Why use a seperate e-mail client?

[BoyBlunder]

So, recently I've installed Ubuntu dual-booting on my desktop. I've got a gmail account and noticed that Evolution was installed. I set up the pop servers, etc, and started to download all my mail, but noticed that it wasn't in a format as easy as gmail's web interface.

So my question is:

Why use a program for (web)mail, instead of the web interface?

 

[tdg]

The only real advantage to grabbing webmail is for keeping it to read offline. Most of my email accounts have the option to be checked via webmail, but I grab them because using about 10 email addresses regularly, it's much easier to have the program to grab all of them at once instead of going through each one manually.

 

[ksar123]

I agree. I've used Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc at home, but after switching to GMail over a year ago I haven't looked back. The interface is so much nicer (IMHO), the spam filtering is the best I've seen, the calendar is great, and being able to send/receive from anywhere is another plus.

Of course at work we do use Outlook/Exchange, but as far as *free* personal email is concerned I don't think you can beat some of the big webmail providers.

 

[B. W.]

Like tgd said, your able to read messages offline and archive them. Using an e-mail client is also usefull if you have different e-mail addresses or a lot of mail.

I only have two accounts, and I forward my ISP's e-mail to my Gmail account.