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Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox

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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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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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