Yahoo finally axed external POP email for free users

[Wyndru]

Shhh! Dammit, man! Don't give them any ideas!

IMO, I don't see that happening on the email side, google drive on the other hand...I can't imagine them keeping that free forever (especially with all of the apps included).

 

[Mixolydian]

Yahoo? What is this, 2002?

ftfy.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I don't even know what POP is or why I should care. I haven't used an email client for my personal email since about 2008. It's just a giant pain in the ass and I'd rather use a webmail client. It's not like my old emails are important anyway.

 

[Fritzo]

I don't even know what POP is or why I should care. I haven't used an email client for my personal email since about 2008. It's just a giant pain in the ass and I'd rather use a webmail client. It's not like my old emails are important anyway.

Back in the olden-days of the Internet, mailboxes were 10MB or less in size, so they could only hold a certain amount of messages before filling up. POP3 allowed you to download messages from the mail server to your computer and prevented your mailbox from filling up. The problem with POP3 is it put your messages ON YOUR COMPUTER- if anything happened to your PC all of your email would go with it.

With the advent of more mailbox capacity, IMAP became more popular. It allows you to keep messages on mail server and then "remote" in to your mail box to read your mail. The fact that your email stays in a central location on the Internet means all of your computers/phones/tablets/etc can see the same messages at the same time, you can record replies from any device, and the action of one device reflects on all of the others. It is vastly superior to POP3 in this aspect, and the fact modern mail clients allow you to read IMAP mail off-line means there's not really a reason to use POP anymore.

For those paranoia-nerds out there concerned about a company losing your email, I reply with "I think I'll trust a multi-million dollar company's backup systems and redundant servers to keep my mail safe rather than a $100 USB backup drive".

 

[lxskllr]

For those paranoia-nerds out there concerned about a company losing your email, I reply with "I think I'll trust a multi-million dollar company's backup systems and redundant servers to keep my mail safe rather than a $100 USB backup drive".

My problem with services are corporate snooping, and reduced standards for government seizure. If you use your own server, they need a warrant to get your data. On someone else's server, they just have to ask. I don't have my own server yet, but it's on the future roadmap.

 

[wotan]

It's been a pretty big security hole for years now. Not surprised they finally got sick of dealing with the hassle of acting as a free anonymous POP proxy.

 

[tcsenter]

With the advent of more mailbox capacity, IMAP became more popular. It allows you to keep messages on mail server and then "remote" in to your mail box to read your mail.

POP allows the same functionality, if the mail server and client both support it. e.g. leave messages on server, how many days, and delete messages from server when I delete them from my computer are all POP options in Outlook Express, Windows Mail, etc.

 

[Fritzo]

POP allows the same functionality, if the mail server and client both support it. e.g. leave messages on server, how many days, and delete messages from server when I delete them from my computer are all POP options in Outlook Express, Windows Mail, etc.

Those are work arounds, not true syncing. For instance, if you read a message on your phone, it's marked as read on the server. With POP you're essentially dealing with multiple copies of emails that are completely separate from each other.

My problem with services are corporate snooping, and reduced standards for government seizure. If you use your own server, they need a warrant to get your data. On someone else's server, they just have to ask. I don't have my own server yet, but it's on the future roadmap.

It depends on what you're doing with your mail. If it's just normal office mail and you're doing something like a paid Google Apps account, I'd argue it's probably more secure than running your own mail server. Not sure why you're worried about government seizure unless you're doing something bad

 

[AstroManLuca]

My problem with services are corporate snooping, and reduced standards for government seizure. If you use your own server, they need a warrant to get your data. On someone else's server, they just have to ask. I don't have my own server yet, but it's on the future roadmap.

If I was discussing shady things in my email, I'd probably get a separate email account for that. It's not like Yahoo DOESN'T read your email if you use POP - hell they probably even keep archived copies of everything even if you delete it.

For nearly everybody, webmail is the superior option and more reliable as well. You don't have to back up your archive of email, you don't have to figure out how to import it back into your client if you reinstall, and you don't have to figure out how to transfer it from one client to another should you decide to switch.

 

[lxskllr]

It depends on what you're doing with your mail. If it's just normal office mail and you're doing something like a paid Google Apps account, I'd argue it's probably more secure than running your own mail server. Not sure why you're worried about government seizure unless you're doing something bad

It's the principle. "bad" is what the guy with the gun says it is. To get my data, I expect a warrant. Anything less is shortchanging me of my rights, and rights are about the most valuable thing you own, with the possible exception of your principles.

 

[lupi]

Yeah, mail at the access speed that the service currently allows based in part on the strength of your connection to it is so superior than what you can do with it under outlook stored on your own computer.

 

[mikeymikec]

I don't understand what you're saying here. All of my mail is backed up by me, with a redundant copy on the mail server. I'll agree trusting third parties is a bad idea on a few levels, but if you aren't running your own mail server, POP and IMAP are equivalent for mail safety.

Well, if you can correct me on this point that's great, but as far as I'm aware, most mail clients don't have a system in place to spot a situation where say a load of mail has disappeared from the IMAP account server-side. When I've asked various people questions before on this topic they don't really know what to expect in that situation, except for the logical-but-horrifying "start synchronising the deletion of mail client-side until both match up" scenario.

Based on my assumption, IMAP doesn't seem like a very safe option unless the client is also in control of the server, or there are extremely decent communication and strategies in place for such a scenario, let's say Google has a serious mail data loss incident, so they immediately switch off IMAP services to ensure that clients don't lose their copy of the data as a temporary measure until the issue is resolved one way or another.

For those paranoia-nerds out there concerned about a company losing your email, I reply with "I think I'll trust a multi-million dollar company's backup systems and redundant servers to keep my mail safe rather than a $100 USB backup drive".

Let's say I have a Google Mail account and I use IMAP. I don't pay Google anything for this service. How do you propose in this situation that Google has my best interests at heart if something bad happens?

Virtually every free mail provider out there has had a data loss incident at one time or another. AFAIK, if the data loss turns out to be irreversible, the company's response is:

<shrugs> Sorry...

If however I am responsible for my own data's safety, then I can take as many measures as I deem appropriate, and if something bad happens that makes a mockery of those measures, I can choose to invest in say data recovery services or not, for example. If a company hosts my data for free, I don't have that choice. I simply have to assume that their employees are a) competent and b) honest as well as their equipment and backup strategies are all in decent working order. One problem with complicated backup strategies is, how often do they get thoroughly tested. Usually backup strategies are tested in very small-scale scenarios.

Yeah, mail at the access speed that the service currently allows based in part on the strength of your connection to it is so superior than what you can do with it under outlook stored on your own computer.

Give me an example of what you mean here. I've yet to see something that made me think "I really wish I had a mainstream webmail system rather than Thunderbird".

 

[lxskllr]

Well, if you can correct me on this point that's great, but as far as I'm aware, most mail clients don't have a system in place to spot a situation where say a load of mail has disappeared from the IMAP account server-side. When I've asked various people questions before on this topic they don't really know what to expect in that situation, except for the logical-but-horrifying "start synchronising the deletion of mail client-side until both match up" scenario.

AFAIK, what you say is correct, but mail already on your machine can be archived, so the remote server going up won't permanently delete it. It would require a backup strategy of some kind, but it doesn't have to be more complicated than a copy/paste of the database. I'd probably just backup the whole user directory for the mail client. That way it could be dropped in place with little downtime.

 

[mikeymikec]

AFAIK, what you say is correct, but mail already on your machine can be archived, so the remote server going up won't permanently delete it. It would require a backup strategy of some kind, but it doesn't have to be more complicated than a copy/paste of the database. I'd probably just backup the whole user directory for the mail client. That way it could be dropped in place with little downtime.

So now we're talking about having a backup strategy for mail at both ends Hopefully one end's backup system worked as it should when it needed to (ie. as up-to-date as possible before the problem occurred).

 

[tcsenter]

Those are work arounds, not true syncing. For instance, if you read a message on your phone, it's marked as read on the server. With POP you're essentially dealing with multiple copies of emails that are completely separate from each other.

I don't use my phone for email and I only use the web interface with these accounts (i.e. I don't download the messages to my computer or use a client).

I do have a different email account from yet another service, which I manage with an email client (e.g. Windows Mail), but that's neither my Yahoo mail nor the external account that was I accessing through Yahoo's service.

 

[AstroManLuca]

What do you guys keep in your email that's so important that losing it would be a major problem? Yeesh, if my email got wiped out I don't even think I would notice. Anything really IMPORTANT - serial numbers for software I've purchased, family pictures - is already saved somewhere else, often in multiple places. I couldn't care less about the emails themselves. The only reason I don't go through and delete the now-useless ones is because it would take too much time.

I've yet to see something that made me think "I really wish I had a mainstream webmail system rather than Thunderbird".

Since switching to webmail, I've yet to think, "I really wish I was using Thunderbird again." Good riddance to that crap.

 

[mikeymikec]

What do you guys keep in your email that's so important that losing it would be a major problem? Yeesh, if my email got wiped out I don't even think I would notice. Anything really IMPORTANT - serial numbers for software I've purchased, family pictures - is already saved somewhere else, often in multiple places. I couldn't care less about the emails themselves. The only reason I don't go through and delete the now-useless ones is because it would take too much time.

I run my own business. Also, I've had plenty of personal discussions over e-mail that I'd like to refer back to. I could save them all separately as files, but what would be the point, they're a lot easier to search through in a decent mail app.

Since switching to webmail, I've yet to think, "I really wish I was using Thunderbird again." Good riddance to that crap.

Insightful response. If you meant "I look at it the other way around, what do I get out of Thunderbird?", then ask that. Otherwise your comment is about as useful/interesting as "OS X is teh best!!1! Windoze is crap!".

 

[lxskllr]

Using web clients pisses me off. The only time I use them is if I'm on a foreign computer. I use K9 on Android, and Thunderbird on everything else. The biggest reason is I don't require a net connection to view old email. GPG encryption, and a feed reading is icing on the cake*.

Edit:
*and a offline calendar.

 

[Red Squirrel]

[you]@[yourdomain.com]

/thread.

This. Preferably on a server you control, too.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I run my own business. Also, I've had plenty of personal discussions over e-mail that I'd like to refer back to. I could save them all separately as files, but what would be the point.



Insightful response. If you meant "I look at it the other way around, what do I get out of Thunderbird?", then ask that.

Nah, you're right, I'm a little down on it. From my perspective, traditional email clients are a pain to set up, a pain to back up, a pain to migrate, and can only be accessed from a single computer (although I'm sure you can set it up to not delete your email once it's been downloaded to your main computer). Webmail is extremely simple - you go to a website and log in.

And of course different users will have different needs.

Maybe what I'm really getting at is that, for most people, free webmail works just fine. And if you are in the small minority that need more features, then maybe it's worth paying a very small price for email service, and maybe Yahoo isn't the way to go.

 

[mikeymikec]

Nah, you're right, I'm a little down on it. From my perspective, traditional email clients are a pain to set up, a pain to back up, a pain to migrate, and can only be accessed from a single computer (although I'm sure you can set it up to not delete your email once it's been downloaded to your main computer). Webmail is extremely simple - you go to a website and log in.

And of course different users will have different needs.

Maybe what I'm really getting at is that, for most people, free webmail works just fine. And if you are in the small minority that need more features, then maybe it's worth paying a very small price for email service, and maybe Yahoo isn't the way to go.

I've been using Thunderbird for about ten years. If I want to transfer it to a new (Windows) computer, it takes me ten minutes and everything looks exactly as it did and is ready to go.

As for backing it up, I have my Thunderbird profile sitting in my documents folder, so if I wanted to grab 'the essential stuff' and throw it onto my laptop, I can quite easily.

Thunderbird has also come a long way, as have most e-mail clients. For most 'big name' free mail providers, you just put in your e-mail address and password and it does all the server configuration work for you normally, even with a lot of much smaller-name providers.

Using web clients pisses me off. The only time I use them is if I'm on a foreign computer. I use K9 on Android, and Thunderbird on everything else. The biggest reason is I don't require a net connection to view old email. GPG encryption, and a feed reading is icing on the cake*.

Edit:
*and a offline calendar.

I have a very similar setup and for similar reasons. I also have my own domains and server.

 

[Fritzo]

It's the principle. "bad" is what the guy with the gun says it is. To get my data, I expect a warrant. Anything less is shortchanging me of my rights, and rights are about the most valuable thing you own, with the possible exception of your principles.

Why are you even considering that though? It's like saying "I'm going to house my server in a 3 ft concrete bunker because an asteroid might hit it...I just don't want to take that chance".

 

[lxskllr]

Why are you even considering that though? It's like saying "I'm going to house my server in a 3 ft concrete bunker because an asteroid might hit it...I just don't want to take that chance".

I'm considering it because the government's already hoovering up my data. They're already targeting people who support press they don't agree with. What's next? I've seen an asteroid a couple times in my life, and nothing I can do would have put me any closer to it.

 

[Fritzo]

Let's say I have a Google Mail account and I use IMAP. I don't pay Google anything for this service. How do you propose in this situation that Google has my best interests at heart if something bad happens?

Virtually every free mail provider out there has had a data loss incident at one time or another. AFAIK, if the data loss turns out to be irreversible, the company's response is:

<shrugs> Sorry...

If however I am responsible for my own data's safety, then I can take as many measures as I deem appropriate, and if something bad happens that makes a mockery of those measures, I can choose to invest in say data recovery services or not, for example. If a company hosts my data for free, I don't have that choice. I simply have to assume that their employees are a) competent and b) honest as well as their equipment and backup strategies are all in decent working order. One problem with complicated backup strategies is, how often do they get thoroughly tested. Usually backup strategies are tested in very small-scale scenarios.

If it's personal email, who cares. If it's work email, you should be using a Google Apps account, not a Gmail account. Google has 13+ redundant email cluster servers...it would be near impossible for them to permanently lose anything (the last time they had a mail-loss issue was Feb. 2011 and it affected .29% of accounts...the mail was restored within a few hours). The worst that could happen is email would be unavailable for a bit, and incidents are very rare.

Losing people's email, though incredibly unlikely, would not look good for them and cause them to lose users. We're actually a Google Apps reseller---you'd be shocked at the amount of redundancy and protection they have in place for business users and their information. They have things like reinforced data centers with bio-scanners and armed security with quadruple redundant secured fiber connections at each facility.

I compare this to the guy that runs his own mail server off of a Time Warner cable connection in a back room at the office and backing up stuff using a Western Digital USB drive. Someone could simply break in and walk away with your server if they wanted to

 

[Fritzo]

I'm considering it because the government's already hoovering up my data. They're already targeting people who support press they don't agree with...