mail() SMTP, SPAM and other stuff

Hi All,

I’ve been looking at adding newsletter emailing to our site, and I am completely, totally confused by opposing opinions. I therefore turn to you all for advice on the following…

[B]Is SMTP better than php mail()?[/B]
It seems opinion is evenly divided here. Some say “must use SMTP”, while others say “only use SMTP in your server doesn’t allow mail()”. Which is it?

[B]Is SMTP faster or slower than mail()? [/B]
I currently use an extremely simple SMTP function that works fabulously. The php documentation says mail() opens and closes a socket for each mail sent, making it slower and consuming resources… but SMTP does the same. Why would one be different to the other?

[B]Is SMTP more efficient for bulk mailings?[/B]
It seems to me that I still have to loop through each recipient because I’ve read that hotmail (and others) think if the recipient address isn’t in the mail header, the mail is SPAM, therefore ruling out the use of BCC.

Note that sending too many emails at a time isn’t an issue… I already put the contents of the email and the address details into a data file and cron will send them 30 (or 40 or whatever) at a time until they’re all gone, deleting the record as it goes.

I did read somewhere that the reason mail() looks slower is that when it dumps the mail in the sendmail queue, it waits for confirmation that it’s been sent, and that there’s a flag you can send with mail() (or maybe it’s a configuration setting) that simply dumps the email there and moves on, without waiting. Is that correct, and if so, how do I flag/set it?

Any thoughts on all of this because, as I said, right now, I’m confused to the point of paralysis.

Cheers
CTB

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