[Wolves] Is IMAP better than POP?

Chris Maggs chrismaggs at gmail.com
Tue Oct 30 14:32:36 GMT 2007


It is possible to telnet to the POP server and view headers only and
delete any unwanted (or huge!) emails before downloading them;
although I assume this method would be a bit to much of an overkill
for most users.

Incidentally, I used to work for NTL (now VirginMedia) broadband
support in Swansea and although our mail servers were POP based the
majority of users used the webmail front end rather than Outlook
Express or Entourage (we didn't support Linux!) for two reasons.  The
first was that they could get their mail from anywhere they wanted so
long as they had an internet connection. The second was as we only had
9 minutes and 41 seconds to "get them off the phone" (official
terminology!) it was far easier to point them towards the webmail page
that try and setup their mail client.  This obviously resulted in
overfilled mail servers which crashed and died at regular intervals -
and still do from what I've been told!

Chris

On 30/10/2007, Alex Willmer <alex at moreati.org.uk> wrote:
> Mark Harrison wrote:
> > Alex Willmer wrote:
> >> POP3: [... ] Protocol is better suited to slow links such as dialup or
> >> GPRS.
> >
> > Alex,
> >
> > Interested to hear you say that. My experience has been that, given I
> > get a reasonable number of files with attachments in the average day,
> I rearely get emails with attachments, so didn't consider it.
> > when I'm on the road (and therefore on a slow link), the slightly
> > higher network overhead of IMAP is trumped by the fact that IMAP can
> > just read the headers, and then let me decide whether I _want_ to
> > download that thunking great Powerpoint that someone thinks I need.
> The headers only behaviour of IMAP is nice. POP3 can be made to do it
> with certain clients, but support is sporadic. Alex.
>
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