Thunderbird 1.0 Screenshot tour by OSDir.com

Only later upon reading the installation was performed on Windows, I had hope it might work on my Linux systems. I do not use either POP or IMAP, which seemed to be the only allowed choices.

Ever thought about writing titles/articles for slashdot??

I give up... what open protocol do you use?

I guess you never heard of SMTP. It's what my ISP uses.

Note too that the screen shots showed only a radio buttons (forcing a choice) for POP3 or IMAP. That was disconcerting.

Regarding /. - all rejects, even when I run across items that are new and different than reported. Moreover, I compose terrible titles, which I guess was your point.

SMTP is a protocol for sending and routing mail (a.k.a. "Mail Transport"), between hosts, not for accessing mail in one's "mailbox" like POP/IMAP. So, are you saying you run your own mail server and access your mailbox locally; mail is delivered/routed directly to your localhost? What do you use for your MUA now (just curious)?

Pre-Mozilla versions of Netscape Mail supported Unix-style local mailboxes through it's 'movemail' facility. This facility, unfortunately, did not make it into Mozilla Mail and it's progeny. :(

Yes... I've heard of SMTP (duh)... oh yes...

What open protocol do you use FOR RETRIEVING MAIL?

Sorry I wasn't clear.

Movemail is included as an option in TB.

Setting up the mailer in Mozilla incoming mail was: mail.comcast.net

OK. I'm confused. The title says that you *thought* you could not use it. Does that mean you know you can use it now?

$ nmap -p 110,143 mail.comcast.net

Starting nmap 3.70 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2004-12-11 14:43 CST Interesting ports on mail.comcast.net (63.240.76.10): PORT STATE SERVICE 110/tcp open pop3 143/tcp filtered imap

Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 2.812 seconds



So that server supports pop3 for your incoming mail. imap (which is a cool protocol, btw) is, unsurprisingly, not supported. (Why providers do not offer imap as a pay by the kB option I really don't know.)

-Steve

To clarify just a bit: I am using the built in mailer in Mozilla (currently version 1.7.3) and since most of my browsing is done using FireFox I had been hoping to switch to the Thunderbird mailer. The specifications listed were the ones necessary to get the Mozilla mailer to work.

The specifications for Thunderbird should be identical to those for Mozilla 1.7.3.

If you would like to use Thunderbird and have been unable to do so, please email me privately at steve@rueb.com and I will try to assist.

-Steve Bergman

Ok... so you're comcast... well that's the whole problem, let me assure you.

There was a time when the @home/AT&T and now Comcast mail servers worked well (though you did have to use SSL POP (I believe)... I know I had it working and then one day, it stopped being reliable. I investigated, called Comcast, emailed EVERY Comcast employee on the internet (that was fun!) and finally they contacted me directly to let me know in no uncertain terms that the ONLY email client they support is OUTLOOK.

I now use somebody else for email. I know that's not a great answer, but it was the answer for me.

sbergman27: thanks for the offer! However, I need to assemble (really replace components that seem not to be working) another machine and get it running to do some coding. Right now my mail is fine via Mozilla and considering cjcox remarks I will sit still with it.

cjcox: so far when I have a complaint about SPAM or in one case where my email address was spoofed (I got messages about trash I supposedly sent individuals I did not know) explaining I had Linux so far has caused me no problem. I think I will stay with the Mozilla mailer a bit longer. I would only like it to be just slightly better detecting SPAM. For example, an empty subject line with a "-" for an address gets by. Not much of a problem, changed my SPAM settings to having it moved automatically when I manually label it as SPAM. Compared to the complaints I have read elsewhere I am doing fine on this problem!

Sorry.. my message wasn't about spam. I started having problems using comcast's smtp from a remote location... I complained, got little to no help... other problems, etc... so I just moved to using something else for both smtp and pop.

Maybe it (comcast) works reliably now... haven't tried in quite a while.