New Kerio Connect client

The Kerio Connect webmail interface has been completely overhauled. Both the architecture and the UI design has been rebuilt from the ground up to deliver the performance and ex- perience users expect from a modern web application. In this release, all functions are fully functional already, delivering the right balance of features, usability and graphical design.

We have been working hard to deliver the best possible client for Kerio Connect but we may have missed something. Therefore we would like to hear your feedback – the good, the bad, and what’s missing. In this version, the old Kerio WebMail is still operational as a back-up webmail interface.

New AntiSpam Method – Greylisting

Greylisting is a very effective Anti-Spam method the main idea of which is to delay the first attempt to deliver an email. All common mailservers retry to deliver the message later as required by the standard but many spam senders do not retry because it is too expensive for them.

While the basic Greylisting concept is effective, it has a drawback: Delayed delivery of the first email between two people breaks the instant feeling of email. To alleviate the issue, we created a Greylisting cloud service.

When Greylisting is enabled, Kerio Connect makes the service decide whether or not to accept incoming email. The service creates a whitelist of valid sender IP addresses. Email sent from the whitelisted IP addresses is delivered immediately.

Out Of Office notification improvements

Out-of-office notification has been improved to answer only to a message sent directly to a user. Kerio Connect 8.0 automatically detects messages sent to user groups with an email address and does not issue out-of-office reply from user’s mail filters in this case. It means that no out-of-office email is sent if the user is not explicitly mentioned in email headers as a recipient of the message.

Notes synchronization with OS X and iOS

Kerio Connect 8.0 extends the range of groupware clients, which can synchronize notes. New version brings support for OS X 10.8 Notes application and iOS Notes application. Notes are synchronized automatically over IMAP.

On OS X 10.8, the Notes application is automatically configured with Mail application (both IMAP and Exchange IMAP account types). You can enable Notes synchronization in System Preferences / Mail, Contact & Calendars settings.

iPhone and iPad devices with iOS 5 or 6 can synchronize notes when the Mail application is configured to use IMAP. Kerio Connect offers an easy way for iOS device account configuration by downloading an auto-configuration tool from the Integration page on the server.

Kerio Connect will exclusively feature Sophos anti-virus

In Alternative IT, simple always wins. After years of supporting multiple AV options, Kerio arrived at a point when most of our customers choose the built-in Sophos for their anti-virus and anti-malware protection in Kerio Connect. Why? Because it’s just simple.

Support for all 3rd party plug-ins (AVG, avast!, ClamAV, Dr. Web & ESET) will be discontinued. Kerio Connect will ship with a built-in Sophos anti-malware engine exclusively.

In Kerio Connect 8.0, if you currently use one of the existing 3rd party AV plug-ins, software upgrade will preserve the UI and you won’t see any change just yet. In the next major release of Kerio Connect, we will remove the plug-in code from the product completely. If you upgrade from a version, that has a 3rd party plug-in configured, you won’t see the AV plug-in dialog anymore and your AV will be completely disconnected from your Kerio Connect.

Support for Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012

Kerio Connect 8.0 server can be installed on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 operating system and provide groupware functionality for clients.

Users with the Microsoft Windows 8 operating system can use Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 for accessing their mailboxes via the new Kerio Connect client. Kerio Connect also supports IMAP and POP3 access for Microsoft Windows 8 Mail application.

Support for Microsoft Outlook 2013

Kerio Outlook Connector (Offline edition) 8.0 now supports the Microsoft Outlook 2013 client in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Kerio Outlook Connector can be used for synchronization of the Outlook 2013 client with the Kerio Connect 8.0 server for both emails and groupware data. It does support mailbox sharing and public folder access.

Kerio Outlook Connector (Offline edition) can work with any Microsoft Outlook 2013 edition except Click-to-Run installation, which does not support external MAPI applications.