
Opera Mail – standalone mail client - exterm
http://my.opera.com/chooseopera/blog/2013/06/11/introducing-opera-mail
======
mike-cardwell
Just tested this with
[https://emailprivacytester.com/](https://emailprivacytester.com/) and it
_failed_

Even though it claims to not load remote content by default, and pops up a
"Load Images" dialogue, it actually loads content from the html5 video and
audio tags immediately.

So whilst this doesn't work unless the user clicks "Load Images":

    
    
      <img src="http://TRACKING_URL/">
    

This does:

    
    
      <video autoplay="true" src="http://TRACKING_URL/"></video>

~~~
odinho
Ouch! Looking at it. Have created a bug about it already, so no need to
report.

~~~
exterm
I like it a lot when someone involved with the project answers to "bug
reports" or complaints like this. Gives me the feeling that they care. I see
this a lot on hacker news and it always puts a smile on my face.

------
Historiopode
Does it offer PGP integration?

Well-designed email clients with proper privacy seem to be very hard to come
by, and new players in that niche would be welcome. Particularly in the
current climate, I would argue.

~~~
marquis
Yeah, what happened there? I had Eudora in the mid-90s running PGP integrated
really nicely. I was talking with a friend how had never used PGP before and I
realised somehow I just stopped using it and don't remember when. Maybe it was
just the romantic ideal back then that we were important enough to have our
mail read, or maybe it was that we actually personally knew the ISP admins and
really knew they could read our mail.

------
znowi
Well, just installed and I rather like it. Sleek design. Simple interface. RSS
is a good addition. Sadly, though, no auto-feed discovery like many RSS
clients do nowadays.

At first glance looks more appealing than Thunderbird. Certainly so in
configuration, which is simpler and more intuitive. Thunderbird's single SMTP
pane for all accounts annoys me each time I see it.

Lacking vertical positioning for the "List and Message below" layout. But I
guess it's just a bug.

They launched it very timely, when the cloud is no more to be trusted. Behold!
The return of the desktop app! :)

~~~
pestaa
What does the way you access your data has anything to do with where it is
stored? Just because you read your emails from a local copy, don't fool
yourself into thinking that the drawbacks of the cloud no longer applies to
you.

Now, if you were to host your own mail gateway, that is a different matter
entirely.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
Using a standalone desktop app allows you to use encryption (PGP/GPG) while
continuing to use hosted services like Gmail/Hotmail. In other words, you can
again start treating networks as dumb pipes.

~~~
zimbatm
They still get access to the "metadata" though

~~~
fakeer
Fake it, then. Fake yor location, fake your mac address, fake your time and
timezone. &c.

~~~
mike-cardwell
You can't fake the IP address you connect from. You can't fake the email
address you're sending to. You can't fake the account you're using to send.
You can't fake the time that you connect.

~~~
fakeer
Then use Tor.

Have a disposable email address.

You don't have to fake the account just make one just for this purpose. Well,
time you cannot fake but with just known value of time and many other unknown
variables the equation and possible solution would be useless, practically.

------
bobsy
Look at all the comments under the announcement. Really sum's up how I feel as
well. A selling point of Opera was the built in email client.

I liked how Opera used to be a silo for a whole bunch of features. When you
closed it the rest closed as well. Was a great way to turn off work.

Now we have ANOTHER fairly generic stand alone email client. ANOTHER fairly
generic webkit browser. If it wasn't branded with an Opera logo would anyone
really give a shit?

~~~
derefr
> a silo for a whole bunch of features. When you closed it the rest closed as
> well. Was a great way to turn off work.

Honestly, it sounds like you want an OS running in a virtual machine. Nobody
is going to pursue your ideal "monolithic productivity suite that does
everything" path; it's just a plain-bad idea.

~~~
Mithaldu
> it's just a plain-bad idea.

That's a very nice opinion, but without actually qualifying why you think that
way it has nothing to do with reality.

~~~
derefr
Because an operating system is a _good_ idea, and a monolithic do-everything
productivity suite subverts the point of an operating system by creating a
very limited, hard-coded, non-extensible OS _on top of_ the OS, reimplementing
half of what the OS already does, but poorly, failing to interact with any
components not distributed with the suite, and not allowing for any of the
things modern OSes allow for (multi-display MDI support, for example, or
package management.) There is no justification for having two redundant layers
of OS; anything the suite does in terms of integration (for example, a
clipboard implementation), could be converted to an OS feature of the parent
system and used to integrate _anything_ with _anything_.

And if you really think the do-everything productivity suite is the one with
the right ideas and the OS you're running is the one that's screwed-up--well,
then, there's _still_ no reason to run two layers; instead, what should be
done is to expand the productivity suite _into_ an OS. Like Chromium OS and
Firefox OS are currently in the process of.

~~~
Mithaldu
And now comes the part where you explain to me how i combine Firefox and
Thunderbird into one app such that i can have various emails open in first-
class-citizen tabs alongside web pages. Since apparently Firefox does such an
amazing job of it.

------
clarkdave
Looks interesting. I've been a Thunderbird user for a long time but the fact
it appears to have been practically abandoned[0] by Mozilla is a shame.

The 'Import from Thunderbird' wizard appears to be a bit broken, though. It
tried to import all my Thunderbird accounts but seems to have just munged them
all into one account in Opera Mail. It would be nice if I could selectively
import single Thunderbird accounts.

Also, as others have mentioned, it seems to be lacking compared to Thunderbird
in auto configuration (in TB, I can enter a Google Apps email address and
it'll figure out it's Google for me).

[0] [https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-
stabi...](https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-stability-
and-community-innovation/)

------
zadrian
I am not particularly happy with its integration with Gmail. Each email from
facebook group is assigned separate mailing list. So now when I expand mailing
list it is just cluttered with rubbish sublists like [0-9]*.groups.facebook...
In general part which is responsible for detecting what is actually a mailing
list isn't very clever. It would be nice if instead of creating folders for
each label on Gmail it would create new label - so that it will be 1-1
integration.

Design seems really neat and if it will provide better Gmail integration I
would love to use it. Of course I realise it is not going to be number one
front-end for Gmail ported from web to standalone application, but I think
that most popular mailboxes deserve it.

Is anyone here using fastmail and can tell how well it integrates in it? Is it
more ingelligent and joins labels from fastmail with those in OperaMail or it
just works the same way as with Gmail - new folder for each label?

~~~
odinho
Mailing lists are not the same as labels. Labels and Mailing lists are two
different features (albeit very similar).

Mailing list only looks at the List-Id: email header. Facebook is sending that
in its emails, and that's why it gets its own "Mailing list" automatic entry.

Not that beautiful, I agree.

~~~
zadrian
As for labels, I meant that both OperaMail and Gmail have system of tags.
However Gmail tags are treated as IMAP folders not using OperaMail tags. I
realise that creating new tags in OperaMail may get out of sync with Gmail,
but the the other way round - having labels from Gmail imported as labels to
OperaMail should be possible to do.

------
TerraHertz
Good. But what I want to see, is Opera web browser _without_ an email client
(and all the other stuff I never use.) Opera browser badly needs some slimming
down.

Call me old fashioned, but I deliberately use a prehistoric email client
_precisely_ because it does not know anything about active content. Barely
even handles html. And I like it that way.

Now if Opera's email client had a big master switch, to totally disable all
features beyond strictly dumb ASCII, and a means to import huge old mail
archives from Eudora, then I'd be interested.

Edit: Correction: to disable anything beyond dumb ASCII plus UTF-8 foreign
language support. But NOT html or any other active content.

~~~
exterm
opera browser without e-mail client:
[http://www.opera.com/developer/next](http://www.opera.com/developer/next) Not
for linux yet, though.

~~~
TerraHertz
Good news. I'm OK with Windows - I'd rather be enraged with Microsoft, than
with the Million Monkey syndrome.

~~~
pestaa
I think I could connect the Million Monkey syndrome to the Linux ecosystem,
but what does it exactly mean?

------
mike-cardwell
I just tested running the Windows version under Wine on Debian Wheezy and it
works.

------
djpowell
The main thing I care about with a mail client is the exit strategy - if I
don't like it, can I export all my mail losslessly to mbox or eml files?

Does anyone know how it fares at this?

I use gmail now, though in the past I've used The Bat.

~~~
StavrosK
If your server has IMAP, you shouldn't need that.

~~~
T-hawk
You may also care about a server exit strategy. Your local storage format
becomes relevant in the event you want to change email servers. (Maybe if, for
example, your email server decides to stop supporting IMAP to get everybody to
use the ad-serving web interface instead. Or your email server belongs to a
large company suspected of leaking to the NSA.)

------
mike-cardwell
Always good to see a new desktop client. Hopefully they'll add Kerberos auth,
PGP/MIME and read/write LDAP based address books. Until then I'll stick with
Evolution for those features.

------
Vivtek
The download page is so sleek it doesn't even have a link to documentation so
I can see what I'm downloading before wasting my time.

------
Ysx
Great news! Thunderbird was horrific on my aging Windows machine last year, so
always had Opera open just for email.

------
rjd
Been using this since the release candidate a week or so ago and absolutely
loving it. Has a few quirks here and there which need to be configured or
ignored, but I've found it the best organising tool for mail on OSX in a long.

------
manuletroll
I'm kind of disappointed by the first-launch experience: there's no
configuration wizards for common email providers, not even for fastmail which
is an Opera division AFAIK.

Edit : Actually there is, but it's not very discoverable.

~~~
simfoo
There is, I only entered my fastmail address (not even using the fastmail.fm
domain) and it configured automatically.

~~~
odinho
Yes, we have a shipped XML configuration file which finds and sets up many
common domains automatically.

------
werid
Loaded up my gmail in it. Then went to attachments, documents. Lots of hits
from my gmail spam-folder. This needs work...

edit: the basic mail function looks okay. looking forward to testing the linux
version against exchange.

------
Corrado
Wow, that sure is an annoying product page. Where are the details about what
mail providers they support? Does it do calendering? What are the system
requirements (WinXP, OS X 10.5, CentOS 5, etc...)?

~~~
odinho
Supports IMAP and POP. Mail providers like gmail, yahoo and hotmail should
work pretty well. Doesn't do calendaring. Runs on WinXP. Don't know about that
old OS X version, but I think it probably does. Runs on old Linux (when we
release the Linux version that is). You don't even need gtk or qt, though
it'll use them if it can find them.

~~~
Corrado
Excellent! Now put that information on the web page somewhere so that others
don't have to wonder. It doesn't even have to be on the home page, just
_somewhere_. :)

As a downside, I see that it doesn't support Exchange and that pretty much
dooms it for me, at least on OS X. I hate Exchange, but I have to deal with
it. Luckily, Apple's Mail.app seems to work fairly well with Exchange so at
least I'm not forced to use Outlook.

~~~
lloeki
[http://davmail.sourceforge.net/](http://davmail.sourceforge.net/)

------
dinduks
Installed it but didn't use it. I don't want to go through the hassle of
looking for the configuration info of my GMail (one of the most popular email
services) account. So 2003.

~~~
exterm
it should guess the details correctly after you entered your address.

------
dhaffner
Looks interesting, definitely will give it a go.

Can anyone suggest other mail clients worth trying out? I'm tired of Mail.app
these days.

------
grandpoobah
I never understood tabs in an email client

~~~
pestaa
I use it to put important mails such as tasklists on separate tabs so that I
can come back to them easily and keep reading other emails.

------
dabeeeenster
Is there a way to connect it to the OSX Address Book or Gmail contacts?
Doesn't look like it?

------
robotmay
Looks great, I just need to wait for the Linux version before I give it a go
:)

------
iknowno_one
When is Mozilla going to make a Thunderbird addon for Firefox?

------
cturner
An important feature for email: fast and flexible search over a large dataset.
This is easier to implement in the cloud than on the client. So I don't see a
strong future for desktop-based email clients.

~~~
exterm
Funny you mention it. Search in opera mail is excellent and extremely fast. It
searches through all of my 12k mails in the blink of an eye.

------
baby
It is also a RSS reader. I don't really get it.

~~~
rvschuilenburg
Can't you also read RSS using the OSX Mail.app?

~~~
rplnt
Or any other mail client really. What I don't get is why they stripped it out
from the browser (I didn't take up any disk space really).

edit: I really hope they don't take out RSS reader functionality out as well.
I never got why other browser didn't support such basics when it came to
browsing.

~~~
exterm
They are building a completely new browser based on chromium. So they didn't
really strip it out, they just didn't add it to the new browser.

~~~
bobsoap
Switching to Chromium was a big mistake IMO, seeing how inferior, unstable,
and slow the new Android app is compared to the original. I get it, they had
to cut costs, so they fired a bunch of people and gave up their proprietary
edge. It just seems to have been the wrong decision because they took away one
of the core features that used to make it great (at least with regards to the
Android app): speed.

~~~
rplnt
From what I've read the desktop version lost basically everything that was
special to Opera. I know it's early builds but I think many features won't
make it back.

------
ndr
Windows only?!?

~~~
exterm
I expect Linux and Mac versions to follow. They have released windows version
first on new products in the past.

~~~
odinho
I work on Linux version of Opera Mail. Windows and Mac is released today. A
rc/test version of Linux will follow soon.

(What is soon, you ask. Well that depends, but I guess in this case over a
month would /not/ be soon.)

~~~
ndr
Thanks for replying here. I couldn't find other links to the Mac version so I
inferred that there was only Windows support. It would be nice to have "Linux
coming soon" page instead of "Download for Windows" by default :)

------
thehme
So, how secure do we know this is?

------
SEJeff
No Linux support boo!

------
SeanDav
I see no mention is made of their secret access portal to NSA...

~~~
dubcanada
lol? This comment is a little confusing considering Opera is based on Norway.
And as far as I know Opera is probably one of the better ones in regards to
NSA said stuff.

------
rch
I'd like to hear the full story on how Opera self-destructed as a company.
Someone should write a book or something.

~~~
faaaah
Why do you think Opera self-destructed? They announced their quarterly
financial results a couple of weeks ago, and they set another revenue and
profit record. They're basically growing on all fronts, have plenty of cash in
the bank, and are growing their profits.

So again, what self-destruction are you referring to?

~~~
Mithaldu
They just announced that Opera 12 will be discontinued, with Opera 15 being a
Chrome fork in which they will attempt to reimplement features from Opera 12.
They also announced that several features which people liked a lot will never
make it into Opera 15. And to put the cherry on the top: The very first
feature that they announced removed were "Bookmarks".

In other words: They're very busy alienating massive parts of their user base.

~~~
faaaah
You don't seem to understand what's going on.

Most Opera users are on mobile, not desktop. Opera is struggling on desktop.
Sites weren't working, and that was the #1 problem with the browser. Fixing
that will let them grow. Opera's got nothing to lose on the desktop. They can
only gain users by doing this, even if a handful of hardcore users drop them.

Most people don't need most features in Opera 12, but they're just getting
started with the new Opera. Now they can create a proper foundation instead of
this:

[http://www.favbrowser.com/opera-the-past-the-present-the-
fut...](http://www.favbrowser.com/opera-the-past-the-present-the-future/)

Opera 15 is not a fork of Chrome either. It's using Chrome (Chromium) as-is,
but with a new user interface on top of it.

In other words: They may alienate a small hardcore group, but fixing site
compatibility will more than make up for it because other people can finally
start using it.

~~~
Mithaldu
Check their financial reports, desktop is 25% of their income:
[http://business.opera.com/company/investors/finance/](http://business.opera.com/company/investors/finance/)

> Opera 15 is not a fork of Chrome either.

Are you thenwhat? Just on the off-chance that you're not him: What you
described is exactly what a fork is. Please don't try to comment on software
development until you've actually gained the experience that job entails.

~~~
faaaah
Desktop is a smaller and smaller part of their income. It could disappear
tomorrow, and the company would still be in great shape. It's growing all over
the place. So again, claiming that Opera self-destructed is silly.

Thenwhat? Huh? A fork is taking the code in a new direction and making it
differ from the original. Using the code as-is, is not a fork.

