On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 07:58:41 -0600, lucas wrote:

I know IMAP is better than POP, but is HTTP (such as MSN) better than IMAP?

In the first place, if you post in a group, you _must_ remember to go back
to the group to collect replies to the post. It is rude to make a post to a
public server, and expect an email response.

In the second place, IMAP is only "better" than POP3 for some values of
"better". Each has its place. Sort of like the difference between a boning
knife and a carving knife in your kitchen, or the difference between a
crescent wrench and a box wrench in your garage.

From the receiving end, there is no difference in function between HTTPMail
and IMAP. OTOH, IMAP accounts usually use normal SMTP serves, with the
usual SMTP vulnerabilities. As a consequence, spam originating from
services offering IMAP accounts is negligible. OTOH, the WebDAV application
use with HTTPMail accounts seems to be easily compromised by spammers,
based on the volume of connection attempts my MX server sees from MSN
Hotmail SMTP relay clients. So, in the long run, I would have to say that
HTTPMail accounts are worse than IMAP accounts.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum