Great news Hotmail users, POP3 email access using programs such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Outlook is now available to Hotmail users in:

United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. If you don’t see your country or region in this list, never fear, we’ll be rolling POP3 out to more parts of the world later this year.

Quote: Windows Live Wire Blog

Here is the POP info for if you live in one of the above countries and you’d like to try it out (Microsoft reports that POP will soon also be available in the United States):

• POP server: pop3.live.com
• POP SSL required? Yes
• User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
• Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
• SMTP server: smtp.live.com
• Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
• TLS/SSL required? Yes.

Enjoy!

Tags: email, Hotmail, outlook, pop, POP3, server, SMTP, SSL, thunderbird, TLS, windows live