I understand why some people won’t trust their email to a Web service. I also think that trusting Google with one’s email is completely reasonable for most people.

You can see why I feel like I’m in the minority for client-based email apps.

First, I agree. Providing a rich user experience on the web is what the Mozilla Project is all about. Make no mistake. But the kinds of analysis required of a user’s inbox, or multiple inboxes is not the kind of thing you really need a server farm to accomplish. An individual’s machine is more than powerful enough to correlate and manipulate the 10s of thousands of messages a power user might amass.

Especially with a bit of back-end smarts to help out (although by saying that, I’m weakening my argument). I’m a big fan of procmailrc for categorizing and spamprobe for junk mail filtering.

“Where do you store the mail?” is a good question. I’m lucky enough to have access to a decent IMAP store. Several, even. They’re not that hard to come by although for some reason, they haven’t been widely adopted. Same goes for Exchange servers where, I guess the cost of software and hosting might be a limiting factor.

Do you feel better keeping track of your own email or letting some faceless 3rd party system do it? I have a decent backup policy so I’m not too worried about data loss. I am worried about privacy though.

The other issue with fat clients for non-corporate users is where do you store the mail? It’s hard to find free, high-quality IMAP or Exchange mail service, but relying on the PC hard disk to store email is in most cases a very bad idea.