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K-9 Mail is looking for funding

k9mail.app

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Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#71

Post by m-chrzan »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #40

I used K-9 back in my Android days (5+ years ago). It's biggest weakness was, and to my knowledge, still is, inability to support modern OAuth authentication schemes that Google and Microsoft have largely switched to. Sometimes I get a notification from a comment on the GitHub issue still. It used to be able to connect to Exchange servers, but hasn't been able to for nearly a decade.

What exactly do you need this for? If it's for authenticating with their IMAP/SMTP, app passwords have worked for me with Gmail, even on 2FA-secured G Suite accounts. No idea about Microsoft though.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#72

Post by 0x426577617265 »

Arkanosis wrote: post #19
spapas82 wrote: post #2

K-9 is a really great mail app for android! In my opinion it's the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc. It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. People that either want to avoid walled gardens or…

> the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc IMHO, it's also the best if you're using Gmail: Google has been breaking its UIs for years (both on the app and on the web), especially for people like me who try to use proper quoting and signatures, or to send plain text emails. Apart from some glitches with reflow, K-9 does that very well even with Googl…

One thing that confuses me about iOS devices is when a gmail account is added to the mail program. It isn’t clear if it is adding SMTP/IMAP or if it is doing some web app type configuration and if that gives Google more access to track device activity.

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#73

Post by tweetle_beetle »

hvdijk wrote: post #43
Black101 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like FairEmail too... it also supports PGP. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/

That one supposedly has source code available under GPL3 but despite GPL3 clause 9, which says "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program", presents the GPL3 as an EULA and refuses to run unless the user clicks "I agree".

Our of curiosity, has this been raised with the developer?

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#74

Post by cketti »

SilasX wrote: post #60
spapas82 wrote: post #2

K-9 is a really great mail app for android! In my opinion it's the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc. It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. People that either want to avoid walled gardens or…

I'm a little miffed that this comment has a better explanation of "why I should care about K-9 Mail" than anything I could find from deliberately looking for that information on their site. The "about" page just talks about the team, and their blog posts, even the one "what's up with K-9?" just talk about release schedules.

K-9 Mail never had a PR or marketing person. But help in that area would certainly be welcome.

What information would you like to find on the website exactly?

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#75

Post by zufallsheld »

stonesweep wrote: post #59

PSA: if you've not used it in awhile, use the betas via F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.fsck.k9/ You have to click "Versions" from the F-Droid app and specifically opt-in (and upgrade) the betas, F-Droid will default to installing the older stable version. The betas are almost night (mode heh) and day apart, the UI and operations have almost a complete overhaul from the old days and it looks (and works)…

I just checked: you can access the beta program in the play store, too!

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#76

Post by g_p »

berkes wrote: post #62
rjzzleep wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree, but I'm quite liking Fairemail [1] [1] https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail

I've moved to SimpleEmail, which is a fork of FairEmail. Donated to both though. SimpleEmail ripped out the donation part in their fork, which is their right under GPL, but not a nice move IMO. Main reason for me is the fast pace with which FairEmail was iterating. Often with breaking changes. I like my email app to be boring. Which FairEmail is, thanks. K9, to me, is just too much options and features. A lot of whic…

FairEmail has (at least for me) reached a point of relative stability now - it's mostly iterative improvements and minor edge case/bug fixes.

Good example, a recent release [1] fixes a couple of bugs that look to have originated from upstream Android projects, and added some new support for removal of "tracking" parameters from Facebook URLs.

I'd agree with your comment that stripping out donations is "allowed", but "not nice" - I can only sympathize with the developer of FairEmail - it is clear he puts a huge amount of time into an app that has no "covert monetisation" like most apps.

I was never particularly happy with other email apps and privacy (especially not the commercial closed source ones which receive your emails on their own server back-end, but keep this part quiet in their description, just to make push easier) - for me, at least, FairEmail delivers the same or better, but all entirely on-device. There's even some basic learning-based on-device support for sorting mail automatically into folders (spam, FYI stuff, etc). That's for me the spirit of FairEmail - doing what others do server-side, on-device, without spying.

But it is clearly a challenge to make money from this, and I think (based on FAQs) that the developer has a struggle with those who think that everything should be free.

No relation to the app, just a happy user that likes to pay for open source apps rather than become the "product".

[1] https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/releases/tag/1.1488

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#77

Post by rajbot »

hvdijk wrote: post #43
Black101 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like FairEmail too... it also supports PGP. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/

That one supposedly has source code available under GPL3 but despite GPL3 clause 9, which says "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program", presents the GPL3 as an EULA and refuses to run unless the user clicks "I agree".

That page links to their GitHub:

https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#78

Post by jonquark »

I've not donated through Liberapay before but this prompted me to donate to k9-mail and in turn after poking around on Liberapay for a bit, I've set up small recurring donations to other OSS that I use (like GIMP).

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#79

Post by g_p »

Krasnol wrote: post #32
rjzzleep wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree, but I'm quite liking Fairemail [1] [1] https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail

Tried to install it from F-Droid, didn't work. Installed it from Github, it wanted me to pay for putting a colour on my account(??) and it will remind me of something something. Nah man...don't do that if you actually want to sell a pro version. Just state it upfront and I will consider it. putting it in while I'm already adding an account and letting me read some long list of features I won't have if I continue righ…

I sympathise a lot with the developer here.

> Tried to install it from F-Droid, didn't work.

Developers get very little say in what version F-Droid builds and ships [1]. I think there are some very minor differences between the F-Droid build and the regular (open source) build when it comes to OAuth API keys - centralised mail providers often don't agree to the keys being used in those builds made by third parties.

> Nah man...don't do that if you actually want to sell a pro version. Just state it upfront and I will consider it.

Not really sure how much more the developer could do here to make it clear - the app description [2] states it contains in-app purchases (at the top). The 5th line of the description says "Almost all features are free to use, but to maintain and support the app in the long term, not every feature can be for free. See below for a list of pro features.", and there's a full list of pro feaatures lower down the description.

Not really sure if I would agree this is a dark pattern as such - I've seen far worse store listings that don't call out "pro" features until you start using the app, and discover 90% of the advertised features are paid.

Maybe I have more sympathy for open source developers, but I think it's getting increasingly difficult for them to compete with the commercial apps that are "free" (with data mining), or are paid. Looking at how regularly updated FE is, and how responsive the developer is, I imagine it could be a monthly paid subscription, based on how much time many people spend using email, and it would probably be more than worth it. Certainly looking at SV SaaS pricing, it feels that FairEmail is probably very much under-priced. And open-source too, so people really are just paying for convenience.

Comparing it with hey's email service + client at 99 USD/year, it's not easy for open source apps to compete, but it's in our collective interest for there to be good, credible open source options available.

[1] https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-5-0-fairemail-fully-f... - commenting on not knowing when F-Droid will ship that version.

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.em...

Re: K-9 Mail is looking for funding

#80

Post by kgwxd »

jerome-jh wrote: post #11
mahmoudhossam wrote: post #3

I'm surprised there's no work being done on the UI on the roadmap, K-9 looks like an app from the "Ice Cream Sandwich" days of Android. With that being said, K-9 is the best Android app I've seen for mail that isn't made by Google. edit: it seems the work has already been done, thanks for the correction.

No, do not touch the UI. If the UI is changed I don't pay! (half joking ;)

Too late :) I just updated to the beta after I read about it in this thread. Seems like more clicks to jump around accounts, I have 3. I don't really care though, it's still better than any alternative.
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