Mail, Entourage, Or Web Email. Which Is Better?

Most of what we do on the web these days involves email and browser. Browsers? Lots of choices. Email? Not so many choices, right?

The basics are Apple and Microsoft and a few other obscure email tools. Don’t forget your browser. It’s becoming the email application for Mac and Windows users.

I had to do some work in downtown San Diego early this week and spent some time in three different office buildings, wandering through cubicle farms and offices.  The big surprise was how many people use their browser for email.

Apple’s Mail stores and manages incoming and outgoing email for as many accounts as you need. The same goes for Microsoft Office’s Entourage, but with even more capability.

So why are more people using their browser to check email? I see a paradigm shift taking place and it started with Google’s G-Mail and virtually unlimited storage.

Add that to increased bandwidth, increased number of internet connections, increased number of WiFi connections, and the general dependability of all those components, and a paradigm shift is taking place.

As an example, before heading out for the day or an overnight trip, my husband and I used to back up our Mail files, then copy all the files from our desktop Mac to the MacBook. No more. We don’t bother.

Increasingly, we’re using Safari or Camino or OmniWeb, and sometimes Firefox (whatever happens to be up and running at the time) to handle our email when we’re away from home. We don’t check email when driving, of course (the iPhone doesn’t count), but access with the notebook is easy to come by these days.

That highlights the only drawback, and it’s less of a drawback now than in years past—internet connection. Mail on my Mac doesn’t require a connection until it’s time to send or receive email. Even if the connection is down, I can read my mail and respond. Once the connection is back up, all is well again.

Browser-based email requires a live connection to the internet, but that is increasingly a non-issue with the ubiquity of WiFi, WiMax and other connections.

This shift in email usage habits means many of us are just not using the email client on our computers, but managing our mail via Yahoo, Google, or using a browser to view company email.

That change begs the question—“Are you using a browser more for email in the past couple of years?”

If not, you’re not alone. If so, you’re in growing company. If so, is it Yahoo, Google, or company email that you check and manage in your browser window?

How much difficulty is it to find an internet connection when you’re away from your desktop Mac? Web-based email management has improved dramatically in the past two years. Even Apple’s .Mac web mail looks and feels like Mail on Mac OS X.

The follow on question for Mac360 readers is—“How would you describe the differences when managing your email messages in a browser?” It’s one thing to save them in a folder on your Mac, but it’s a bit more cumbersome to do the same in a browser window.

I’ve been saving email on my Mac for about nine years and the total file size is about 270-megabytes. That’s far less, after many years, that what Google and Yahoo allow for their web-based mail users.

There’s another change I’ve noticed. I’m using Google more than Yahoo for web mail. Yahoo’s interface is OK, as is .Mac. Google’s is simply elegant, and allows me to check and manage email via POP on my Mac.

Do you have issues with web mail? If so, Talk Back to us in the Comments section below.