nPOPuk

The Benefits

Page updated 1 November 2012

Go to TopWhy use nPOPuk?

With so many email programs available why should you choose nPOPuk? The following sections describe some of the reasons why many users have turned to nPOPuk, but don't think of it as just a specialist tool, it makes an excellent general purpose e-mail program too with these additional benefits.

Go to TopTo take your E-Mail with you

The program download is incredibly small compared to other "small" or "portable" e-mail programs, many of which consume several megabytes of your disk space. When installed, the basic program and support files only require around three hundred and forty kilobytes of disk space. In the old days this allowed plenty of space for both program and stored mail on a floppy disk. These days, installing nPOPuk on a USB flash drive, with its extra capacity, makes life still better and most these days will opt for a larger version with built-in SLL facilities!

nPOPuk does not write to the host computer's registry, or leave any other "fingerprint" behind on its hard disk. So, if you haven't a Laptop, or PDA, but will be visiting somewhere with a computer, then nPOPuk could be for you. It is so much better than using a web mail service which can never be as flexible as having your own copy of your mail for use even when the internet is not accessible.

With the greater capacity of flash memory devices these days, it is even possible to install multiple copies of the program file for different platforms on a micro-SD card and, using a converter where necessary, slip it into almost any Windows based, desktop, laptop, PDA or SmartPhone and access your e-mail.

Go to TopTo clear mail that is blocking an account

If the download progress bar in your normal mail program gets stuck while downloading your mail it is probably because someone is sending you an extra-large attachment. Nothing else can be sent or received until that download is complete, wasting time and, potentially, completely blocking the account.

With nPOPuk, when a "Check for new mail" is performed, the main Main Window shows the size of every mail item waiting on the server and the default settings retrieve the first 100 lines. This is normally sufficient to be able to open the message and identify the name of the attachment, read and reply to it or decide whether to delete the message and attachment without taking any other action. If it is decided to delete the message, it is still be possible to save the text of the message to be used as the basis for any reply in another mail program.

See Checking the Server, the Main Window and Marking Mail and Updating the Server for information on the techniques required.

Go to TopTo clear Spam

Mail boxes can become flooded with UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail) commonly known as "spam".

The techniques for unblocking an e-mail account can also be applied to spam. However, when it is known that mail from certain sources, or with specific contents in certain of its header lines is unwanted, then automation is called for.

nPOPuk includes a facility to filter mail. It can check the contents of a given header line in a message and perform one of a number of actions on it. This includes marking an item for deletion. The user then has a chance to confirm that the filter is performing as required, after which, an update request from nPOPuk will delete the marked items from the server.

See Filters and Marking Mail for deletion.

Go to TopTo check for urgent mail

If you want to be notified as soon as possible after a new e-mail arrives at your server, you may keep your normal mail program running permanently, especially if you are connected to a LAN or have a permanent connection to your ISP. If your computer is elderly or one with limited resources then you can find things slowing to a crawl.

Alternatively, you may have a pay-by-the-minute/megabyte internet connection and you want to stay on-line as briefly as possible. Because nPOPuk can be set to read only the first few lines of a message, there's no need to spend ages on a slow connection downloading a huge file, just to get at the text of an important message received into your mail box after the giant file.

nPOPuk can be made to sit unobtrusively in your system tray and periodically check your Mailbox. By limiting what it picks up to just the message headers it can be extremely fast.

There's a section on the Global Options page which provides a summary of how to best set up nPOPuk for use in this way.

Go to TopTo resist Viruses and Malware

Many viruses and other disruptive software arrives as an attachment to e-mails. Especially prone to infection is the HTML portion of messages. These rogue programs rely on "features" and bugs in your e-mail client, and other programs, to do their work. It's easy to stop attachments arriving with nPOPuk, and the way nPOPuk handles attachments means that they cannot be opened without specific action by you. Using nPOPuk as your mail client also helps as there aren't the same "back doors" that viruses rely on to install themselves on your system. The result is that you are very secure from this threat when using nPOPuk.

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