Reviewer: Tokar
Read all my reviews
Date: 05 Mar 2005, 08:02 GMT Overall rating:      | GUI:     Features:     Ease of use:     Value:     

Back before Yahoo became subject to increasing net fees and such, when the internet was a little cheaper and companies didnt have to turn to advertising and spyware to make money, Yahoo offered free retrieval of their email via POP3. It was fast and free. Yahoo! needed money i guess, so they made this feture a "premium account" feature. I dont think its called "premium account", but Yahoo created a pay service that made POP3 exclusive to it (as well as some other features, like a larger mailbox...well before the days of the GMail competition). Sure it was worth it if you were heavily dependent on Yahoo mail, which a lot of people were since Yahoo mail was the only real major email player back then. This was also when spam wasnt really heavy...hell, the bulk mail folder was only created a few years back because of the increasing amount of Spam in the world.
When Yahoo closed their doors to free POP3 services, YahooPops (or now YPops) opened its doors. I initially started using it when it was called YahooPops...like at version 0.4 or so, when i was more dependent on my Yahoo mail. Im a little less dependent nowadays, mainly because of the advent of ISP email addresses with free POP3 and MAP services, so i dont really need my yahoo mail coming into thru Outlook Express or such. but when i did use YahooPops (i recently tried out the version 0.7.2 of the software so i could get the more important emails i had remaining in my inbox...and have them in outlook express) it did its job and did it well. The software is set up like your well known file server type software...it sits in the system tray, connecting to yahoo mail, and you set Outlook Express, or your favorite email client (their webpage has guides on how to set up basically any email client under the sun with YPOPs), to check the server 127.0.0.1 or LOCALHOST. YPOPs when requested connects to your Yahoo mail account, or accounts if you have more than one, and will download the exact message, an exact copy. The program has settings if you wish to delete the mail off the server or if you choose not to have the bulk mail be downloaded (which wasnt an option back around version 0.4) and a multitude of other options.
It does its job and does its job well. You barely ever see it, so i really dont think there is a necessity to make a highly polished GUI, not that im expecting one. And like Outlook Express or such, you have the option of showing the status window...if you dont show it, you dont experience the GUI which i dont mind. Outlook Express indicates its working so thats all i care about.
The software is lightweight, free, and it does the job.
I dont know if there are other alternatives (as if you really need one) to this software, but because it does what its supposed to so well i dont think you should be worried about looking elsewhere.
If you have yahoo mail you would prefer to read in your favorite email client, get YahooPops, or YPOPs now. You wont be upset. |