Back before Hotmail hit the scene, ALL email was "off-line" so there are literally hundreds of "email client" programs out there.\n\nOutlook has a ton of features, but it's one of the least secure programs out there -- in any halfway decent email client it should not be possible to catch a computer virus just by reading an email message, but in Outlook it is. Don't use Outlook. It's just not safe for your computer.\n\nEudora -- http://www.eudora.com/ -- is probably one of the most popular email clients. It's been around a long time, and it has a decent variety of features including multiple sigs, automatic spell check as you type (the squiggly red underline like in Word), and robust mail filtering rules. The down side is that to get all its features, you have to either pay for it or let it display ads while you read your email. Also, personally I'm not very fond of the layout and interface, but that's just a matter of preference.\n\nI am rather fond of Pegasus Mail -- http://www.pmail.com/ -- It has all the useful features of Eudora, and it's completely, totally free. Its interface can be a little quirky, but in ways that I actually prefer over other programs I've tried. \n\nI'd probably consider those the top two contenders, but if you go to http://www.download.com/ I'm sure you can find dozens of other options. One other you might consider is Mozilla Thunderbird -- http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ -- I haven't tried it yet myself, but if it's half as good as the Mozilla Firefox web browser, I'm sure it's worth checking out.