[impendia]

I tried a couple of them, and they both started downloading my entire backlog of email to my hard drive, which I didn't want.

I couldn't think of a reason why this would be necessary, but I haven't really kept up with how the technology has evolved in recent years. Is this behavior intrinsic to desktop clients?

[secabeen]

Intrinsic, no. Common, yes. Many people who use desktop clients want a local copy of a substantial fraction of their email so that they can review or compose messages while off-line. Desktop clients also operate faster and can provide robust search services only if they have a cached copy of the messages on disk.

[globular-toast]

You can't think of a reason why you'd want a local copy of your mail? Do you have control over any of your data?

[impendia]

I can think of reasons why I might want a local copy, but they didn't apply in my case.

Do I have control over my data? I'm not sure I understand the question, but in this case the answer seems like a clear no, as my employer manages the email server.

[globular-toast]

There are options in Thunderbird to disable syncing completely or only sync messages from the last 30 days and such.

[tracker1]

Definitely make sure to adjust your defaults if you decide to dip your toes into nntp... I hate some of the defaults there... namely the reply/respond button defaults. Usually you want to respond to the group, not send an email to the poster.

That said, NNTP is so dead at this point, outside some active BBSes that offer NNTP access. Usenet definitely feels like a wasteland when I've looked around the past couple years.