Probably a good warning for those using this with f.x. Proton’ bridge too.
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This is unsettling, thanks for sharing.
1: Nothing new sadly. Microsoft already does this with their mobile Outlook offerings and with certain versions of Outlook for Mac. It’s really troubling, especially because they don’t really tell the user what is happening.
2: Proton Mail’s bridge would actually help here. Because there are no IMAP credentials except those that are only valid locally. So if the user would put that in, then the connection will just fail and the user wouldn’t be able to proceed. Better than inadvertently giving your password to Microsoft.
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It’s getting harder and harder to justify using Microsoft products these days.
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It would be interesting if Microsoft offers some way for an email provider to block this? Like, for example if I were a Mailbox.org customer and put my password in the new Outlook, then Microsoft will use their cloud servers to connect to the Mailbox.org IMAP servers and download all my emails, right? Could Mailbox.org just configure their servers so that access from Microsoft is blocked and people are forced to use local mail clients to connect directly to their IMAP servers?
Interesting take. Yeah, should be possible for a provider to block Microsoft based on IPs, possibly user-agent, but it won’t be exhaustive.
However, I believe also that it will be required for Outlook to function as the whole mail retrieval seems to take place in the cloud instead of on your device, but do not pin me on that.
I believe yahoo has been doing this for years
Yahoo is not a mail application?
Its an email service provider that also has a range of apps that you can add third party accounts to, just like outlook
Never knew you could add third party emails there. Tbf I have not seen Yahoo addresses in a decade but interesting for sure. If you have it on hand can you show me where I can find info on that adding accounts feature? Would be good for future reference.
dont have it on hand but I used their app for a time, about 5 years ago, with my outlook account. They force you to also create a yahoo email account to use the app and theyll basically sync other providers you add to the yahoo inbox. Stopped using it when I figured out what they were doing
Many email providers give you that kind of option actually, but in a local desktop email client it is rather unusual (they’re not the first, but considering their size and impact it’s kind of a first in that sense). Really concering is however that this is the default option, poorly explained if at all to the user and the only recourse is not using it at all.
Regarding PB “helping” is it because the IMAP hostname is 127.0.0.x?
Personally, yes. Unfortunately, business is still permanently attached to it.