The Bottom Line
Pros
- FreePOPs lets you access web-based email accounts in any email program using POP
- Modules for dozens of services including Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, are available
- Easily extensible, FreePOPs can make other resources available via POP as well
Cons
- Configuring FreePOPs and its modules could be more comfortable
- You can't send mail through FreePOPs and there is no IMAP access
- Not all FreePOPs modules are equally featurefull
Description
- FreePOPs allows you to access various net resources and services via POP in any email client.
- Free email services supported include Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail.
- FreePOPs works as a POP proxy translating between web-based interfaces and your email program.
- Flexibly extensible via modules, FreePOPs can also turn RSS feeds into emails, for example.
- FreePOPs works through HTTP proxy servers, too, and allows you to use spam and virus filters.
- Options for plug-ins are set via the user name you use in your email program.
- FreePOPs supports Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/3/XP/Vista, Mac OS X and Linux/Unix.
Guide Review - FreePOPs 0.2.7 - Free Webmail to POP Tool
POP, the Post Office Protocol, is a simple and reliable way to download messages in email programs.All email messages? No, mail arriving at a free web-based email account is often not available for download via POP. If you still want such access, you can employ a tool like FreePOPs that translates between the web-based access and your email client.
Because it is easily extensible via scripting files, FreePOPs is particularly flexible and supports a wide range of email services, from Hotmail over Windows Live Hotmail to Gmail, Lycos and Yahoo! Mail.
FreePOPs even makes other resources available via POP. You can download and read RSS feeds in any email client, for example.
Unfortunately, this flexibility does not always translate to the individual scripts (called modules) for the services. If there are options, setting them is not really convenient.
Basic access usually works reliably and pretty fast while requiring no setup. Still, it would often be nice to decide whether downloaded mail should be marked read, for example.
It is also really a pity that FreePOPs does not offer SMTP services for sending mail. IMAP access would be even better, of course.
