LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: John Edwards <isplist@adam.com.au>
  To  : Aristotle <aristotle@ihug.com.au>
  Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 11:49:19 +1030

Re: Evolution 0.99

>How come ISPs use POP and not IMAP?

Who says they don't? :)

POP is easier to support, as it has no folders, a more consistent interface
between different software, and windows mail clients compatable with it have
been available a lot longer.

IMAP breaks depending on certain client/server combinations owing to
different interpretations of the standard, and requires end-users to be
aware of things like 'expunge'. There are also privacy and liability
concerns where an ISP can end up storing received AND sent mail.

POP3 generally requires less disk space to support, as it tends to default
to 'delete mail from server after download'. IMAP encourages users to leave
mail on the server. Throw in XX,000 email accounts and see how long it is
before you run out of disk.

It's also going to be simpler to manage with one big folder to store mail,
not little customized ones that make it more difficult to automate things
like old-mail culling and quota checking.

>Isn't IMAP better as no polling is
>required?  Ie - the message just appears in the inbox and one can delete
>messages without having to download them if they want to.

Convenient, yes, but also a hassle for an ISP that paid for the bandwidth to
have that mail delivered to your Inbox, when you might never download it. At
least POP3 gives a better chance that you will be paying for the megs they
already downloaded for you.

John Edwards


-- 
LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
  mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the subject