Thunderbird is an open-source email client from Mozilla. It is the most efficient when speed and flexibility is considered. Its usability can be increased by plugins and add-ons like Firefox. It supports all popular protocols like POP, IMAP and SMTP. Thunderbird can work on all platforms unlike Microsoft Outlook, which only works on Windows (and now on Mac OS X too). One advantage of Thunderbird over Microsoft Outlook is the use of IMAP, as Thunderbird is very fast even with IMAP. If you like IMAP to access your email then there is nothing better than Thunderbird. It has alot of other features and extensions too.
Zimbra collaboration suite is an Open-Source rival of Microsoft Exchange and Zimbra Desktop is an email client just like Microsoft Outlook. The thing that makes Zimbra Desktop special is the fact that it is very handy and easy to use and its clean and elegant user interface. With IMAP Zimbra Desktop works awesomely and its speed, even with IMAP, is unbeatable.
Zimbra Desktop boasts an auto-configure feature for Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and AOL which makes configuring an account on Zimbra Desktop very easy. It also flaunts a work offline feature that cachea all your email locally and this fact lets you ccess your email even when you are offline. This feature functions with IMAP protocol and this thing makes Zimbra Desktop the winner of IMAP usage.
Zimbra Desktop also has a conversation view feature. This feature lets you view all the emails in a single email view like in Yahoo or Hotmail.
The latest version of Zimbra Desktop also integrates the social element like Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc. with email by letting you access to all your social accounts in one place.
3. IncrediMail
As the na,e suggests it is a fun and fancy email client that provides you a colourful experience. It supports all popular protocols like POP, IMAP and SMTP. But the thing which makes it different is its features like colorful and picture backgrounds whilst creating emails, email notifiers which are animated characters notifying you about a newly received email, incredibly high quality emotions making your email more appealing and fun.
IncrediMail also has a feature named PhotoMail Maker which lets you add photos as email backgrounds.
One downer of it is that it will forcefully change your browser homepage and search provider to IncrediMail’s one. If you use Internet Explorer 9, it will prompt you that some software requires you to change your search provider. Just choose on “Don’t Change” and this will solve the problem.
4. Opera Mail
If you use Opera as your default browser then no email client can be better for you than Opera Mail, as it is integrated right inside the Opera browser. Opera Mail is easily configurable and you do not require opening a separate email client as your email will arrive and displayed in the Opera browser.
The offline email feature allows you to access email even when you are offline. While travelling it can come quite in handy as it uses a low bandwidth mode that lets you work just fine even when the Internet connection is really slow. It only gets inportant information on low bandwidth mode.
It also has a good spam filter feature that halts all spam emails without bothering you as it functions in the background. One more good feature is that it allows us to sort emails in our own way. Gmail has the labels feature while Opera Mail went one step further with the auto-learning feature, which lets labels learn how you interact with them.
Download Opera Browser from Opera Website. Mail can be configured by going to the menu and selecting Mail and Chat accounts.
5. emClient
emClient is yet another amazing email client and a rival of Microsoft Outlook. Its new version is particularly designed to run on Windows Vista and Windows 7. You can get a free version for home use but you re required to pay for it if you are a business user. It supports all the famous free email services like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail. It can also has the ability to import settings and emails from other email clients like Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.
The search feature is really good as it quickly finds anything in the inbox. Features like tagging for messages, signatures and templates, email rules are also present. One of the amazing feature is the translation service that translates emails within the inbox.
emClient also has some other collaboration and organisation features like Calendaring, Instant messaging, Contacts organization etc.
Whilst many other alternatives are present out there but I have only discussed the top five in my view. You are welcome to share your top choices through comments below.
