FreePOPs
Encyclopedia
FreePOPs is an extensible mail proxy. Its primary use is to allow checking and downloading of e-mail
from webmails from any conventional POP3
client
program, avoiding the need to use a Web browser
. It can also be used as an aggregator for RSS
feeds and more.
This application retrieves all your messages from various accounts (e.g. Gmail
, Yahoo! Mail
, Hotmail, AOL
…) without manual login through an http page.
with a Lua
interpreter and some extra libraries for HTTP and HTML
parsing
. Its main purpose is translating local POP3 requests (from a local e-mail
client
for example) to remote HTTP actions on the supported webmails, but it is more flexible than that. For example, a plugin is available that allows receiving news from a website
as if they were e-mail
messages in a mailbox. Most plugins work by screen scraping the target website. FreePOPs can be extended on the fly: plugins can be added or existing ones can be modified by simply changing the relevant script file.
The software is supported by an active community forum.
FreePOPs offers a way of dealing with a webmail as though it were a regular POP3 mailbox. Many webmail providers require you to use a web browser
to read and collect your mail. That process can be slow. As an alternative, any mail software client
coupled with FreePOPs can do this in the background effectively; for this purpose, FreePOPs can be combined with programs such as PopTray, getmail
or Mozilla Thunderbird
, to allow scheduled checking of both POP3 mailboxes and webmails in the background.
FreePOPs is Free Software
, being released under the GNU GPL License. It uses the open source
library libCURL as its browser component, and OpenSSL
or GnuTLS
for encryption.
) to get your email from your service provider. If your service provider is telecomxxx.com, then your email address is something like John.Smith@telecomSomethingXXX.com. However you may have an email account with other free webmail services. To retrieve emails sent to one free webmail service you connect to their server and log into your account. FreePOPs automatically retrieves all of your emails from each account.
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
from webmails from any conventional POP3
Post Office Protocol
In computing, the Post Office Protocol is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. POP and IMAP are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval. Virtually all modern...
client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
program, avoiding the need to use a Web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
. It can also be used as an aggregator for RSS
RSS (file format)
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format...
feeds and more.
This application retrieves all your messages from various accounts (e.g. Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
, Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
, Hotmail, AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
…) without manual login through an http page.
FreePOPs
FreePOPs is a POP3 daemonDaemon (computer software)
In Unix and other multitasking computer operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user...
with a Lua
Lua programming language
Lua is a lightweight multi-paradigm programming language designed as a scripting language with extensible semantics as a primary goal. Lua has a relatively simple C API compared to other scripting languages.- History :...
interpreter and some extra libraries for HTTP and HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
parsing
Parsing
In computer science and linguistics, parsing, or, more formally, syntactic analysis, is the process of analyzing a text, made of a sequence of tokens , to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given formal grammar...
. Its main purpose is translating local POP3 requests (from a local e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
for example) to remote HTTP actions on the supported webmails, but it is more flexible than that. For example, a plugin is available that allows receiving news from a website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
as if they were e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
messages in a mailbox. Most plugins work by screen scraping the target website. FreePOPs can be extended on the fly: plugins can be added or existing ones can be modified by simply changing the relevant script file.
The software is supported by an active community forum.
FreePOPs offers a way of dealing with a webmail as though it were a regular POP3 mailbox. Many webmail providers require you to use a web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
to read and collect your mail. That process can be slow. As an alternative, any mail software client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
coupled with FreePOPs can do this in the background effectively; for this purpose, FreePOPs can be combined with programs such as PopTray, getmail
Getmail
getmail is a simple mail retrieval agent intended as a replacement for fetchmail, implemented in Python. It can retrieve mail from POP3, IMAP4 and Standard Dial-up POP3 Service servers, with or without SSL...
or Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
, to allow scheduled checking of both POP3 mailboxes and webmails in the background.
FreePOPs is Free Software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, being released under the GNU GPL License. It uses the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
library libCURL as its browser component, and OpenSSL
OpenSSL
OpenSSL is an open source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library implements the basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions...
or GnuTLS
GnuTLS
GnuTLS , the GNU Transport Layer Security Library, is a free software implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. Its purpose is to offer an application programming interface for applications to enable secure communication protocols over their network transport layer.-Features:GnuTLS consists of...
for encryption.
Operating systems
FreePOPs is available on most consumer operating systems, whether included in official software distributions (as is the case with Linux), or in the form of installer packages provided by developers or users.Usage
Normally you use an E-mail client application (such as Microsoft OutlookMicrosoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
) to get your email from your service provider. If your service provider is telecomxxx.com, then your email address is something like John.Smith@telecomSomethingXXX.com. However you may have an email account with other free webmail services. To retrieve emails sent to one free webmail service you connect to their server and log into your account. FreePOPs automatically retrieves all of your emails from each account.
External links
- Freepops.org
- Diludovico.it, User forum
- E-link.it, Unofficial graphical front-end for Mac OS X -