Pegasus Mail v4.3 Released

Well, it's been a long, long time coming, but Pegasus Mail v4.3 is now finally fully available. I have a suspicion that some people may be a little disappointed by what they see when they install v4.3, because on the surface it doesn't look hugely different from v4.21, but looks can be deceiving... V4.3 has been through nearly 60 betas and 14 release candidates, far more than any previous release of the program, and I can count well over 1500 changes in the code. V4.3 is largely about modernizing the Pegasus Mail codebase as a platform for future development, and represents the last version 4 release there will be; from here, our efforts are focused on v5, which will have a number of very important new features.

Thanks to the sterling efforts of Sven Henze (who is also responsible for many of the high-colour bitmaps in the program and its beautiful new icon), a full German translation is also available simultaneously.

A list of the most obvious changes in the program is shown below. Or, if you're impatient, click here to go to the downloads page to get the v4.3 installer, in either English or German.

  • Completely new HTML renderer  Pegasus Mail now has a completely new HTML renderer that does a dramatically better job of displaying HTML data, and which is vastly more robust than the renderer used in previous versions of the program. The HTML upgrade is the result of extensive collaboration between Pegasus Mail's author and Martin Ireland. The new renderer retains the levels of security and privacy assured by previous versions of the program - you cannot be compromised or infected by reading HTML mail in Pegasus Mail, just as has always been the case.
  • New automatic picture-loading options   In the past, Pegasus Mail has made a point of not automatically downloading remote-linked graphics in mail messages because of the security and privacy issues associated with the process. We accept, however, that people will have some sites and newsletters whom they trust and from whom they are happy to accept messages with remote-linked graphics: a new option in the message reader preferences page now allows you to specify particular addresses for whom it is OK for the program to retrieve graphics automatically.
  • Anti-phishing protection  An increasing trend on the Internet is a form of criminal fraud called Phishing, in which people are duped into revealing banking logins or credit card details by convincing-looking messages purporting to be from legitimate financial institutions. Pegasus Mail now has a number of internal checks that will attempt to warn you if you appear to be falling into a phishing trap.
  • Character set handling totally overhauled   Pegasus Mail can now handle mail messages in a much wider range of character sets, including the unicode variants (UTF-8 and UTF-7), Cyrillic variants, and many Asian character sets. The program can now also generate mail in UTF-8 and a much wider range of source character sets as required.
  • Look and feel changes  The program now sports more XP-like buttons, and many of the program's icons and bitmaps have been upgraded to appear more modern. There is also a beautiful new program icon designed by Sven Henze.
  • Multipart/Related message generation  The program now uses a special format called multipart/related when sending HTML mail messages containing formatted text and graphics. This format is more widely-accepted than the format generated by previous versions of the program, and will allow Pegasus Mail's messages to be viewed transparently on programs such as Mozilla Thunderbird.
  • IMAP fixes  The IMAP module in the program has had a number of fixes made to it - in particular, it now properly keeps connections alive, and problems with cache files becoming damaged during abnormal program termination should be completely resolved. It is now also possible to have Pegasus Mail automatically clear its cache files on disconnection for selected IMAP profiles (for reasons of privacy or to preserve space).
  • Searching completely overhauled  The program's tools for Searching through your folders have been totally overhauled, offering a wide range of new capabilities and constraints. Searching is much faster and more flexible, and results now open in their own folder, which you can manipulate just like any other folder.
  • New folder format: Link Folders   You can now create a new type of folder called a Link Folder: these folders do not contain messages, but instead hold links to messages. They allow you to put together collections of messages from any folders anywhere in your system and manipulate them as a single folder. Link folders are primarily used by the new search engine (see above) but you can also create them manually (as to-do folders or whatever) if you wish.
  • New workstation setup utility  A new tool called WSSETUP.EXE is now provided with the program; this tool makes it easier to use a shared copy of Pegasus Mail on multiple workstations (i.e, when running a copy of Pegasus Mail installed on a file server or shared volume) by allowing the user at each workstation to create desktop icons and program groups, and to enable the program for browser link handling. Once the shared copy of Pegasus Mail has been installed, simply run WSSETUP.EXE once from each workstation where Pegasus Mail needs to run to complete the setup process.
  • Simplified setup for shared and memory stick installations  In situations where the Pegasus Mail program and mailbox data are stored on the same drive, it is now much easier to install the program so that it will run on any system, regardless of the drive letter by which the system accesses the shared volume. In the past, you could run into problems if drive letters changed from workstation to workstation, but this no longer happens. A side-effect of this is that a complete Pegasus Mail installation can now be put onto a memory stick and used on any computer, making a wonderfully compact and portable way of taking all your mail with you wherever you go.
  • Ability to read HTML directly into the message editor   A new right-click option in the message editor now allows you to read pre-formatted HTML directly into the message body. Most HTML styling options are supported by the import facility.
  • Much improved handling of copies-to-self   Copies to self containing formatted (rich text) content now reflect that content in the folder, and can be re-sent preserving the formatting. Character set handling in copies to self has also been markedly improved..
  • Support for much longer lines   Pegasus Mail can now display unwrapped messages with lines up to 1000 characters long, and can handle malformatted messages that incorrectly use MIME encodings as paragraph wrappers out to 8000 characters in length (this fixes a particularly ugly error in messages generated by Novell GroupWise).
  • Corrections for Secunia exploits  Secunia Research has discovered two potentially exploitable bugs in Pegasus Mail v4.2 and the v4.3 public beta (click here for more information). Both these bugs are corrected in the v4.3 full release.

Click here to go to the downloads page and download the v4.3 installer.
 


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