Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is the difference between POP and IMAP? Which should I be using?
A. POP is a system designed for use on dial-up connections and off-line use, where the server delivers your email to the computer you are currently at when you connect and then has nothing further to do with it, i.e. it acts rather like the Post Office (hence Post Office Protocol, POP). Like a postman, the server delivers your mail and then goes away. This has two fundamental disadvantages: 1) the server no longer has the email stored (and therefore backed up) on it, and 2) the emails are delivered to the machine you connected from, so they may be spead across multiple PCs. This is the main reason for most of our "My email has vanished!" queries. ISPs love to use POP, as then they don't have to look after your e-email any more and it saves them money.
IMAP is a more modern system designed for today's high speed local area networks and broadband connections. All mail is kept on the server, and when you connect a copy of your email is made and delivered to you (the "cached" copy). There is no disadvantage to connecting via IMAP other than you need to be connected to the network whilst your email client is running, and the overwhelming advantages are that your emails are backed up every night by IT Services, and that you see all of your emails from any computer which you connect to.
Q. What is the difference between TLS and SSL? Which should I be using?
A. There isn't really any difference to the end user. TLS version 1 is, in effect, a branch of SSL version 3. We currently recommend setting SSL for your IMAP (incoming) connection and TLS for your SMTP (outgoing) connection for both on and off campus connections. Note that you don't get the choice with Outlook Express - you're forced to use SSL for both.
Q. What is the difference between Outlook Express and Outlook? Which should I be using?
A. Outlook is Microsoft Corporation's primary email client and is supplied as a component of their Office suite. It is comprehensively featured, incorporating a calendar other features, and is a pre-requisite for users of the Microsoft Exchange email system (users of which this document doesn't apply to). We recommend its use only for those with Microsoft Exchange accounts. All staff joining the University since September 2006 will be given an Exchange account. Existing staff will be helped to move to Exchange later in the year.
Outlook Express, on the other hand, is supplied as a component of Microsoft Windows and is nothing to do with Outlook other than having a similar name. All it can do is read non-Exchange email and postings from news servers. If all you want is to read emails, Outlook Express is all you need and you don't have anything further to install.
Click here for Microsoft's own summary of the difference between these two products.
Q. What are Netscape, Mozilla and Thunderbird? Why should I consider those?
A. These products are all based on an open-source system called Gecko (although Netscape 8 now also uses components of Internet Explorer). Netscape has been around since the early days of the World-Wide Web and is now owned by AOL, Mozilla is effectively a non-AOL-owned variant of Netscape and tends to be one step ahead of Netscape in terms of features (and bugs). Thunderbird is solely an email client and tends to be a step ahead of Mozilla. Note that none of these products are explicitly supported by IT Services, although there are no known problems with any of them.
Click here to learn more about and download Netscape suite (email, news, web browser, web publisher and anti-spyware).
Click here to learn more about and download the Mozilla suite (email, news, web browser, web publisher).
Click here to learn more about and download the Thunderbird email client (email and news reader only).