I wasn't sure what forum would be the best for this question.

I need a VERY basic mailing list solution. I'm helping a friend move to a new web host and they currently have a mailing list setup that is incredibly simple. He sends an email to list@domain.com and whatever HE sends gets forwarded to 200+ people, anything sent there by another email address is ignored. It is part of a custom control panel at that host though, not some downloadable software I'm aware of.

I know this can be done by just CCing the message to all the people, but that would be a little more difficult. I've been looking at phplist but it looks like the only way to send is through the web interface, which is too feature rich for this person.

Also, the users don't even need to subscribe, the admin just enters and removes them manually.

Any ideas how to best achieve this?

You can use ccMail software to send out email newsletter. It is free software. You also do not need any database for this.

Mailman is the de-facto standard for the type of behaviour you describe. PHPlist is the other one I would've mentioned to consider, but seems you already checked that out.

Mailman is free, and also included by a large number of hosting providers in their standard plans. I don't recall about cPanel (though I'm sure there are plenty of people around he to fill you in), but certainly Plesk uses Mailman for its "mailing list" feature so you would be able to find almost any Plesk hosting provider (who has the mailing list feature enabled in their plans) and potentially use this for your needs.

As I said though, it's pretty much the de-facto standard mailing list software, so you'll find it integrated into most control panels. You shouldn't find it hard to locate hosting providers offering it.

phplist is good but there can be a learning curve at times when you really start getting into or your list grows.

if his site is a cms most have that option built in or an add on.