[Users] Maybe OT why still GMail in use (was: Re: Using Claws mail and Gmail)

[David Fletcher]

Aleks <al-clawsmail at none.at> wrote:
>
>after weeks and weeks of reading this GMail/OAuth mails let me ask the question
>"Why the GMail is still in use?".
>
>It's a privacy nightmare and this OAuth stuff is a mess for E-Mail protocols
>like IMAP and SMTP.

If your employer has contracted with Google to provide IT systems then
you don't get a choice about using Gmail. It doesn't have a Gmail
address, but it's the same underlying system that is provided. As it's
a paid arrangement Google say they don't trawl the data in the way they
do with free accounts.

Microsoft and Yahoo are going down the Oauth route too. The OAuth stuff
has some hoops to jump through, but it works fine for IMAP, POP and
SMTP. Making it more user friendly with Gmail requires jumping through
more extreme hoops and a security assessment of the code. I assume
Thunderbird has the size/scale to negotiate through this or pay the
costs. It remains a nuisance for setting up a smaller scale open source
email client, but it does work.

David.