I've always had
a soft spot for the Opera browser ever since it came out at the end
of 1996, and the email client is one of the many reason the Opera web
browser should be one of the free applications in your tool box. I'm
using three browsers now, and I use them for different functions, oh
and Internet explorer isn't one of them. I've used Opera on and off
over the years because it always seems to have something that I
wanted to use. Usually when I needed to down load a file with a
BitTorrent. But I think the email client alone is a huge reason to
use it
First off Opera
has a fantastic email client. I decided to look at it today after
getting another request from my spouse to fix her Mozilla Thunderbird
email client. I had to reinstall it recently for her, and it seemed
to be working fine on her Vista running desktop, but it's on the
Fritz again, and frankly I'm getting tired of fixing it. I'm using
Thunderbird for Linux on my laptop with no problems at all but I find
Thunderbird a bit cumbersome for the average user. If I find it
cumbersome then I know that Joe Blow on the street is going to find
it difficult to set up. You can use Opera with just about any of the
online email services that are out there but I use Yahoo mail and
Gmail exclusively myself. Gmail is a snap to set up on any email
client, by simply telling Opera what your email address and passwords
are and that you want to use imap, bang, you're in business. With
Yahoo there are a few more steps. Here are the setting that you need
to enter to use imap with Opera email client. These also work for
Thunderbird by the way.
Outgoing mail needs to be set to:
- smtp.mail.yahoo.com
- port 465 (SSL/TLS)
Incoming imap server needs to be set to:
- imap.mail.yahoo.com
- port 993 (SSL/TLS)
In case you have a problem with the above settings then here are some alternative settings for accessing imap:
- smtp.mobile.mail.yahoo.com port 465
- imap.n.mail.yahoo.com port 143
or
- android.smtp.mail.yahoo.com port 465 (SSL/TLS)
- android.imap.mail.yahoo.com port 993 (SSL/TLS)
Other important
settings for Yahoo mail that need to be set.
- Click on the wrench next to your email address
- Then click on properties.
- Next click on IMAP to tell it to map the Sent, Trash, and Bulk mail folders. There are drop downs to select.
- Click on “OK” Then you should be all set.
The reason you
have to go through so many extra steps is because Yahoo wants to
charge you to use their email on your email client, and their premium
email service has access to their POP account that allows it to talk
to Outlook, Thunderbird, and Opera mail. They don't charge you to use
Yahoo mail on your Android, or iPhone. We just used their settings
for mobile devices that work just fine on an email client.
Now I had a hard
time finding how to add another account, you can add as many as you
want and it's not hard to set up them up once you get to the right
place, but it's tricky finding the spot to add a new email account.
- First you have to move your mouse on the email address you already have set up, then click on the wrench next to it.
- Click on IMAP folders and when the “Subscribe IMAP folders” box pops up then click on “Account.”
- You can then click on new account to set one up.
I actually like
the look and feel of the email client that is built into Opera over
Thunderbird. It seems more polished and friendly. And it's sort of
nice having email to my left in my browser as I'm doing other things
on the web. It's one less thing I have to switch between.
One other unique
feature of Opera is the fact that it has a BitTorrent
built right in. I don't use this much but every once and a while I
need to download a large file and my only option is a bit torrent.
Having BitTorrent software built in makes it more of a one step
process to get the files that you are after. Just download the small
torrent file and Opera starts the process of getting the actual file
you want.
Opera is the
fastest browser out there, so if you don't like waiting for pages to
load then this is the browser for you. Opera also hosts blogs
somewhat like Google does. Opera makes a great browser for your cell
phone that use use on my Android exclusively.
It would be nice
to be able to read Kindle book on Opera, but that's why I have Google
Chrome. With so many different applications available for web
browsers they themselves have turned into their own operating
systems. For the most part what operating system you use doesn't
matter too terribly much anymore unless you have an application that
you just have to run on Windows for instance. Of course that's
another story.
