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Comment by andix | Hacker News Reader

Why use Outlook without Office 365 or Exchange at all?

Only reason I could think of: some very specialized extensions that are only available for Outlook.

I'm really happy that Thunderbird recently got some updates, I think it's the only good free desktop mail client that is still around. Evolution looks really dated nowadays.

Personally I can recommend eM Client for Windows users as an Outlook replacement (and they have a macOS version too). It's commercial, but there is a free version for private use. It does CardDAV/CalDav quite well, and supports PGP/S/MIME.

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It 'just works'.

I've got Office 365 for Business for my personal email. Comes with OneDrive for Business (built on SharePoint) with 1TB storage, all the Office apps, Bing Chat(GPT) for Enterprise, Outlook app on Android/iOS etc. etc. Integrates perfectly on Windows.

The email service is great, works as expected and emails don't go undelivered with great spam filtering.

Can't think of a better provider. I used to be with Google Workspace but after transferring my Google account it's irreversible and can't go back to a 'personal' account while losing access to many Google services like (I know it's dead now) Stadia. Had to create a new 'personal' Google account and transfer everything over manually after doing a takeout - lost a few things like my old YouTube account and Google Play purchases.

I use Thunderbird on my mobile and desktop.

Thunderbird needs to get to the 21st century before general public starts swapping out MS or Google mail, calendaring, and contact solutions. As it is, the GUIs on need a Jacob Nielsen-style usability revamp.

Are you using the new/beta UI already?

Thunderbird still has a long way to go, but made already a huge step forward, away from the ~20 year old UI they were keeping and cherishing.

I think they also need to get rid of tabs ASAP (at least disable them by default). The concept of tabs just doesn't feel right for an email client.

Is your problem a UI problem or a functionality problem?

I'm asking, because I can understand wanting functionality (eg. decent calendar integration). I don't understand UI complaints but am willing to imagine "it could be better" (eg. UI-complaints of Gimp)... except I've used Thunderbird, and the UI does its job fine.

Sure, maybe with some MS ribbon-alike thingy it would work better for some, and maybe I'm a dinosaur, but most UI changes in programs I've used the last decade were either shrug or a bad idea. So I've become very hesitant about overhauling UIs simply because they come across outdated to some.

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