Free alternative to MS Outlook

Hello,
Has anybody found a free alternative to MS Outlook they can recommend please.

Ta,
Del.

The obvious answer is Thunderbird, and if you need a calendar too; the lightning addon. Thunderbird is excellent, lightning however is the slowest, buggiest pos ever made.

Try Google for "email clients" and see what you like the look of.

or just have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-mail_cl...

thunderbird. not used outlook for over 5 years now.

I've used Outlook for more years than I care to remember so am very comfortable with it. However I'm interested in trying Thunderbird - though the absence of a decent calendar feature would be a real hindrance. Be that as it may, can I install Thunderbird alongside Outlook? Outlook would, at least initially, be my primary email client. I'd set Thunderbird to download but leave on server the emails for Outlook to process - assuming that's a TB feature.

If you're using pop3, set both clients to leave on the server, with imap it doesn't matter. As for the calendar, lightning does some things better than Outlook. It syncs (read/write) to any .ics file, even on the net, and with the google calendar provider add-on it'll sync with google too. None of that makes up for the fact that it is incredibly slow though.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

However I'm interested in trying Thunderbird

Thunderbird has just recently been updated to Version 3, but there are problems with it. Furthermore, so I understand, the Add-on (Lightning) doesn't integrate too well with it!

Hence, if you want to try Thunderbird, get the latest of Version 2, with can be downloaded here:
LINKY

I'm not a regular contributor to this forum but use the site often.

I saw the question I only use Firefox and Thunderbird latest versions on Vista with no issues or problems.

Calender works just fine (you don't need to download Lightning) and integrates with Outlook via e-mail at work.To copy entries across invite 'yourself' using your work e-mail address or vice-versa.

You can use microsoft alongside these but one you've found some of the useful add-ons you won't want to waste your time.

A few sites might not open in Firefox. This is down to problems with the sites and Firefox being marginally less tolerant than microsoft. However, such sites are few and far between.

Good luck!

given how much of a dissapointment I am finding outlook 2010, as soon as I get a day or two free I am likely to migrate to thunderbird.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Calender works just fine (you don't need to download Lightning) and integrates with Outlook via e-mail at work.To copy entries across invite 'yourself' using your work e-mail address or vice-versa.

Thanks for that, which Calendar application are you referring to? I'm retired so integrating with a work Calendar is not an issue

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

A few sites might not open in Firefox. This is down to problems with the sites and Firefox being marginally less tolerant than microsoft. However, such sites are few and far between.

Firefox is, and has been for some time, my default browser.