NetStat: Thunderbird and Outlook

[Lyle Fairfield]

I have had a love-hate relationship with Outlook for many years, probably
since I installed my first version of MS Office from those, what was it,
seventy-one?, floppies. Recently I have been switching between using it and
Thunderbird as my e-mail client.

But today, for a reason that had nothing to do with this ambivalence on my
part, I ran NetStat in the Command Prompt window. Of course, I tried to
identify the source of each connection. I was surprised to find that
Outlook accounted for four active connections, one for each mail account (1
pop, 2 imap and 1 hotmail) while Thunderbird showed twelve active
connections. (I did not have them open at the same time). Thunderbird has
the same four e-mail accounts established. Of course, TB must connect to
hotmail through an extension which polls local host and does something
magic to connect (through http? - I believe). TB also has an additional
nntp account, which, obviously, Outlook does not have. But three times as
many connections?

Well, maybe the number of connections doesn't matter at all, slowing down
nothing, interfering with nothing, establishing no vulnerability? Or maybe
this is a good reason to use Outlook and discard Thunderbird?

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Use the program *you* prefer and which meets *your* needs the best.

Connections in and of themselves are not an issue - it's what is sent over
them that matters. As long as they are legit, they are more annoying (to
people who care) than insecure.

How many of the connections were to different NNTP servers or groups? It's
not uncommon to open multiple connections to servers.