💾 Archived View for gemini.ctrl-c.club › ~stack › gemlog › 2022-07-16.thunderbird.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 03:17:36. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Stupid is as Stupid Does
I've been, stupidly, using an email account that came with a free web page account. I figured - what harm could it be, it's free, it's been around... Now I want to get rid of it, but I am away from home, and there are some accounts I can't access to update the email address... So I am stuck.
I've been using a webmail client, maybe roundcube (why nonsensical names?). Somehow the interaction of the webmail client with my browser causes repeated logins with a wrong (or no) password. Bahm, my account gets locked out by whatever security software they run. I don't know about it until a few days later, when I can't log in.
The recovery process involves going on Discord and begging the disgruntled sysop to unban my IP address. That usually takes a whole day, sometimes two, and involves some groveling.
I used to run Thunderbird some years back, so I looked - and it's still installed on my super-fast i7 notebook from 2014. My email accounts in question are still almost correct - with a minor change to the server name. How do you change the password now?
Thunderbird will not let you change the passwords, as far as I know. It tries the old, incorrect password, and if it does not work, and only then, will it ask you for a new password. Just like that, I am locked out.
A day of groveling on Discord, and I am up again. Onto the next account. You guessed it - locked out again.
A week later, and thoroughly hated by the sysops, I am getting most of my mail in Thunderbird from the accounts in question.
Top shows that, running in the background with automatic email fetching shut off -- in other words, doing absolutely nothing -- it eats up about 5% CPU and 5% memory. That is a ridiculously large fraction of my machine -- for doing absolutely nothing. I have 8GB RAM), so the sleeping beauty needs 400 MB to do nothing. Is this a bad joke?
I am loath to try any other clients as I fear my IP address will be banned forever if I show my face on that Discord server again...