice. Eudora comes with a flexible template system for canned replies, the "Eudora Sharing Protocol" (ESP) is a very easy to use, albeit proprietary, way to sync files automatically, and the content concentrator trims quoted text nicely.

It's really a pity that Eudora doesn't come with integrated secure messaging, and it would be nice if Eudora could use its Bayesian engine to automatically sort mail.

User Reviews

 5 out of 5
I'd give it 20 stars if I could!, Member Skip_Thomsen

As others have commented, Eudora is the best email client there is. I've been using it for my personal email and for our business emails ever since the beginning. I've looked into others, Thunderbird for our Linux computer, for example. All of the others are clones of each other and NONE has the flexibility, ease of use, and just plain user-friendly ambiance of Eudora. So what a shame it is that the folks who gave us this remarkable program are now abandoning it. The excuse is apparently that they want to bring Eudora into the 21st Century. Right. I downloaded the new Eudora OSE, otherwise known as Penelope, and it is, guess what, Thunderbird! Same awkward and user-hostile interface, most of the most-used and most convenient features of Eudora are missing, and it's just sad. So we will continue using Eudora 7.1 on all of our computers (six of them) until it finally breaks. Eudora has already announced that we're on our own with the original Eudora and that they no longer support it. When it breaks, we're off to gmail, which we already use on our traveling computer and it does the job . . . much better than Thunderbird. Being Web based, our gmail is also available anywhere, on any computer, which is a desirable feature we were willing to sacrifice for the luxury of using Eudora. Rest in Peace, Eudora. You have many fans out there.

Write a review

148 out of 152 people found this helpful.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No

See all 6 reviews

©2012 About.com. All rights reserved. 

A part of The New York Times Company.