As Mac users know, when Microsoft makes a Mac version of its software, it's usually buggy junk with half the features that the Windows verison has and that comes out between 6 and 18 months after it.
But Outlook Express 5 just may break that tradition. It may have come out 7 months after the Windows version of Outlook Express, but the feature count is identical as far as I can tell. And OE5 is probably the most reliable piece of software on my hard disk.
The interface of Outlook Express is clean and straightforward, with the only downside being the nonstandard overly colorful icons, probably put there by Microsoft to show that they consider our Macs to be toys. OE5 supports every mail out there, with full support for POP3 and IMAP mail protocols. And OE5 does a great job of setting up and supporting multiple mail accounts (for instance, OE5 on my Mac downloads my mail from my AT&T WorldNet account, my corporate email account, and my MSN Hotmail account.
About MSN Hotmail support, this is perhaps the biggest improvement in OE 5, and the most compelling reason to download it. With Outlook Express 5, you can both send and recieve email with an MSN Hotmail account. This means that if your ISP doesn't provide you with an email account, or you're in a family and your ISP didn't give you enough email accounts, you can kiss those slow and cumbersome web browser email services plastered with ads (such as Yahoo! mail) goodbye, and use MSN Hotmail through Outlook Express 5. Be forewarned, though, the Hotmail service through OE5 isn't quite finished, and can be buggy at times. But Hotmail is fine for the vast majority of the time.
The address book feature is also the best in the game, allowing you to store just about every bit of information there is to store for a person.
Compared to Netscape Messenger, Outlook Express is much, much better. Not only does it have more features, but it looks nicer, feels more refined, and takes up less memory.
I never thought I'd say Microsoft's Internet software is as good as Netscape's but Outlook Express 5 outdoes Netscape Messenger 4.7. Now if only Internet Explorer for the Mac was this good...



Recommended: Yes