💾 Archived View for gemini.ctrl-c.club › ~stack › gemlog › 2022-07-16.thunderbird.gmi captured on 2023-04-19 at 23:41:42. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

View Raw

More Information

⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Some Email Idiocy

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.

Thunderbird to the rescue?

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.

How much processing power does an email client need?

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...

index

home