Best Email Provider For Bangkok?

[TravelerEastWest]

Best email ISP provider for Bangkok?

Currently I use True 12 down 1 up in Bangkok and my VOIP and internet surfing is 90% ok but my email using Thunderbird as my client and a US IMAP webhost is very slow.

Using Gmail my email is just fine and I can download photos and large files at a good speed.

It seems that True is throttling the ports that I use for my IMAP account and not the webmail for GMail.

I think...

1) Does my conclusion sound correct?

2) Is there a way to still use a local email client like Thunderbird and my US IMAP account yet get good speeds like when I use Gmail??

Edited November 22, 2009 by TravelerEastWest

[wimpy]

Have you tried Thunderbird with Gmail IMAP? Works well for me.

[webfact]

Thunderbird and Gmail IMAP runs like a charm

[Xonax]

I can only agree on Thunderbird and Gmail IMAP.

[lopburi3]

Why use anything but Gmail? Have my True/Hotmail/Gmail all there and only a browser tab away without dedicating any computer resources (other than the tab)

[Digitalbanana]

Exactly, Gmail is king. The o/p can have the US email forwarded to it as well.

[TravelerEastWest]

Thank you very much for the replies!

First, at the moment I am using Gmail for 90% of my emails that I send. I need to use Thunderbird for things like "Reply receipts" which Gmail does not seem to have - unless I am missing where it is?

Also I do not like Gmails advertisments - annoying and taking up space.

My mail is fowarded to Gmail so I have a copy on my local computer which I want for safety and a Gmail copy.

Now as for combining Gmail and Thunderbird that may be a good idea.

1) Will I still have the ads taking up space?

2) Is the basic version free - seems to be but I am not sure.

3) If I need to pay $50 a year for no ads that may be a good solution but I have more than one email address on mydomain.com and paying $50 per address would not be ok.

Am I misunderstanding? Can I pay $50 for [email protected] and then keep my several other addresses on my local Thunderbird client?

4) I am exploring opera's email and it is a little difficult to use but seems to have no ads and the same speed as Gmail. Anyone tried using Opera with IMAP?

5) Are there any Bangkok ISP possibilities that do not throttle email ports? Possibly change my modem?

Edited November 25, 2009 by TravelerEastWest

[OriginalPoster]

Thank you very much for the replies!

First, at the moment I am using Gmail for 90% of my emails that I send. I need to use Thunderbird for things like "Reply receipts" which Gmail does not seem to have - unless I am missing where it is?

Also I do not like Gmails advertisments - annoying and taking up space.

My mail is fowarded to Gmail so I have a copy on my local computer which I want for safety and a Gmail copy.

Now as for combining Gmail and Thunderbird that may be a good idea.

1) Will I still have the ads taking up space?

2) Is the basic version free - seems to be but I am not sure.

3) If I need to pay $50 a year for no ads that may be a good solution but I have more than one email address on mydomain.com and paying $50 per address would not be ok.

Am I misunderstanding? Can I pay $50 for [email protected] and then keep my several other addresses on my local Thunderbird client?

4) I am exploring opera's email and it is a little difficult to use but seems to have no ads and the same speed as Gmail. Anyone tried using Opera with IMAP?

5) Are there any Bangkok ISP possibilities that do not throttle email ports? Possibly change my modem?

It sounds like you might be over-analyzing this. GMail doesn't cost anything regardless of whether you use it's web interface or a standalone client such as Thunderbird or Outlook. Ads are only present when you use the web interface, not when you use Thunderbird or Outlook. Speed of reading a new email with Thunderbird or Outlook might be slower than reading with the web client if the email has attachments because the web client doesn't need to dowload the attachments for you to be able to view the body of the email, whereas by default most standalone clients connecting via POP3 or IMAP will download the entire email (complete with attachments) before you can read any portion of the email other than the header.

Edited November 25, 2009 by OriginalPoster

[TravelerEastWest]

It sounds like you might be over-analyzing this. GMail doesn't cost anything regardless of whether you use it's web interface or a standalone client such as Thunderbird or Outlook. Ads are only present when you use the web interface, not when you use Thunderbird or Outlook. Speed of reading a new email with Thunderbird or Outlook might be slower than reading with the web client if the email has attachments because the web client doesn't need to dowload the attachments for you to be able to view the body of the email, whereas by default most standalone clients connecting via POP3 or IMAP will download the entire email (complete with attachments) before you can read any portion of the email other than the header.

Original Poster,

Thank you for letting me know that there are no ads when I use a Thunderbird client - good.

I assume you are talking about the standard version of Gmail as looking on their site Google there is a $50 per email charge for their higher level service - more storage etc.

Which I can pay but sadly they charge for every user and I only need the service for one of email addresses.

In my case the current speed problem is like night and day - very slow with Thunderbird IMAP on its own and very fast with standard gmail.

This is true with or without attachments.

I have given up on the Opera option for feature reasons.

I am talking to True support but they seem to know not much more than I do about (and sometimes less)the internet which is scary.

I am trying to find out why I have this problem as the account is lightning fast in the USA and as I mentioned Gmail works fine for downloading photos etc.

[OriginalPoster]

It sounds like you might be over-analyzing this. GMail doesn't cost anything regardless of whether you use it's web interface or a standalone client such as Thunderbird or Outlook. Ads are only present when you use the web interface, not when you use Thunderbird or Outlook. Speed of reading a new email with Thunderbird or Outlook might be slower than reading with the web client if the email has attachments because the web client doesn't need to dowload the attachments for you to be able to view the body of the email, whereas by default most standalone clients connecting via POP3 or IMAP will download the entire email (complete with attachments) before you can read any portion of the email other than the header.

Original Poster,

Thank you for letting me know that there are no ads when I use a Thunderbird client - good.

I assume you are talking about the standard version of Gmail as looking on their site Google there is a $50 per email charge for their higher level service - more storage etc.

Which I can pay but sadly they charge for every user and I only need the service for one of email addresses.

In my case the current speed problem is like night and day - very slow with Thunderbird IMAP on its own and very fast with standard gmail.

This is true with or without attachments.

I have given up on the Opera option for feature reasons.

I am talking to True support but they seem to know not much more than I do about (and sometimes less)the internet which is scary.

I am trying to find out why I have this problem as the account is lightning fast in the USA and as I mentioned Gmail works fine for downloading photos etc.

How slow are you talking about when you say that Thunderbird is slow? On a typical email that contains no attachments and now photos, are you getting a delay of a few seconds or a few minutes to view a newly arrived email?

Also, as an experiment, have you tried using POP3/SMTP with GMail & Thunderbird instead of IMAP to see if that might be faster?

Edited November 28, 2009 by OriginalPoster

[Crushdepth]

You can sign up for the FREE version of Google Apps (ie. Gmail under your own domain name) at:

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

Yes you have to put up with the ads when using the free edition, but they are fairly inobtrusive.

There's no email receipts in Gmail, although you can set autoreplies. I'm suprised you still know anyone that allows receipts to be sent - I ditched that years ago when I discovered that annoying people who know you've read their email somehow believe that i) you automatically agreed to do whatever they asked and ii) that you will do it immediately. Life is more peaceful without receipts!

[TravelerEastWest]

"How slow are you talking about when you say that Thunderbird is slow? On a typical email that contains no attachments and now photos, are you getting a delay of a few seconds or a few minutes to view a newly arrived email?

Also, as an experiment, have you tried using POP3/SMTP with GMail & Thunderbird instead of IMAP to see if that might be faster?"

Original Poster,

Good questions -

Text email typically only has a few seconds delay.

A 5 mb file will be a couple of minutes with a Thunderbird client compared to 7 seconds in web based Gmail for the same file.

For some reason I seem to recall Pop as being faster - but my emails are mission critical for my life so I need IMAP as a safety measure.

I had a very nice talk with a true tech today and the bottom line is that I will need a web based email for now so I shall I try the basic free version of GMail.

Crushdepth,

After exploring all my options the standard free version of GMail powering Thunderbird it will be.

Ads seen while I am traveling are ok.

Hopefully within Thunderbird/Gmail I can still get return receipts.

I do not use them for personal email but have some business letters that really do need them - if for no other reason than seeing that the emails were received.