Thunderbird And GMail

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Thunderbird
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viveksuraiya
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Thunderbird And GMail

Post by viveksuraiya »

Why is Thunderbird considered a 'less secure' app for GMail access?
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DanRaisch
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Re: Thunderbird And GMail

Post by DanRaisch »

Because they want to push their Oauth security model. That really brings nothing significantly more secure but ties people more closely to Google.
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makaiguy
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Re: Thunderbird And GMail

Post by makaiguy »

Google (and now Yahoo and perhaps others) have gone to Google's OAuth2 protocol for email authentication. Despite their labeling other protocols as "less secure", OAuth2 is really no more secure* than more traditional methods (sending username and password), but does provide them some internal benefits in that it allows you to use your Google or Yahoo account to log into other sites like Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, etc.

You can set your Thunderbird to use the Oauth2 authentication if you choose via the "Authentication method" item under Server Settings.

Or, you can tell Google/Yahoo to accept traditional non-Oauth2 authentication methods by logging into your Google/Yahoo account using a web browser and going to your Security settings. Enable "Allow apps that use less secure sign in".

* In fact, OAuth2 may well be LESS secure than traditional methods. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth#Security
Doug Wilson
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tomdkat
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Re: Thunderbird And GMail

Post by tomdkat »

makaiguy wrote:You can set your Thunderbird to use the Oauth2 authentication if you choose via the "Authentication method" item under Server Settings.
Does this apply only to IMAP?

Thanks!

Peace...
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DanRaisch
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Re: Thunderbird And GMail

Post by DanRaisch »

No.
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