[HN Gopher] FairEmail: Open-source, privacy friendly email app f...
___________________________________________________________________
FairEmail: Open-source, privacy friendly email app for Android
Author : sirffuzzylogik
Score : 174 points
Date : 2021-03-08 14:54 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (email.faircode.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (email.faircode.eu)
| cassepipe wrote:
| I was wondering it seems like when you get a mail app, Android
| ends up storing that mail address as an account in the account
| section of the parameters. Is there a way to avoid this ?
| g_p wrote:
| Just checked on mine and no FairEmail email account is listed
| in the accounts list in Android - it's all handled in-app.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Beautiful. Thank you.
| tadfisher wrote:
| This is the user interface to the AccountManager API, which is
| one of the standard mechanisms to manage auth tokens and
| background sync. IIRC it's been around since Android 1.0 and
| it's probably not a useful vector for third-party tracking.
| tjoff wrote:
| Why not?
|
| Being the standard way of doing it since beginning of time is
| just an argument for why it is a useful source to steal
| contact information and track users.
| hnarn wrote:
| While I applaud any effort to make email more usable and secure,
| I can't escape the feeling that email is quickly becoming the new
| snail mail. It seems most people only use it for very "official"
| communication, or communication with more or less autonomous
| services, while using other channels for almost everything else.
|
| For me at least, email is moving into the same space as a phone
| number: something you know you need to reliably have, but you'd
| throw out in a minute if you could get away with it.
| aasasd wrote:
| Am I the only one who can't make FairMail deliver mail faster
| than 15-20 minutes? The notification is on, the battery
| optimization for the app is off, still nothing. K9 actually
| receives the message earlier, despite not having a persistent
| notification.
| g_p wrote:
| This sounds like you are having an issue with the
| notifications. Does your server support IMAP IDLE? I'm
| wondering whether K9 is polling for email, and the server isn't
| supporting push messages via IDLE.
| RedComet wrote:
| I was having the same issue when I last used it.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Same.
|
| It also drank my battery juice like an electroholic.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Have you opened an issue for that behavior? I haven't looked at
| the repo's issue reporting policy, but my experience says that
| telling HN isn't nearly as effective as telling the issue
| tracker. I would be especially interested in knowing if that
| happens in a DeGoogled setup, versus on "normal" Android
| aasasd wrote:
| > _isn 't nearly as effective as telling the issue tracker_
|
| I don't agree with this conjecture, at all. After seeing
| plenty of projects with hundreds of open issues, I don't
| create them anymore unless I'm ready to submit a patch, or
| it's just a quick question. Whereas here in a thread that
| will be out of sight by tomorrow, it's a no-brainer--two
| people answered already.
|
| FairEmail makes this decision even easier by 1) promoting its
| paid version, which I didn't buy and thus am not in a
| position to demand anything; and 2) not having an issue
| tracker in the first place.
| curt15 wrote:
| K-9 Mail had some difficulty getting IMAP IDLE to work with
| Android's Doze. Does FairEmail fare better?
| g_p wrote:
| Yes, this is probably the biggest feature of FairEmail.
|
| If your server supports IDLE, it will work well. I've got it
| working with 3 different backend mail servers, and I'm told by
| friends that it actually receives mail faster than the official
| Gmail Android app (which had access to Google push servers).
|
| FairEmail will ask you to disable doze for it, but don't be
| concerned - it's a very power efficient solution and it doesn't
| impact on battery. It even works out its own back-off timers
| for keepalives to minimise wakes.
| bantunes wrote:
| Good it's open source and all that, but it's very hard to use and
| parse what's on the screen.
| feanaro wrote:
| Indeed, this is the only pain point I have with FairEmail. I
| would love it if a skilled designer overhauled the interface.
| burundi_coffee wrote:
| I agree, which is why I stuck with the default email app that
| comes with LineageOS for now.
| [deleted]
| cassepipe wrote:
| Just bought the premium features because this is both simple and
| well thought and works very well. I really like it.
| spacebeer wrote:
| I've been using FairEmail for some time (premium version,
| F-Droid) and it is great. I have my main IMAP account there
|
| But I also use K-9 Mail (beta, from F-Droid). It is easier for me
| to handle multiple (secondary) accounts with K9, than FE
| Snetry wrote:
| I've been using FreeMail for a while now and I can only say that
| its a fantastic app. The setup and settings are a bit unintuitive
| but despite that its great
| dane-pgp wrote:
| It's interesting that the FAQ says:
|
| > FairEmail will send the Autocrypt header for use by other email
| clients, but only for signed and encrypted messages because too
| many email servers have problems with the often long Autocrypt
| header.
|
| That might be out of date, now that Autocrypt version 1.1 has
| been published:
|
| > the 1.0 version of the Level 1 spec mandated RSA 3072 keys for
| ecosystem reasons and only the more recent 1.1 version from
| February 2019 now mandates that the new default scheme for
| creating Autocrypt keys is Curve 25519 keys.
|
| https://autocrypt.org/faq.html#why-also-rsa3072-and-not-only...
| kop316 wrote:
| I was curious to see if FairEmail could work with OAuth without
| Google Play (I have a school Google account that does not allow
| me to log in without OAuth):
|
| https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-co...
|
| "OAuth for Gmail is supported via the quick setup wizard. The
| Android account manager will be used to fetch and refresh OAuth
| tokens for selected on-device accounts. OAuth for non on-device
| accounts is not supported because Google requires a yearly
| security audit ($15,000 to $75,000) for this. You can read more
| about this here."
|
| You can see it here too:
| https://support.google.com/cloud/answer/9110914#zippy=%2Cexc...
| pomian wrote:
| Using both this and k9 without Google play or any Google. They
| work great. But both of them, no longer allow storing your mail
| and/or attachments on 'external' or SD card. That is
| frustrating. This anti feature, just started in the last few
| months.
| kop316 wrote:
| I use k9 right now for my fastmaol account, and that works
| fine. I just can't use my school account that is gmail.
|
| I'm not sure how you're using it?
| llarsson wrote:
| Could be a new API that needs to be supported. I just
| downloaded another app (NewPipe) that let me specifically
| choose some new API that made its external storage
| permissions work.
| jesse_m wrote:
| I love this app. I really like how it shows you tracking images
| and stuff in the emails.
| Black101 wrote:
| been using this app for months... my favorite email app in this
| current market.
| safaci2000 wrote:
| it looks like a cool project though what I'd love to see is some
| solution that makes PGP/Secure Email more accessible to the
| common person. I know hushmail, tutanota, and protonmail are all
| around, but still only works if everyone is on the same service.
|
| it's interesting how secure email has been solved decades ago
| (how to do it) but making it accessible has been an ongoing
| struggle. :(
|
| Anyone ran across a more tangible solution for the common man?
| muppetman wrote:
| Why use PGP when there are such better alternatives these days?
| Signal springs to mind immediately. PGP is clunky in every way.
| I know I can readily communicate with almost every one of my
| workmates securely using Signal or WhatsApp. None of them would
| have anything other than a passing idea of what PGP was, or how
| to use it.
|
| 20 years ago when there was no better solution, PGP was great.
| But I think it's probably had its time in the spotlight and now
| the world has moved on, when it comes to using it to secure
| email.
|
| I think the solution is that if you want to communicate in a
| secure manner, don't use email.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| PGP has support for every language, client, and platform one
| may be using. It,s time tested and the most widely adopted
| standard. It supports plaintext. Signal has support for...
| Signal.
| muppetman wrote:
| None of those points detract from the fact PGP is a complex
| nightmare to use. There's a reason millions of people have
| Signal/WhatsApp installed and not PGP.
|
| Even Media organisations have ditched it in favour of
| things like Securedrop (and/or Signal).
|
| I'd argue that Signal is much more widely adopted that PGP
| ever was.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I agree that a good interface is missing...
|
| But the protocol has all the capabilities needed.
|
| Nor is full support of every feature needed by every
| client.
|
| I think from a crypto strength perspective, it,s silly to
| reinvent the same thing over again.
|
| (The thing being basic PKI of just public/private keys
| and signed/encrypted messages.)
| muppetman wrote:
| PGP is the giant, the shoulders of which many modern
| crypto apps/protocols stand on. PGP was _the_
| implementation that brought proper, trustable crypto to
| the masses. It was a great solution, filling a void where
| there was no good solution before it.
|
| It's time is done though, for communicating between
| people. There are many better solutions where you don't
| need to worry about having the public key of every person
| you wish to communicate with. You no longer need to
| unlock your key every time you send a message to "prove"
| you sent it. The world has moved on to better technical
| solutions to those problems.
|
| PGP was brilliant for its time. It still is brilliant for
| a number of uses cases (like verifying your Debian .deb
| file is signed by a legit Debian person)
|
| However, communicating with people is no longer one of
| them. People HAVE invented/reinvented how to communicate
| securely. And the world's better for them having done so.
| meremortals wrote:
| I've been loving FairEmail for the last 6 months
| andrewshadura wrote:
| No JMAP support?
| Animats wrote:
| I've been running that for years.
| sebsauvage wrote:
| I have been using this email app for months, with 4 different
| email providers. It works like a charm, it's snappy, and privacy-
| oriented (preview links before opening them, block pixel
| tracking, and lot of other clever features.)
|
| Oh and the developer is _very_ active (several versions a week),
| very kind and answers very quickly.
|
| One of the best bargains. (I bought the full version)
| muppetman wrote:
| You've typed exactly what I was going to type, except I only
| use it for 3 providers.
| Assossa wrote:
| The developer is so active that it is actually annoying for me.
| I get a notification to update my client almost every time I
| open the app.
| mahathu wrote:
| > preview links before opening them
|
| I noticed this feature in the default macOS mail App too but
| I'm not quite sure I understand correctly. If you click on the
| little arrow next to a link, it opens the website in a little
| window -- from a privacy/security POV, is that really helpful?
| Wouldn't the sender know you read the E-Mail if my computer
| sends a request to their server using that URL, no matter if
| it's for a preview window or my actual browser (except the
| latter has cookies etc)
| g_p wrote:
| In FairEmail, the "preview" is to show you exactly what URL
| is about to be opened, and give you the chance to force it to
| HTTPS, or remove known tracking parameters from it.
|
| It also warns you prominently if the link's text differs from
| the target address, and allows you to pick which you actually
| want to visit (good for newsletters that mangle links for
| click tracking, but which show the raw link in the text).
|
| Tapping a link will pop this box up, without the site being
| alerted, giving you the chance to decide whether you want to
| actually visit it or not.
| mike-cardwell wrote:
| Can somebody with access to an Android phone test out this client
| with https://www.emailprivacytester.com and report back please.
| ivann wrote:
| The only test turning red for me was the "DNS Prefetch -
| Anchor" one.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I'm using F-droid K-9 and am happy with it. What would be the
| point of switching? If the new thing is flat-out better then it
| might be worth considering, but I haven't seen any explanation of
| this.
| g_p wrote:
| IMAP IDLE push support for any server that supports it, good
| configurability in settings for a wide range of advanced power
| user features, and good private-by-default settings (avoiding
| and blocking tracking pixels/images in emails, and stripping
| known tracking parameters from links you click, etc.)
|
| Those would be my top 3 personally.
| tadfisher wrote:
| IDLE is especially difficult on recent Android versions
| without a hosted service piping through FCM. You may be able
| to get away with a foreground service that displays a
| permanent notification, but I believe Android 11 or 12 limits
| even those services so you cannot have a persistent process
| keeping a socket open.
|
| Power usage would be an interesting problem as well, because
| I'm not sure if keeping a socket open would pin the radio
| active.
| g_p wrote:
| I haven't had any issues on Android 11 with FairEmail using
| a foreground service. I believe that the changes coming in
| 12 are able to be worked around though, and at minimum a
| version distributed outside of the Play Store won't be
| affected. There's some get-outs to Google's changes at
| least as they stand right now, but who knows if that will
| remain the case in subsequent versions.
|
| I haven't seen any suggestion the radio is being pinned
| active - it seems to still sleep fine, and I believe an
| incoming messages triggers a downlink page to the phone,
| which will then wake the radio to deliver the packets.
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| Doesn't k9 already supports IDLE? I kinda remember
| researching about this years ago, unfortunately, IDLE on it's
| own is no equivalent to native push notifications that use
| google services. Either way, it was just a hobby research and
| I might be wrong.
| aasasd wrote:
| Last time I looked into this, K9 didn't work in background
| continuously (since Android requires displaying a
| notification for that, and K9 never implemented it). And
| nothing seems to be happening in this regard.
|
| However, I wasn't able to make FairMail to deliver without
| a considerable delay either--despite it displaying a
| notification and being excluded from 'battery
| optimization'. But apparently it's just me.
| muppetman wrote:
| EDIT: See comment below this - it appears I might be
| talking out my bottom.
|
| It's easy to change an app's background ability in
| Android. By default apps are forced into the background,
| but if you change that your k9 email will notify you all
| day long (it does support IDLE)
| aasasd wrote:
| There's an issue on their tracker that discusses
| implementing the notification, and docs that say that
| without it K9 can only check mail every 15 minutes or so,
| even if excluded from battery optimization. So I don't
| know what support for IDLE and 'background ability'
| you're talking about. Before Android 9 or so, sure--it
| could just run in the background and connect to the
| servers whenever it wanted.
| muppetman wrote:
| Interesting - I can't say I've encountered this but I'm
| going to check the bug tracker now. Thank you - I have
| updated my parent comment.
| aasasd wrote:
| Here it is: https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/857
|
| The issue is even older than I thought, though I was
| pretty sure the requirement for a notification
| specifically appeared around Android 8 or 9.
|
| Also, seeing as K9 doesn't look to be anywhere near
| frequently updated, I'm not expecting this to change
| soon.
| g_p wrote:
| Out of interest, do you use a phone with a custom OEM
| firmware that has battery-saving features. I've seen
| issue with FairEmail (and other well-behaved foreground-
| service using apps) on some OEMs' firmwares. Heck,
| sometimes even big-name OEMs like Samsung cause issues.
|
| On "pure" Android (thinking Pixel, and the relatively
| pure Motorola devices, etc.) there's no delays at all -
| it's really impressive. I'll get the notification on my
| phone consistently before on my PC.
| aasasd wrote:
| It's a Pixel. Starting with 9 or 10, Android limits apps'
| background activity unless they show a notification (and
| probably has limits for those too when the screen is
| off). Plenty of apps had to deal with this, I have four
| of these notifications.
|
| These limits don't apply to notifications via Google's
| services (GCM or whatever they're currently called). So
| if you're using the Gmail app or another app for a
| specific mail service, sure you will receive push
| notifications quickly.
| g_p wrote:
| Interesting - I've not been able to reproduce this on a
| Pixel 3a or 4a 5G. FairEmail, with foreground
| notification, doesn't have any issues delivering
| notifications.
|
| As you say, Google is making it a lot harder, but FE with
| a foreground notification seems to do this fine for me.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Can't remember specifics but I couldn't recover email from K9
| after my provider pulled the plug and the only copy I had was
| on device.
|
| Am now a happy user of Fastmail with BYOD(omain). =D
| stilisstuk wrote:
| I love fairmail. Can't remember what the problem was with k9.
| But fair mail can't do everything. And it's slick and modern.
| Privacy first. Removes tracking images. And also identifiers in
| images you send out. It's really really good
|
| P.s also f-droid here (ps you can donate with crypto if you
| want)
| skratlo wrote:
| Comparing K-9 to FairEmail is like comparing Outlook Express
| (from Windows 95 fame) to Mozilla Thunderbird
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Give me a modernized Outlook Express over Thunderbird any
| day.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I don't understand the comparison? Outlook and Thunderbird
| were pretty similar iirc. K9 does give me notifications when
| new email arrives. It's possible that it's every 15 minutes
| rather than instant: it hasn't been an issue for me so far. I
| know that Linphone is able to receive phone calls which is
| presumably by listening on a socket or getting activated by
| some inetd-type thing in Android. Maybe K9 could do similar.
| ancarda wrote:
| Is anyone else getting this error on F-Droid?
| Download failed! The requested file was not found.
| https://f-droid.org/repo/eu.faircode.email_1518.apk
|
| How can I download this app? I use K-9 Mail at the moment, but
| I'd like to try this to see if it's any better.
| severine wrote:
| Same error, for several different apps, since yesterday.
| rhamzeh wrote:
| Sometimes, the FDroid client errors out. Some steps I generally
| found helpful to fix this issue were: - Refresh the repos (pull
| down to refresh) - Reduce the caching thresold (Settings =>
| Other (Bottom of the screen) => Keep Cached Apps) - Wait for a
| bit then try again
|
| You can also always download this directly from the browser.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I got so fed up with the F-Droid client that I moved to Foxy
| Droid, which I ironically installed via F-Droid:
|
| > Foxy Droid (Yet another F-Droid client) -
| https://f-droid.org/packages/nya.kitsunyan.foxydroid
|
| I believe there are a few other clients too but I just like
| Foxy so far
| ancarda wrote:
| I cleared F-Droid's cache and data. After an hour, I still
| can't download it :(
| CuriousNinja wrote:
| Does IMAP clients handle Gmail labels well? Last time I tried to
| use an IMAP client it treated all the labels as separate folders.
| [deleted]
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I may be wrong but my understanding is that this is just a
| limitation of Gmail's IMAP implementation. Every IMAP client
| I've tried so far displays tags as separate folders.
| gtf21 wrote:
| I think this is down to the way Google implemented labels. I
| looked into this when I moved all my email off Google's servers
| and noticed they just list them as folders on IMAP, so a client
| would have to implement a special google-specific way of
| dealing with them. There are other ways to implement labels in
| IMAP (I've forgotten the exact details but I did it
| successfully while interacting with the IMAP server using
| `openssl s_client`).
| contravariant wrote:
| If you mean the [IMAP]/Read kind of labels then yeah it handles
| those properly.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Scrolled down to the bottom to look at the screenshots, but they
| look mildly stretched to me. Is anyone else seeing this?
| pw6hv wrote:
| Just switched from K9-mail to FairEmail.
|
| I was using the Google Play version of K9 so at the moment I am
| quite happy of the switch. There is only one thing that I did not
| manage to find in FairEmail which is the ability to read the
| header of emails. Like the whole information, from SPF, DKIM
| validation and so on. Does anyone know if it's possible to get
| this?
|
| For the moment I am planning to stay with FairEmail and maybe one
| day try the F-Droid version of K9 as I heard it has evolved a lot
| in the recent times.
| dilawar wrote:
| Same here. I switched from k9 to bluemail to fairmail. Bluemail
| was good but proprietary solution. Fairmail is almost as good
| as bluemail. Though I still looking for 'share' email with an
| todo list app. Fairmail and Joplin works but Joplin is not my
| preferred to do app.
| chadcatlett wrote:
| When viewing a message, you can tap on the '...' below the
| address information and near the buttom of the menu will be a
| show headers option as well as an option to show the raw
| message.
| dlkmp wrote:
| I'm using the FDroid version of K9. What do you like from
| FairEmail over K9?
| butt_hugger wrote:
| One great feature is that when you add images in FairEmail,
| it removes metadata, renames the file and other privacy-
| preserving data.
| pmlnr wrote:
| Unless that is optional, it's a bug, not a feature.
| Attachments should never be manipulated unless asked.
| azalex wrote:
| I realise that this is not a common use case, but FairEmail
| is the only e-mail client I could find that supports TLS
| client authentication.
| creeble wrote:
| Does K9 not do this? I am certain it works with STARTTLS,
| it's what I'm currently using.
|
| Do you mean just straight TLS connection at the start of
| session?
| g_p wrote:
| I assume they're referring to TLS client certificate
| authentication support. As you say, most email clients
| can handle TLS.
|
| Few can handle authenticating to the server with a client
| certificate, but FairEmail seems to support it fine,
| although I've yet to configure it on my own server as
| it's likely to break other clients that don't support it.
| pw6hv wrote:
| I've been on the Google Play version of K9 for years and I
| must say that it was perfectly fine. I changed to FairEmail
| as I thought having a very old version of an email client
| might not be ideal from a security perspective. At the moment
| the biggest change from my workflow is the UI, which looks
| better that the old K9. Now I am not switching to K9 F-Droid
| version just because I am lazy to configure everything again
| another time.
|
| But please bear in mind that my way of using email on my
| phone is very minimal. I usually just need something to read
| and for most of my productivity task I use mutt.
| pmlnr wrote:
| K9 has an export settings feature.
| stonesweep wrote:
| We had a HN thread a few weeks back on the K-9 Donations
| blog, basically the K-9 Play version is still the old
| client UI (but the betas are not 100% feature complete);
| you can opt-in to the K-9 beta on Play or F-Droid and get
| the new UI experience if some features like IMAP IDLE are
| not that important to you. (side comment, the new K-9 betas
| allow export/import of settings but not sure about the
| older version you're currently using)
| tjoff wrote:
| The old ones have export/import as well.
| g_p wrote:
| You can view email headers in FairEmail by opening an email,
| then using the "..." menu above the message text, and selecting
| "show headers".
| doc_gunthrop wrote:
| FYI this is by the same developer who authored the popular
| NetGuard (https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard) for Android.
| _e wrote:
| ... and M66B developed XPrivacyLua:
| https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua
|
| it spoofs and restricts Android API calls made by apps.
| rexreed wrote:
| Am I a weirdo for using POP mail on an Android? I don't trust any
| third party with storing my email. Is there a reason why I should
| move to IMAP?
|
| I mean I know the technical reasons. But it says on the FairEmail
| page: "FairEmail might be for you if you value your privacy." and
| also says "works with virtually all email providers, including
| Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo!"
|
| For me, privacy is more than what's on the client - the server
| matters too. POP has seemed to work for me for 25+ yrs.
| lisper wrote:
| If you don't trust your provider then POP won't help you
| because you can't trust them not to keep copies. The only
| solution is to run your own SMTP server, at which point you
| might as well use IMAP.
| rexreed wrote:
| I'm in control of my server (host) which is a shared-hosting
| account. While it is possible for them to store copies of the
| email, it is much more cumbersome for them to do that than if
| I just had my entire IMAP store residing on their server. For
| POP copies to work, they would have to purposefully copy and
| store all the email, whereas with IMAP they would just need
| to query the data store.
| lisper wrote:
| Ah, so you do trust them. You trust that they are too lazy
| to take the initiative to keep a copy, but merely
| untrustworthy enough that they might sneak a peek if they
| can do so without having to put forth even the minor effort
| of making backups of the spool directories.
|
| Fair enough, but that strikes me as a very odd risk posture
| to take. Either your email privacy is valuable to you, in
| which case I would think you would want to protect it
| against non-lazy people as well, or it isn't, in which case
| what difference does it make?
|
| But it's obviously your call.
| [deleted]
| tjoff wrote:
| There are tons of situations where not having everything
| on the server is beneficial.
|
| A hack will barely get them anything, neither a warrant
| or a bored employee.
|
| Of course any of those situations could result in an
| active tap that stores everything. But that is orders of
| magnitude more effort and still doesn't get any history.
|
| Just minimizing the attack surface.
| flopunctro wrote:
| IMAP is not an email provider, it's just another protocol for
| reading your mail. It is the successor of POP3, having several
| key improvements. Somewhat like HTTP2 is to HTTP.
|
| If both your email provider and your client (aka mail reading
| software) support it, there really is no reason to use POP
| instead of IMAP.
| rexreed wrote:
| Yes, I'm aware of IMAP as a protocol. My point has to do with
| the location and trust. I need to be able to trust the server
| as a point of mail storage.
|
| While I agree that POP still uses the server as a go-between,
| at least the mail doesn't reside on POP servers forever.
| Whereas with IMAP, if I have 25+ years of email I'd like to
| be able to view and archive and search, all of that has to
| sit at the server rather than at the client.
| jedberg wrote:
| > at least the mail doesn't reside on POP servers forever.
|
| That's very dependent on the POP server. The protocol only
| tells the server that it is _allowed_ to delete the
| message, not that it _must_.
|
| I'm pretty sure if you use POP on gmail it just does an
| "archive" on the backend and the mail is still there, for
| example.
| t0astbread wrote:
| I'm not at all educated on POP/IMAP but I always thought
| the deletion thing with POP was just by convention and
| there's nothing in IMAP preventing you from doing the same
| there.
|
| getmail supports deletion as an IMAP client, for example.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The convenience of having the same view (via IMAP) of my email
| from multiple devices is worthwhile for me. It also makes
| supporting my parents from hundreds of miles away much easier
| when they are on IMAP vs when I had them on POP3 before. "Mom,
| your email is also on your phone, your laptop, your desktop,
| and on Dad's computer. It's all the same."
|
| I already trust my provider to _handle_ my email once; there
| doesn 't seem to be a vastly larger trust requirement on my
| part for them to handle it multiple times. (And epsilon
| additional privacy concern.)
| xearl wrote:
| FairEmail does support POP3 accounts.
| deckard1 wrote:
| If you don't trust Google to store your email, I have bad news
| for you.
|
| You will _never_ escape having some of your email stored on
| Gmail servers. Most people you email are using a gmail address,
| whether direct or via forwarding.
|
| End-to-end encryption is your only true ally. In this regard,
| email is hopeless. I personally feel that all these privacy
| mechanisms on top of email are a) hopelessly pointless and b)
| give people false comfort. They do more harm than good. It
| would be better if people saw email as a plaintext, insecure
| protocol and treated it that way _at all times_. Just imagine
| whatever you write in an email is the same as a message you
| send out to the world on Twitter. Doing it this way ensures you
| never send a message you will regret and will guarantee your
| protection rather than the security theater of privacy
| mechanisms layered on top of a fundamentally broken protocol.
| t0astbread wrote:
| You're absolutely right but unfortunately, my biggest use-
| case for email is still sending my own personal data to
| businesses I (more or less) have to interact with that don't
| offer an alternative.
|
| Also, I'm not sure most email users know what a "plaintext,
| insecure protocol" is and what it would imply.
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