The theory espoused by those who are trying to convert the whole internet to "http only" is that you DO NOT NEED A SEPARATE EMAIL PROGRAM. You should be able to accomplish everything in your web browser, provided that all you do with email is "read and delete," and if you're happy with all the popups and ads on the providers' websites.

The principal difficulty with a "web browser only" approach to email is that you can't easily archive messages on your own machine. When a message arrives, it goes to "Temporary Internet Files" space on your machine, which probably is cleared when you disconnect. The messages are kept on the server, and if you want to read one again you may have to wait for it to download again. You can use the "make available offline" button in most browsers to actually put a "persistent" copy on your own machine; but you may have to do it separately for each message and it still is in "Temporary Internet" space on your hard drive where it's much too easy to lose.

You can "Save" an email message that you have open, but with IE - and I expect with other web browsers, the only options are to save it as a web page, as "plain html," or as "plain text." Attachments must be saved separately to achieve any kind of recoverability. None of the available formats can be considered "archival."

But you don't really have to have a separate email program ...(?).

John