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Harder to keep loving Firefox

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  Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-05 21:41 -0500
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> - 2025-04-06 05:20 +0200
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-06 04:32 -0500
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-06 04:36 -0500
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox John Diamond <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2025-04-06 04:24 +0100
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2025-04-07 11:59 +0200
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-06 09:44 -0400
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-06 17:48 -0500
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 08:10 -0400
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 13:32 -0500
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 15:31 -0400
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 19:01 -0500
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> - 2025-04-07 13:49 -0600
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox (PS) Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> - 2025-04-07 13:52 -0600
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 17:29 -0400
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 19:57 -0500
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 22:25 -0400
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 22:54 -0500
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-04-08 06:58 +0100
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 08:37 -0400
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-04-08 06:55 +0100
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 08:47 -0400
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox fredl@invalid.com - 2025-04-08 14:50 -0500
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-08 22:18 +0200
                      Harder to keep loving Firefox News <dnews@triffid.co.uk> - 2025-04-09 10:20 +0100
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-09 20:50 +0200
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-09 17:06 -0400
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 17:19 -0400
                      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> - 2025-04-08 23:55 +0200
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 20:12 -0400
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-09 15:10 +0000
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-04-09 16:27 +0100
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-07 19:27 +0200
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 11:50 -0700
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-11 16:45 -0500
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 09:29 -0700
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-04-13 17:15 +0000
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 12:36 -0700
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-13 16:54 -0500
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Nobody <jock@soccer.com> - 2025-04-13 16:05 -0700
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Winston <wbe@UBEBLOCK.psr.com.invalid> - 2025-04-14 03:11 -0400
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-14 06:21 -0500
                      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-16 08:03 -0700
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Nobody <jock@soccer.com> - 2025-04-16 08:17 -0700
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-16 08:49 -0700
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox John <Man@the.keyboard> - 2025-04-16 16:43 +0100
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-17 09:59 -0700
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-04-16 16:40 +0000
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-16 14:22 -0500
                            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-16 21:42 +0200
                              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-16 19:33 -0500
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-16 07:59 -0700
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-04-13 23:46 -0500
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 23:22 -0700
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2025-04-14 08:07 +0100
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-14 17:40 +0000
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-09 02:17 -0500
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2025-04-07 08:36 +0100
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 05:52 -0500
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2025-04-07 13:05 +0100
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 13:54 -0500

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#12992

Newyana2 wrote:

>    I used Netscape from maybe '99, but wasn't it originally
> a paid program?

My memory is probably not that accurate, but there was suc a constant 
stream of Netscape, Netscape 2.0, Netscape Gold, Netscape 3.0 etc, that 
you never needed to buy anything, not even sure if it had an expiry date 
after e.g. 30 days?

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#12996

On 4/8/2025 1:55 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Newyana2 wrote:
> 
>>    I used Netscape from maybe '99, but wasn't it originally
>> a paid program?
> 
> My memory is probably not that accurate, but there was suc a constant 
> stream of Netscape, Netscape 2.0, Netscape Gold, Netscape 3.0 etc, that 
> you never needed to buy anything, not even sure if it had an expiry date 
> after e.g. 30 days?
> 
     That's before my time. In late December, 1998, my
girlfriend asked me if I wanted her old Win3.1 computer.
A tech worker she knew (a laid off union carpenter who
retrained for IT) was giving her a Win95 box. I couldn't
imagine a computer being useful for anything. I didn't work
in an office. I'd watched friends with $300 PDAs show off
that it only took 5 minutes to save my phone number on
their clearly pointless devices. But, heck, it might be
interesting to explore what a computer is.

   I spent a long evening trying to decipher the metaphor
of copying a file from floppy to desktop. Why didn't the
printed Windows manual tell me how to do that? Thus was
born my fetish. I resolved not to spend every evening on
such a maddeningly simple question. I just didn't realize
that it would take several years to get my bearings. But
a week later I was in Microcenter looking at Win98
computers, as feverish as a Protestant in a porn shop.

   So I missed a lot of years when tech people were
working with computers. I waited until there was a
highly functional GUI. No DOS. No punchcards. No
early Netscape.

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#13002

On Tue, 8 Apr 2025 08:47:10 -0400, Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam>
wrote:

>On 4/8/2025 1:55 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>> Newyana2 wrote:
>> 
>>>    I used Netscape from maybe '99, but wasn't it originally
>>> a paid program?
>> 
>> My memory is probably not that accurate, but there was suc a constant 
>> stream of Netscape, Netscape 2.0, Netscape Gold, Netscape 3.0 etc, that 
>> you never needed to buy anything, not even sure if it had an expiry date 
>> after e.g. 30 days?
>> 
>     That's before my time. In late December, 1998, my
>girlfriend asked me if I wanted her old Win3.1 computer.
>A tech worker she knew (a laid off union carpenter who
>retrained for IT) was giving her a Win95 box. I couldn't
>imagine a computer being useful for anything. I didn't work
>in an office. I'd watched friends with $300 PDAs show off
>that it only took 5 minutes to save my phone number on
>their clearly pointless devices. But, heck, it might be
>interesting to explore what a computer is.
>
>   I spent a long evening trying to decipher the metaphor
>of copying a file from floppy to desktop. Why didn't the
>printed Windows manual tell me how to do that? Thus was
>born my fetish. I resolved not to spend every evening on
>such a maddeningly simple question. I just didn't realize
>that it would take several years to get my bearings. But
>a week later I was in Microcenter looking at Win98
>computers, as feverish as a Protestant in a porn shop.
>
>   So I missed a lot of years when tech people were
>working with computers. I waited until there was a
>highly functional GUI. No DOS. No punchcards. No
>early Netscape.

I changed over from DOS when I read that Windows 3.1 would allow three
programs to be open at the same time. Wow!

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#13003

On 08.04.2025 21:50, fredl@invalid.com wrote:
> ...
> I changed over from DOS when I read that Windows 3.1 would allow three
> programs to be open at the same time. Wow!
> 

We AMIGA users had "Intel inside" stickers on our trashcans.
I was online with a 1200 Baud Modem in 1989 in BBS's.

9600, 14400, 19200, 28800, 48000, 56k, DSL

8bit to 64bit

GenX

Only this generation know how to rotate a PDF ;)

We now have to teach Boomers and GenZ the basics...

ciao...

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#13014

In article <vt40bn$30egq$1@dont-email.me>,
   Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> wrote:
[Snippy]

> We now have to teach Boomers and GenZ the basics...

> ciao...

Whoa! There........

I'm a Boomer and while I can't comment on GenZ folks... I can comment on
Boomer time.

Much of the development in the computing world as we now know it, came
from Boomers, like a certain Mr William Gates, Steve Jobs, and many other
similar persons.

When I was young a personal computer (The size of a house room) was out of
the question, but later in the late 70s early 80s many of my generation
got into computing at home...  (PC).

For some later generations born when the computer in the home and office
were common artefacts, it was easy...

Since WW2 each generation has contributed something to push computing
onwards to be better, faster, easier to use... but at times during
progression we all need a little helping hand with the new fangled...

In more recent times the arrival of Tablets and Smart phones has pushed
the usability of computer/apps into a one size fits all hole, which is not
a good thing.

A Horse designed thus is a Camel.  ;-)

Having used tablets and smart phones when in business, now that I'm
retired I've junked the TOYS and do my work on a real Computer, it's so
much easier... :-)

And I do still love using Firefox

D.

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#13019

On 09.04.2025 11:20, News wrote:
> In article <vt40bn$30egq$1@dont-email.me>,
>    Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> wrote:
> [Snippy]
> 
>> We now have to teach Boomers and GenZ the basics...
> 
>> ciao...
> 
> Whoa! There........
> 
> I'm a Boomer and while I can't comment on GenZ folks... I can comment on
> Boomer time.
> ...

hI!

It's not about the special geek/nerd Boomer/GenZ, it's
about the average people in that age.

I have 4 boomers siblings (1957-1963) and I can tell you it's true.

They were kids/teens in the 60s/70s and there were no usable computers.
Only the 1963 brother knows somthing deeper about computers, because
he is a print technician. Even my 1957 brother who is a Dr. of Radiology
didn't use a computer until 1998.

I grew up with late 70s B/W Pong consoles, then ATARI 2600, then C64,
then AMIGA, then PC. 8-64 bits, 2400bps-1GBps BBS/internet.

8 years younger makes a BIG difference between GenX and Boomers.

GenX Rulez! :)

ciao...

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#13020

On 4/9/2025 2:50 PM, Schugo wrote:
> On 09.04.2025 11:20, News wrote:
>> In article <vt40bn$30egq$1@dont-email.me>,
>>     Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> wrote:
>> [Snippy]
>>
>>> We now have to teach Boomers and GenZ the basics...
>>
>>> ciao...
>>
>> Whoa! There........
>>
>> I'm a Boomer and while I can't comment on GenZ folks... I can comment on
>> Boomer time.
>> ...
> 
> hI!
> 
> It's not about the special geek/nerd Boomer/GenZ, it's
> about the average people in that age.
> 
> I have 4 boomers siblings (1957-1963) and I can tell you it's true.
> 
> They were kids/teens in the 60s/70s and there were no usable computers.
> Only the 1963 brother knows somthing deeper about computers, because
> he is a print technician. Even my 1957 brother who is a Dr. of Radiology
> didn't use a computer until 1998.
> 
> I grew up with late 70s B/W Pong consoles, then ATARI 2600, then C64,
> then AMIGA, then PC. 8-64 bits, 2400bps-1GBps BBS/internet.
> 
> 8 years younger makes a BIG difference between GenX and Boomers.
> 
> GenX Rulez! :)
> 

    There's a difference between understanding computers and
understanding how to use them. The "digital native" types are
not programmers. They're just accustomed to cellphones and
TV remotes. They're good *consumers* of tech.

    Most of the people who developed this stuff are boomers.
Your siblings are borderline. They likely don't share in boomer
sensibility.

     I didn't know how to turn on a computer before 1998. I
didn't have any use for one. But then I got curious. Even back
then, at the turn of the century, most people really had no use
for computers. They were for word processing and databases
in corporate settings. The PC craze was just starting. Computer
cellphones, with browsers and apps, have only been widespread
for 10-15 years. Most of the apps are newer. Cellphones
as a way of life has just recently occurred.

    I now write my own software, build my own computers, and
do a bit of web design. On the other hand, I've never used apps
to speak of and have no interest in doing so. It's a difference
between computer literacy and digital consumerism.

   I saw an interesting interview on Amanpour the other night.
(That's a PBS TV show. A TV is like cellphone streaming except
that you can actually see it.) A man was being interviewed
who was talking about his GenX buddies (later 40s and 50s).
I think he wrote a book, but I don't remember his name. (Boomer
memory, don'tcha know.) The man was saying that he felt
GenX was in the middle. Boomers had pre-digital careers. GenZ
and Millennials grew up with computers. But GenX got stuck
in between. He explained that writers, photographers, graphic
artists, media people, etc who he knew first got hit by outsourcing.
Now they're being hit by AI. A magazine staff writer has retrained
to be a psychotherapist, for example.

    So remember that when you lose your job: Plumbing and
psychotherapy are the dependable careers now. But plumbing
  is better because eventually we'll have fast-food-style therapy
done by AI. :)

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#13007

On 4/8/2025 3:50 PM, fredl@invalid.com wrote:

>>
>>    So I missed a lot of years when tech people were
>> working with computers. I waited until there was a
>> highly functional GUI. No DOS. No punchcards. No
>> early Netscape.
> 
> I changed over from DOS when I read that Windows 3.1 would allow three
> programs to be open at the same time. Wow!
> 

   To quote Monty Python, you tell that to kids
these days, they won't believe you.

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#13008

Newyana2 wrote:
> On 4/8/2025 3:50 PM, fredl@invalid.com wrote:
> 
>>>
>>>    So I missed a lot of years when tech people were
>>> working with computers. I waited until there was a
>>> highly functional GUI. No DOS. No punchcards. No
>>> early Netscape.
>> 
>> I changed over from DOS when I read that Windows 3.1 would allow three
>> programs to be open at the same time. Wow!
>> 
> 
>    To quote Monty Python, you tell that to kids
> these days, they won't believe you.

You mean the kids with their smartphones which can only show one "app"
at a time in the foregrund? ^^

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#13009

On 4/8/2025 5:55 PM, Frank Miller wrote:
> Newyana2 wrote:
>> On 4/8/2025 3:50 PM, fredl@invalid.com wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>>     So I missed a lot of years when tech people were
>>>> working with computers. I waited until there was a
>>>> highly functional GUI. No DOS. No punchcards. No
>>>> early Netscape.
>>>
>>> I changed over from DOS when I read that Windows 3.1 would allow three
>>> programs to be open at the same time. Wow!
>>>
>>
>>     To quote Monty Python, you tell that to kids
>> these days, they won't believe you.
> 
> You mean the kids with their smartphones which can only show one "app"
> at a time in the foregrund? ^^
> 

    Good point. I hadn't thought of that. I wonder how
many young people now even use computers.

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#13017

Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> wrote at 21:55 this Tuesday (GMT):
> Newyana2 wrote:
>> On 4/8/2025 3:50 PM, fredl@invalid.com wrote:
>> 
>>>>
>>>>    So I missed a lot of years when tech people were
>>>> working with computers. I waited until there was a
>>>> highly functional GUI. No DOS. No punchcards. No
>>>> early Netscape.
>>> 
>>> I changed over from DOS when I read that Windows 3.1 would allow three
>>> programs to be open at the same time. Wow!
>>> 
>> 
>>    To quote Monty Python, you tell that to kids
>> these days, they won't believe you.
>
> You mean the kids with their smartphones which can only show one "app"
> at a time in the foregrund? ^^


To be fair, some apps have a PiP mode. They still run things in the
background, also.
-- 
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

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#13018

candycanearter07 wrote:

> Frank Miller wrote:
>
>> You mean the kids with their smartphones which can only show one "app"
>> at a time in the foregrund? ^^
> 
> To be fair, some apps have a PiP mode. They still run things in the
> background, also.

My Huawei android tablet (fairly ancient running Android 9) can run two 
apps in split-screen mode ...

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#12974

On 07.04.2025 00:48, VanguardLH wrote:
> ...
>>    The overall best method to block spying is a HOSTS file. 
> 
> No thanks.  While that works to block at a domain level only, not all
> domains are evil just because a subdomain or webhosted user is evil.

I use both uBO and a hosts blocklist (not too large).

Not only the Browser tracks/phones home, links to malware/phishing.

e.g.: *.telemetry.microsoft.com
and malware sites. Not CDNs, Akaimai, subdomains etc.

About your UTF8 domains claim:

before calling gethostbyaddr(...) the apps must
convert the UTF8 domain into punicode and
that's what's in the hosts file.

The app does not access the hosts file.

ciao...

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#13038

On 4/6/25 3:48 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

> Also remember that Gmail was NOT an e-mail service to which you could
> connect local e-mail clients.  It started out as a purely web-based
> e-mail service.  You had to use a web browser to use it.  That's why
> Google vision of e-mail does not match up with e-mail standards.  They
> could do it their way, because it was all on their send.  Then they
> decided to add support for e-mail protocols, but did not fully
> relinquish how their webmail client behaved.

I'm pretty sure that as soon as I was 'eligible' for a gmail account I 
added it to Thunderbird and used it ONLY via TB after adjusting the 
settings at the website.  How soon did google allow local client usage?

The only time I go to the website is to see if perhaps google decided 
that something I was waiting for was spam or to delete everything on 
general principles every couple of months.

> Remember when you used to answer a call by saying "Hello?", and wait
> until the caller identifies themself.  Now the callees say "Hi, Mark",
> because their phone has already identified the caller by Caller ID, or
> by contact matching.  Texting has devolved humans into gibbering idiots
> who don't know grammer, don't use punctuation, or use inane
> abbreviations.  Usenet was a professional community until AOL dumped
> their users into Usenet, and attrition has somewhat returned Usenet to a
> more professional community.  The more features added to HTML, CSS, and
> scripting, the more it gets abused, misused, and turned, like you say,
> into web apps instead of web docs.
> 
> Yes, people are ignorants at something, and they want to stay that way.
> There are lots of topics on which I am ignorant.  I don't want to be nor
> ever will be a neurosurgeon, so I don't educate myself in that field.  I
> probably know more about human anatomy than the average person, but that
> was due to my curiousity.  I know folks that learn a career, like a
> plumber, who once trained don't want to learn anymore than about
> changing building codes.  Everyone is an ignorant on something.

And the proliferation of AI clients is only making it worse.  We used to 
have to find a document and read it to get the answer to a question.  We 
had to read a LOT of wrong documents before we found the right one -- if 
we were lucky.  In the process we learned something. When I served as 
the DOS/dBase helper I told people to try to figure it out themselves 
for no more than five minutes before asking me -- learning experiences 
are good, but sometimes need more time than is available. (Not that I 
was a real expert, I just knew more than they did.)

Perplexity just feeds us what it thinks is the correct answer.  We 
refine the discussion, and it apologizes for its errors and ultimately 
comes up with SOMETHING reasonable, although it might not actually be 
true.  WE can apply sanity checks, but what about the kids coming up who 
never had to learn to SEARCH for information, not to mention evaluating 
its veracity?

BTW, I use Perplexity because for some inexplicable reason it's the only 
one I can copy+paste with.  It also giver you footnote-analogs.

-- 
Cheers, Bev
   "Let them eat shit."
           -- Marcel Antoinette, Marie's little-known brother

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#13041

The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
> [Corrections shown in square brackets. Deletions within curly brackets.]
>> Also remember that Gmail was NOT an e-mail service to which you could
>> connect local e-mail clients.  It started out as a purely web-based
>> e-mail service.  You had to use a web browser to use it.  That's why
>> Google['s] vision of e-mail does not match up with e-mail standards.  They
>> could do it their way, because it was all on their {s}end.  Then they
>> decided to add support for e-mail protocols, but did not fully
>> relinquish how their webmail client behaved.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that as soon as I was 'eligible' for a gmail account I 
> added it to Thunderbird and used it ONLY via TB after adjusting the 
> settings at the website.  How soon did google allow local client usage?

Thunderbird's initial release was in July 2003.
The *public* launch of Gmail beta was in April 2004.
Google added IMAP over 3 years later in October 2007.
Gmail ended its beta status in July 2009.

When I search on "Gmail POP" on a date range of 1/1/2003 to 1/1/2004,
there are no hits.  Changing to a date range for the next year, 1/1/2004
to 1/1/2005, gets hits starting in October 2004.

During initial beta, a limited group of 1000 opinion leaders (other than
Gmail employees) were given accounts, and they could invite their
friends.  I knew an IT guy at work that knew someone at Google (they
were collaborating on something that I no longer remember), and he got
his Google friend to create an account, not send an invite which started
later.  I got in several months before the public launch.  Then
blogger.com users were sent invitations.  Invitations became
commodities, and even sold at eBay for $150.  Web sites sprang up that
would swap invitations, and users were begging in forums to get invites.
Invitations were an insider thing at first, and then they could send
invites to their friends.  Later Gmail let any user submit a request for
an invitation, and had to wait hoping they would get one.  

I didn't ask Google for an invite to Gmail.  I got an e-mail from my
friend's pal at Google saying an account was activated under my username
with a default password which I immediately changed after login.  I got
in before the invites started.  However, while I found out when Google
added IMAP, I don't remember POP was immediately available, and I had to
instead use their webmail client.  I was in before the public beta
started with all that stupid invite crap.

I don't care for POP.  I much prefer IMAP, because it keeps multiple
e-mail clients on the same or different hosts in sync with each other,
plus it supports folders.  POP only has a mailbox (seen as the Inbox).
There are no folders in POP.  What you see for POP folders in your
client are local-only, not on the server.  It might be the later
introduction of IMAP that I remember as when Gmail supported a standard
e-mail protocol.  However, I don't remember having POP access when I
first got into Gmail.  Many of my brain cells have been repurposed in
those 22 years.

While I was in some alpha stage, I was never impressed at the start and
never since with how Google tried to pretend they had POP (and later
IMAP) services.  They had a webmail client that they managed to lie
sufficiently to POP and IMAP clients to pretend Google was running POP
and IMAP servers.  I found discrepencies between RFCs and Gmail that I
started calling Google's servers as gPOP and gIMAP.  Their gPOP treats
TOP [n] commands as RETR(ieve) commands, so if you ran an e-mail monitor
using TOP to alert on new e-mails and an e-mail client to read them, the
POP monitor ended up marking the e-mail as read, so the e-mail client
wouldn't find them.  Gmail usurped functions of e-mail clients into
server-side settings.  gIMAP does not have any folders, but uses tags;
however, an e-mail can have more than one tag which confuses IMAP
clients since the e-mail looks like it is in more than one folder.
Google came out with their IMAP extension (not an RFC, just a Google
specification):

https://developers.google.com/workspace/gmail/imap/imap-extensions) 

to allow IMAP clients to set/change/delete tags at the client; however,
the e-mail client had to be coded to support Google's extended IMAP
spec.  Thunderbird, and many IMAP clients don't support the extension.
eM Client does.

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#13056

On 4/11/25 2:45 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>> [Corrections shown in square brackets. Deletions within curly brackets.]
>>> Also remember that Gmail was NOT an e-mail service to which you could
>>> connect local e-mail clients.  It started out as a purely web-based
>>> e-mail service.  You had to use a web browser to use it.  That's why
>>> Google['s] vision of e-mail does not match up with e-mail standards.  They
>>> could do it their way, because it was all on their {s}end.  Then they
>>> decided to add support for e-mail protocols, but did not fully
>>> relinquish how their webmail client behaved.
>> 
>> I'm pretty sure that as soon as I was 'eligible' for a gmail account I 
>> added it to Thunderbird and used it ONLY via TB after adjusting the 
>> settings at the website.  How soon did google allow local client usage?
> 
> Thunderbird's initial release was in July 2003.
> The *public* launch of Gmail beta was in April 2004.
> Google added IMAP over 3 years later in October 2007.
> Gmail ended its beta status in July 2009.

The oldest email I could find in Thunderbird in 15 minutes of searching 
is 2006. I've got email from 1998 in an 'evolution' folder in the shell 
account email address, so I assume that was a server than that person 
used.  The earliest post I ever found with dejanews was December 1994, 
which was when I used my husband's alumni account for the first time.

We set my mom up with a win3 computer in 1999 and I have all her email 
to me.  She was so proud of learning to do that.  She always regretted 
not getting involved with computers when she was working, although I 
remember her bringing home punch cards and a long needle to do SOMETHING 
with when I was a tiny child.

Looking through this ancient stuff makes me sad.
> When I search on "Gmail POP" on a date range of 1/1/2003 to 1/1/2004,
> there are no hits.  Changing to a date range for the next year, 1/1/2004
> to 1/1/2005, gets hits starting in October 2004.
> 
> During initial beta, a limited group of 1000 opinion leaders (other than
> Gmail employees) were given accounts, and they could invite their
> friends.  I knew an IT guy at work that knew someone at Google (they
> were collaborating on something that I no longer remember), and he got
> his Google friend to create an account, not send an invite which started
> later.  I got in several months before the public launch.  Then
> blogger.com users were sent invitations.  Invitations became
> commodities, and even sold at eBay for $150.  Web sites sprang up that
> would swap invitations, and users were begging in forums to get invites.
> Invitations were an insider thing at first, and then they could send
> invites to their friends.  Later Gmail let any user submit a request for
> an invitation, and had to wait hoping they would get one.
> 
> I didn't ask Google for an invite to Gmail.  I got an e-mail from my
> friend's pal at Google saying an account was activated under my username
> with a default password which I immediately changed after login.  I got
> in before the invites started.  However, while I found out when Google
> added IMAP, I don't remember POP was immediately available, and I had to
> instead use their webmail client.  I was in before the public beta
> started with all that stupid invite crap.
> 
> I don't care for POP.  I much prefer IMAP, because it keeps multiple
> e-mail clients on the same or different hosts in sync with each other,
> plus it supports folders.  POP only has a mailbox (seen as the Inbox).
> There are no folders in POP.  What you see for POP folders in your
> client are local-only, not on the server.  It might be the later
> introduction of IMAP that I remember as when Gmail supported a standard
> e-mail protocol.  However, I don't remember having POP access when I
> first got into Gmail.  Many of my brain cells have been repurposed in
> those 22 years.

It's really hard to remember how it was In The Beginning.  I first used 
Mosaic and Netscape (windows) in 1994, but I've had shell accounts since 
1990 or so.  When I first used Netscape I chose (or would have chosen 
had there been a choice) POP because I had no other devices.  I'm sure I 
used Netscape with the email provided by the shell account, but it's all 
a haze.

I got a gmail invitation from a pro I 'knew' from usenet, so it would 
have been pretty early. I remember NOT choosing IMAP because I wanted to 
keep all my mail on MY computer and leave none on the server.  At some 
point I decided to leave it on the server as a backup Just In Case of 
Disaster.  Every few months I delete everything I can, but who knows 
what google saves without telling me.

Curiously enough, I have some of my gmail accounts set to BOTH POP and 
IMAP.  I use POP with my computer (deleting the stuff at the web every 
once in a while) and IMAP with my phone/tablet/laptop.  Seems to work OK.

I have an extensive folder system (GOD I hate calling them folders!) on 
my computer, so none is needed at the website.  The phone etc. email is 
only used occasionally for current messages with no need for sorting, 
storage etc.

[Entire message retained for historical interest]

> While I was in some alpha stage, I was never impressed at the start and
> never since with how Google tried to pretend they had POP (and later
> IMAP) services.  They had a webmail client that they managed to lie
> sufficiently to POP and IMAP clients to pretend Google was running POP
> and IMAP servers.  I found discrepencies between RFCs and Gmail that I
> started calling Google's servers as gPOP and gIMAP.  Their gPOP treats
> TOP [n] commands as RETR(ieve) commands, so if you ran an e-mail monitor
> using TOP to alert on new e-mails and an e-mail client to read them, the
> POP monitor ended up marking the e-mail as read, so the e-mail client
> wouldn't find them.  Gmail usurped functions of e-mail clients into
> server-side settings.  gIMAP does not have any folders, but uses tags;
> however, an e-mail can have more than one tag which confuses IMAP
> clients since the e-mail looks like it is in more than one folder.
> Google came out with their IMAP extension (not an RFC, just a Google
> specification):
> 
> https://developers.google.com/workspace/gmail/imap/imap-extensions)
> 
> to allow IMAP clients to set/change/delete tags at the client; however,
> the e-mail client had to be coded to support Google's extended IMAP
> spec.  Thunderbird, and many IMAP clients don't support the extension.
> eM Client does.

-- 
Cheers, Bev
   "A friend is someone who puts the needs of others above their own.
    Find one of those people and take advantage of him."       --Rat

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#13057

On Sun, 13 Apr 2025 09:29:42 -0700, The Real Bev wrote:

[snip]

> I have an extensive folder system (GOD I hate calling them folders!) on
> my computer, so none is needed at the website.  The phone etc. email is
> only used occasionally for current messages with no need for sorting,
> storage etc.

I think of a "folder" as a piece of light cardboard wrapped around papers, 
that you have to be very careful with or you get a disorganized mess on 
the floor. Computers are supposed to be an improvement over that. Using 
that word for a subdirectory seems like the opposite of progress.
 
[snip]

-- 
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"The unnatural, that too is natural." [Goethe]

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#13062

On 4/13/25 10:15 AM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Apr 2025 09:29:42 -0700, The Real Bev wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
>> I have an extensive folder system (GOD I hate calling them folders!) on
>> my computer, so none is needed at the website.  The phone etc. email is
>> only used occasionally for current messages with no need for sorting,
>> storage etc.
> 
> I think of a "folder" as a piece of light cardboard wrapped around papers,
> that you have to be very careful with or you get a disorganized mess on
> the floor. Computers are supposed to be an improvement over that. Using
> that word for a subdirectory seems like the opposite of progress.

I blame Microsoft.  So does everybody else.  Or maybe Apple.  Same concept.


-- 
Cheers, Bev
  " While in high school, we were encouraged to keep a daily journal.
   I never liked it, especially when early on I realized that anybody
   could find it and read it.  Fortunately, the jury never saw it."
                                   --  Anonymous, for obvious reasons

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#13065

Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> wrote:

> The Real Bev wrote:
> 
>> I have an extensive folder system (GOD I hate calling them folders!)
>> on my computer, so none is needed at the website.  The phone etc.
>> email is only used occasionally for current messages with no need
>> for sorting, storage etc.
> 
> I think of a "folder" as a piece of light cardboard wrapped around
> papers, that you have to be very careful with or you get a
> disorganized mess on the floor. Computers are supposed to be an
> improvement over that. Using that word for a subdirectory seems like
> the opposite of progress.

A long time ago, the file system object to group files was called a
directory.  It is actually a file with pointers to other files.  In a
command shell, you still use 'dir', not 'fol[der]'.  Directory is a file
system concept.  Folder is a user-level concept.  A folder is to a
directory as a document is to a file.  Which term a user mentions has to
do a lot to when they were introduced to personal computers.  To some
users, the Web (which they often mistakeningly call the Internet) has
been around all their lives, because they're under 30 years old, so it
has been around during their entire lifetime.  For some OSes, the MFT
(Master File Table) was called the directory.  Distinctions without a
difference with terminology getting muddied over time.

At some point, Microsoft decided to push "folder" in place of
"directory".  Maybe they thought it would prevent confusing "directory",
a "folder", with AD (Active Directory) which uses LDAP (Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol).  AD first showed up in Windows 2000 Server.
Or, maybe Microsoft decided to copy the terminology from other operating
systems.  Macintosh back to 1980s used "folders", and even showed them
as manila folders trying cull other-OS users with familiar terminology.
I think it was with Windows 95 when Microsoft started to push "folder"
over "directory".

Microsoft has a long history of using confusing and conflating names.
Lots of users thought Outlook Express was a light version of Outlook.
Nope, entirely different lineage for those products.  Microsoft acquired
Outlook Express which was originally called Internet Mail & News, and
why the executable file was named msimn.exe, not msoe.exe.  Then they
went to Outlook.com (an alter ego of Hotmail.com), an e-mail service
with POP/IMAP/Exchange access to local clients and its own webmail app.
So, when users ask about Outlook, which one are they asking about?

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#13066

On Sun, 13 Apr 2025 16:54:24 -0500, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

>Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> wrote:
>
>> The Real Bev wrote:
>> 
>>> I have an extensive folder system (GOD I hate calling them folders!)
>>> on my computer, so none is needed at the website.  The phone etc.
>>> email is only used occasionally for current messages with no need
>>> for sorting, storage etc.
>> 
>> I think of a "folder" as a piece of light cardboard wrapped around
>> papers, that you have to be very careful with or you get a
>> disorganized mess on the floor. Computers are supposed to be an
>> improvement over that. Using that word for a subdirectory seems like
>> the opposite of progress.
>
>A long time ago, the file system object to group files was called a
>directory.  It is actually a file with pointers to other files.  In a
>command shell, you still use 'dir', not 'fol[der]'.  Directory is a file
>system concept.  Folder is a user-level concept.

<hidden>  
>
>At some point, Microsoft decided to push "folder" in place of
>"directory". 

<foldered up>
 
>Microsoft has a long history of using confusing and conflating names.

The way Windoze explained it w-a-y back... mebbe even before 95... for
newcomers to the marvels of PC's was to use a physical office desk as
an analogy for a 'puter
 
- desktop on the monitor/screen was well, a desk's top showing where
your really necessary/frequently used stuff could be found

- drives were the drawers underneath 

- folders were like the manila thingies where you kept paper whatevers

- folders would be displayed with rounded corners like, er, tabs

- files were those individual docs/photos inside

For office types in the 90's (and increasing home PC users), that
helped more than a few brains click (oops...) in absorbing where to
place/find stuff.

I still prefer to see 'rounded tabs'... and have same set up for my
T'bird email.

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