Having a notification when new email arrives can be nice and really useful if you're waiting for an important message. But if you're using a desktop email client or maybe a third party webmail service, you might not want to run a big client application or have to keep checking that tab in Firefox to see if new mail has arrived.

An e-mail client, aka Mail User Agent (MUA), aka e-mail reader is a frontend computer program used to manage e-mail.

When most people install a free software mail transport agent (MTA) they plumb for Postfix, Exim, qmail or Sendmail. Whilst these are all fine, they can be a little over the top for some smaller systems or systems where all you need is some kind of local MTA functionality. In these cases many people will install their favourite MTA anyway - but there are more lightweight alternatives.

Nullmailer is a minimal MTA (Mail Transport Agent) that provides mail delivery services to programs (cron jobs, system integrity checkers, log inspectors, etc.) in a host that otherwise does not require a full MTA like Exim or Postfix.

Claws Mail is a free opensource lightweight, user friendly and fast email client for Linux. Claws Mail is a quick response email client with easy configuration, intuitive operation and abundant features, extensibility, robustness and stability.

The Evolution mail client has been the default such application in Ubuntu since I got to know of Linux. Sure it is the default GNOME mail/calendar application, but I really am of the view that Ubuntu needs to drop it in favor of say Mozilla's very brilliant Thunderbird.

Mozilla will step up the pace of on its Thunderbird mail and communications platform next year, to re-invigorate a "stagnant" email client scene.

Do you think email is important part of Internet life? Are you interested in seeing something interesting and exciting happen in the mail space? Believe that Thunderbird provides a much-needed option for open source email alternatives and want to see it get more attention on its own? Long to see something more innovative than Thunderbird in the mail space happen?

I have used so many email clients over the years. For the last few years my go-to email client has been Thunderbird. Lately, however, I have really been taken in by Claws Mail.