stand alone e-mail app
 

My father has a new computer and has been used to using Outlook Express. Modern Windows computer do not come with a proper e-mail app any more and Windows Mail is not good enough for him.

As he uses an address with a family domain, he does not use webmail, but want a proper email app. Any recommendations, especially if free!

TIA

From what you say, and making a guess, he has Windows 7. Download Microsoft Windows Essentials. There is an email app in there.
If he has Windows 8, I would think the same applies, but would add "The Best of Luck" to you.

Try Mozilla Thunderbird, it's free.

Windows Live Mail (from MS Windows Essentials) is, like Thunderbird, free and is also available for Win8 as well as Win7.

The problem with all these M$ mail progs is that when they 'drop' them as with OE, it is a devil of a job to transfer everything to the new prog. Far better to have an M$ independent prog which 'adapts' with the OS.

Opera is a first class browser with an excellent built-in e-mail client.

But Outlook Express morphed into Windows Mail ( on my Vista machine ) and then Windows Live Mail ( on my Win. 7 machine ) neither of which are exactly like the original Outlook Express - which was the point of the original equiry.

Usual bleat - Outlook Express wasn't 'broke', so why fix it ? Leave the damned things ALONE ! Why are we 'old dogs' constantly having to learn new tricks, we're quite happy with what we have, thank you.

My vote goes for Mozilla Thunderbird - it's free, it's very user-friendly, it has everything inbuilt into the programming that enables it to work with almost every file type and attachment type - and it works without bugs, or crashes, or the requirement for "urgent" daily or weekly updates or upgrades.

I originally started with Outlook Express when I originally started on computers with Windows 98 (in 1998) - and I moved over to Thunderbird about 5 or 6 yrs ago, and have never regretted it.

Use it with Mailwasher to inspect and "wash" your mail before you download it, and you also reduce your chances of receiving viruses, or nasty and unwanted garbage in scam emails, to virtually nil.

I like Thunderbird too. I've used it for over 10-15 years. It's available for other operating systems too. I use common mailbox files for my emails but shared between Thunderbird on Windows, and Thunderbird on Linux.

Grump
 

I wonder how many M$$$ customers have a quiet moan every time they use their e-mail systems??

Outlook Express did exactly what I wanted.
Like others, I did not like any of its successors such as "Live" Mail. So I switched to Outlook. Lucky I could do so cheaply.

However, it really is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and it does gazillions of things that I DO NOT want, whilst those gazillions of things make it harder for me to find where the basics are.

Grump over.

I use Thunderbird (since a moments carelessness caused me to loose most of my email data while OE was compressing its folders) and the associated Moz Backup program. I've never actually needed to use Moz Backup, but it's nice to know that all the mail data is there, and available (and works) if needed.