You are a user Windows email and calendar managers, which Microsoft provides by default? Are you satisfied with them? You are not alone and these are some simple but well designed apps that work well. What more will you want from them? Nothing. In fact, you can say goodbye to them now, because as you know, we are in 2024, the year Microsoft will kill them.

It’s strange that you don’t know this if you’re a regular user, since Microsoft has been pointing this out for a long time and has even implemented separate buttons for “enjoying the new Outlook”, the app that replaces both. Problem? Actually there are quite a few: on the design level, it’s half done, but it lacks all the features of independent apps, it’s a real hole in the privacy of a clueless user, and most importantly, no one asked for it.

The issue of privacy may sound like a joke, because even a well-configured Windows system already damages the privacy of the user, which is said with the necessary iron removal for those who do not attach great importance to this issue. Furthermore, it is also possible to mitigate the damage that the new Outlook will bring in this regard if one pays a little attention to what is in front of them.

This is what the classic app looks like (Windows 10)

For more on the subject, and never better said, this publication from Proton Mail, which is a competitor, but don’t lie. There they explain how Microsoft will share the data of the user who receives everything without looking with more than 700 third-party companies, other tricky options of the application, and also remember that Outlook “steals” email passwords, including all accounts, which have been added to the client.

In the Proton Mail article, they talk about Outlook in general, although they refer to both the “new” Outlook that Microsoft will introduce this year as the default Windows app for managing email and calendars, and regular Outlook – hence the quotes – because at the end of the day, they’re the same . Microsoft really took the same path with the app as Skype or Teams, among others: the Electron path.

Or what is the same, Microsoft will move the web app to the desktop, thereby saving the investment and effort spent on maintaining a native application, or rather reducing it in favor of a cross-platform technology that reaches everywhere without much complications. The big criticism that is usually leveled at this issue is the loss of performance and fluidity that Electron applications have, but I’d be cool with that, because if anyone has mastered Electron, it’s Microsoft, and no better than Visual Studio Code for proof. Another thing is that the application will consume more resources to do the same thing.

However, the loss of functionality – even if it’s not very noticeable – and the imposition are the most determining factors for a large number of users of the current Windows mail and calendar applications, who have expressed their opinions for months through numerous forums. internet against change. Despite this, Microsoft has already warned that it will be 2024, and while it was said that users can continue to install and use apps until the end of the year, it seems that they have already started working.

This is what the classic app looks like (Windows 10)

So even though Microsoft’s support page provides the above information and ensures that the user is forewarned, they go around complaining that the change has come and it is sudden: warning, forced redirect and that’s it. Those would be, yes, very specific cases, but it starts somewhere. In the meantime, it should be noted that the “old” apps are still available in the Microsoft Store.

What if when the time comes you don’t want to jump through the hoop? Microsoft explains this to you very clearly (see previous link): “You can stop using Windows Mail and Calendar and instead manage your email and calendar through your service’s web mail application or client. […] “If you don’t want to use the new Outlook for Windows after trying it, you’ll have to switch to another application at the end of 2024.”

Search for your life, well, even if there will be a new Outlook, which is not bad either, aside from the mentioned little things. You’re lucky, there are plenty of alternatives, many of them are as good as Microsoft’s apps and some are even better… especially in aspects like features and respect for privacy. We will review the most interesting ones soon, so… stay tunedwhat did he say