CERN Accelerating science

Netscape 4 Mail

  Arnaud Taddei IT/DIS - (Mail Support)

Netscape 4 Mail was introduced at CERN in June 1997 on the Macintosh platform and later on NICE and on UNIX systems. Users started to require it for various reasons:

• need to access their mail from different platforms, particularly from home,
• need to use other features of Netscape 4 like Java,
• need to move from other obsolete mail systems,
• already happily running version 3 of Netscape.

The general consensus is that Netscape 4 Mail is usable but not of the quality we had hoped. It offers more features than version 3, in particular supporting access to your mailbox from multiple locations using IMAP.

The product has quite a number of more or less serious bugs. The company has agreed to a certain number of changes promising a better product with Netscape 5 some time in 1998. A complete list of problems can be found at URL:

In addition we have produced some explanations and recommendations that should help you get a better service with Netscape. They are summarized below and the full details can be found at URL:

• Differences between IMAP and POP
  The Mail Server offers location independent access to your mailbox and folders using the IMAP protocol.
• Creation of folders on the Mail Server
  How to avoid the main traps with Netscape when creating folders on the Mail Server?
• Moving your AFS folders to the Mail Server
  How to move all your folders to the Mail Server: in particular, your AFS folders? If you are not just using UNIX/AFS systems this will help you a lot!
• Delete and "expunge" mechanism
  How to avoid serious problems by using the recommended "delete" and "expunge" mechanisms with Netscape?
• Checking for New Mail
  How to avoid problems caused by having a polling rate which is too high in Netscape 4 Mail?
• Have your account on the right Mail Server
  How to improve your life with Netscape by getting your Mail Server account moved to the right server?
• A new mailbox format
  What is this new format on the Mail Server which really helps a lot when using Netscape 4 Mail and what do I need to understand about it?
• Netscape 4 Mail on UNIX
  Are the UNIX versions of Netscape 4 Mail usable? (It depends on the platform.)