Back in July some customers may remember reading a commitment that was made in one of my Email/Antispam updates that made reference to the introduction of spam and not spam buttons to our SquirrelMail webmail interface.

This was something that was raised as a suggestion way back in December last year by the UserGroup using their Issue Tracker.

It’s also one of the most requested features when we’ve asked our customers how we could improve our Webmail service.

Those who have seen the Usergroup Exclusive will already have heard the good news that the spam reporting buttons have now been rolled out to the live platform.

If you receive a message that’s marked as [-SPAM-] which isn’t, or a message that isn’t marked as [-SPAM-] but should be, then we would normally suggest that you forward it to our spam training addresses. This however can be cumbersome and some customers have been known to get confused about which details require forwarding.

Well help is at hand. If you use our Webmail platform then all this can now be achieved by a simple left mouse-click!

Bob

• PlusNet Webmail
• Force9 Webmail
• Free Online Webmail

One of our customers, ‘Webwise’ on the portal forums, has also taken the time to create a plugin for Outlook Express that some of you might want to check out here.

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Following the Webmail Incident in May, we withdrew our @mail Webmail solution and implemented SquirrelMail as a temporary solution. We recently began the process of reviewing alternative Webmail applications and in our investigation into many of them we were led back to thoughts of “Squirrelmail can do this, Squirrelmail does that better” etc…

So, we’ve been scratching our heads. We know that SquirrelMail doesn’t exactly look fantastic, but it certainly is a great performing, powerful Webmail client. It does what it says on the tin and it’s fairly easy to use too (albeit with its little kinks). The ability to change the theme and display preferences make it bearable with regards to looks also. In fact, many customers have commented on how refreshing SquirrelMail is to use.

With that in mind, we’d like to see what you guys think – in general. Now, we know we can’t please everyone without offering every Webmail client under the sun – and that certainly isn’t possible. What we would like to do is provide a Webmail service that meets the needs of our customers, performs well, is scaleable, functional and, above all, is secure.

What we want to know then, is – should we consider keeping SquirrelMail going forwards? What would you guys need to make SquirrelMail work for you? What functionality is lacking? What ‘extras’ would you like? How could we improve it? Do you like SquirrelMail? Do you really dislike SquirrelMail, if so – why? Should we dismiss it entirely? Do we need to make it look nicer? Is a nice ‘skin’ all it needs?

Now, this is not a decision to stick with SquirrelMail. Nor is it a “U-turn” on what we’ve previously said. As I’ve said above, we’re looking at all the options available to us, and having used SquirrelMail for a couple of months we’ve seen it as a real strong contender amongst Webmail clients… and one that could provide us with a permanent solution going forward. We just want to get you guys involved and see what you think.

Do let us know. You can contribute to the forum thread here!

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