Groups > alt.comp.software.firefox > #13041

Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox

From	VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH>
Newsgroups	alt.comp.software.firefox
Subject	Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox
Date	2025-04-11 16:45 -0500
Organization	Usenet Elder
Message-ID	<1p2eshlsnplcj$.dlg@v.nguard.lh> (permalink)
References	<knrhku8v6e1h$.dlg@v.nguard.lh> <vsu0di$14tjg$1@dont-email.me> <11ipcjfuklbaq.dlg@v.nguard.lh> <vtbo9d$2bkck$1@dont-email.me>

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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.

Thread

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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