Hi, as usual all the help sites I find seem to be for people with Linux servers, not single-user Linux desktops!

I use webmail, which means I don't need a mail server so I'm tempted to just do a "update-rc.d -f exim4 remove". However, I've been told some services might still need mail access. Is this true? If so, how should I configure exim4 to ensure its as minimal and secure as possible for this kind of setup?

Thanks for any help!

Although many (w)could argue this, you can safely remove the exim packages completely with no adverse effects. I've done so on 50+ installs for my own machines and clients' desktop machines. Granted, you won't get some administrative messages, but it's nothing you can't get out of the log files for the most part. Contrary to what some might say, the machine will not blow up if you remove the mail service.

As an alternative, you could do as you intended, and disable the service.

It's your machine, you can do as you wish ;o)

HTH