E-mail dominates the home computer. It's one of the key reasons people buy computers in the first place and a primary consumer of screen time after purchase. The "Homefront" survey of home PC use by San Francisco research firm Odyssey consistently reports that e-mail outranks Web browsing, word processing and even gaming. But while the volume of e-mail has kept growing -- along with the severity of such afflictions as "spam" and viruses -- the tools most people use for mail have barely evolved in the past two years.
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