Well hotmail lost my patronage now they want payment for pop3 access.

I checked various php scripts (which I understand) but they all want an extension which is not available on my host so I turned to perl (which I don't understand) after a few failures with some scripts I eventually got one to work but it is a bit naff.

Sooo...
can anybody recommend a perl script for webmail - I need to collect from a number of pop3 accounts. Preferbly one that doesn't rely on umpteen packages most of which rely on another umpteen packages most of which .... (I hate perl) All outgoing mail can go through local mailserver as it lets me specify any old thing as the return address.

Alternately if anybody knows the techie side of php and can tell me how to install my own private extensions (not even sure if possible but if so the server is PC based running linux - I have no telnet access ) ...

TIA