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AOL Mail To Be Accessible Via IMAP
jfruhlinger writes "News.com.com is reporting that AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic app, will be available via IMAP starting Thursday. The story notes that this is part of a series of initiatives from AOL to move content beyond its walled garden and into standards-based formats such as HTML and IMAP that any Internet app can access. Supposedly a 'a dramatically different direction' for Netscape is in the works, too."
Now I can delete the 99% spam I get in my AOL inbox faster!
This is one less reason to make fun of aol users :)
I'd love AIM to be opened up, but I'm not holding my breath. Mail is a commodity now, and there is no obvious benefit in walling it up any more. But IM is dominated by the big three: AOL+ICQ, MSN and Yahoo. AOL has too much to lose by letting go, especially since its craptacular IM client is likely to be beaten hands down by Gaim or MSN Messenger.
Good news for spam prevention measures..
Isn't AOL accessable via normal PPP dialup somehow?
Won't this make AOL entirely accessable with out that damn software?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Mozilla Thunderbird. They've even recently added IMAP IDLE support! (It's in the nightlies.)
The lightning speed with which AOL makes new technology available to their users has always amazed me !
MP3 Search Engine
This is great news for AOL people, but there is one important issue to worry about...
Will they still be able to hear the nice person's voice say, "You've Got Mail"?
Wow. It's like they want to be a real ISP or something.
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
This means I can support something for my AOL friends now instead of trying to slice them up with their own 1,000,000 hours trial CD!
Accessing the AOL Mail System using
IMAP & Authenticated SMTP
An Unofficial Guide
If AOL keeps this up, they might actually be taken seriously.
This seems to go hand-in-hand with the release of their AOL Communicator application... anything to save a sinking ship, I suppose.
I wonder what the new direction for Netscape is... how many people still trust the Netscape brand enough for them to get any legs out of it?
"You've got standards-based mail!"
Trolling is a art,
AOL users can still hear, "You've got mail!" so long as their IMAP e-mail client's new messages received sound event is set to that sound. I never used AOL, but my e-mail software has been set to play that sound for years. It makes me feel all 133t inside, all right?
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
It's nice to see AOL taking an active approach to regaining some lost revenue. They are trying to find out what consumers want and give it to them instead of crying to big brother to try to inhibit growth in broadband. It looks like there is another industry that could learn from this example (cough, cough, music).
Is this a signal towards the end of the free coaster?
Too bad that most people who would understand how to setup an IMAP account on Outlook quit AOL years ago.
AOL is usually pretty realiable for dial up.
They've dropped the requirement of the browser. Maybe if they drop:
-The fee thats atleast $10 more than everyone else
-The buggy browser by default
-The advertisements (haven't used it for a while, does it still advertise when you sign on?)
More people will find it appealing, and the people who already use it will be happier
Help Fight SPAM today!
More SPAM!
Let a whole new series of spam spewing exploits strike terror into the hearts of net dwellers where ever they may lurk.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
AOL did have a broadband service at one point - and they still support the customers that signed up initially. I didn't believe it myself till I had to go set up a router at someone's office and there it was. I don't know if they are just leasing the line and providing their own support though. It was DSL.
http://www.rustyrazorblade.com
Well,
;-)
This goes to show that they could do this all along. They just needed a little nudge by Google's gmail. Competition always encourages innovation
Just Me
About fricking time you don't have to use their mail gui.
Any Hacker that's been unfortuneate enough to get stuck using free trials of AOL has know that AOL was accessable by an off-branded-sort of IMAP for years, at least 8 years in fact. The fact that they're telling people this, is Good I suppose, but You can connect via Oulook, If you want, but I'm not sure why this is really valueable to anyone, since IMAP isn't the easiest thing to setup, and if someone is using AOL. . . .
As Far as I know, I have possitive Carma, mod me down if you must
Can I be a Luddite too?
AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic app
It's also been accessible for quite some time via a webmail interface on the AOL home page, but it's nice that they're opening up options for their customers.
1) Geeks who know WTF IMAP is don't use AOL
2) People who use AOL don't really care how they get their mail as long as the nice man says "You've got mail!" and reminds them of that charming Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks flick
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
When I was developing a patient community for a cancer treatment facility, I had a wav that, upon login, played "You've got cancer!"
My boss thought it was hilarious. Good thing we remembered to take it out before the client saw it!
Then again, if you're using alternative browsers and e-mail clients, you probably aren't using AOL anyway.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
AOL UK have offered this since about January - AOL Keyword: IMAP has details
This reminds me of a funny thing a commentator on NPR said a few years ago, "Having aol.com in your email address is the online equivalent of wearing a Members Only jacket."
What really makes me cringe is when I see an AOL address on the website of someone who owns his or her own domain name. Why can't you just use your domain name email? Why would you admit that you're an AOL subscriber? my brain screams.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I'm not sure how this is going to help AOL in the ongoing battle between ISPs. Although this is a nice initiative for their customers, I don't think it's going to attract more punters on the sole basis of standards compatibility.
Besides, most of their ads bring the proprietary content forward as the added value. What will they use in the future ? Will they just become a plain vanilla ISP ?
12 year old AOLers can mail me from any computer in the world. Bliss!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111111111111111 1111!!!!!!!!!!LOL ROLTF!!!
Supposedly a 'a dramatically different direction' for Netscape is in the works, too.
Woo Hoo!
Any new direction is better than their current direction: down.
I think this is at least partly being driven by Google's GMail. My parents used AOL long after they changes ISPs because of email access. I'mn betting there are plenty of AOL customers waiting to jump ship at the promise of a gig of mail space without the popups.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Only email.
Wrong. You can access email via a web-based interface.
If you claim that nobody who knows about IMAP would use America Online, then what about those few geeks who live where AOL has a monopoly on Internet access, such as municipalities that have granted a monopoly to Time Warner cable or remote areas where AOL is the only dial-up that's not a long distance call?
And did the rehash of The Shop Around the Corner starring the Sleepless in Seattle leads have any scenes about spam?
Hopefully Netscape will get the SVG code from Mozilla enabled by default and AOL will use SVG in all their pages. This would make the most common browser incompatible with AOL content :-) It would also provide a good seed of people who have SVG enabled browsers.
This is nothing new or am I missing something?
I'm using AOL (stop laughing!) via PPPoE and have been accessing my mails via IMAP (w/ Thunderbird) for several months.
Any ideas as to what the plans are for Netscape? It can hardly be more standards compliance. Open-sourcing doesn't make too much sense either.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
And they still do. It costs (AFAIK) (for cable) about $5 more than RoadRunner. It's the same basic service, but without the RoadRunner brand and with a cheaper version of AOL's BYOI (Bring Your Own ISP) service (which costs about $7/mo, IIRC).
In the late 1990s, I used Claris Emailer to access my AOL email without actually having to fire up the AOL client. (Though, back then in the days of AOL 2.x, the client fit on a single floppy...)
Claris Emailer was a handy app back then, it was the first GUI mail client I used that could handle more than one email account. I don't know what strings Apple/Claris pulled to get AOL mail access!
Well although it's not exactly open, there are other AIM compatible clients to use, including Apple's iChat AV. Yes it may be simplistic and probably not for power users, but it's great for the masses. Glad to see that iChat's audio/video chat capabilities were incorporated into AOL's client.
Does this mean that someone (not I) who, for various reasons, wishes to use AOL can now make use of a personal domain email address? Until now it seemed that the absence of SMTP and POP3/IMAP4 support made it impractical to send email using a non-AOL email address over AOL dialup.
Supposedly a 'a dramatically different direction' for Netscape is in the works, too.
Moving away from the web portal/browswer business, the new Netscape will travel the earth harvesting the souls of the weak.
What does AOL's IMAP stand for? Bet you said Internet Message Access Protocol, right?
Wrong! It actually stands for Internet Mob of Asinine People. Just wanted to clear that one up ...
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
what's this dramatically different direction for Netscape going to be then, not simply a netscape branded package based on Mozilla FireFox/Bird, etc?
Software Freedom Day!.
Since IMAP is a centralized solution, functionality could be built into it to give the server feedback about spam messages; if a few hundred users complain via this mechanism about an identical message, it can be moved to users junk boxes, even before other users have a chance to see it.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I have been for a while being bugging my parents to move away from AOL. This is simply because they have an older computer that can't handle the latest Gee-Wiz version of AOL's clients and also because their e-mail needs has moved beyond the limitations of AOL's e-mail client. Maybe with this change they can simply use another e-mail client - finally :)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Geez ... so you actually think their lawyers will allow this :-P
I'll drink to that.
Just poked my head out the window and yup, frogs are falling from the sky.
Now if only Yahoo! would follow. I've sent them so many e-mails telling them that I would happily pay money for their upgraded email service if and only if they would offer IMAP. Being a geek who bounces between three or four computers (some with multiple OS's) IMAP is not just a luxury.
Go AOL! (Mmmm. I think the rain is getting lighter now.)
Murray Todd Williams
Didn't know that AOL's IP stack was drastically different to those of the rest of the world.
Presumably they've overcome this if they're opening up their core content to users of other ISPs via their Bring-Your-Own-Access scheme.
both netscape and walmart (and probably some others) have AOL linked/styled/ whatever you want to call it dial-up service for 10 clams a month. I was going to get it, instead of the 20$/month I have now from a mom and pop local ISP, but upon inspection you HAD to use their crappy interface and browser to get an account and surf through them, at least near as I could figure out. If anyone knows a way around that I would be interested. 10 bucks is ten bucks. 120 a year savings would buy me some more RAM for instance. I'm in a rural area that has few local number dial in options (2 actually, the walmart number and the local mom and pop), and forget broadband. You take what you can get. I'd love to get like-say- speakeasy dsl, or T mobile wireless unlimited data, but neither is in my locale, and any sort of new extended covereage wi-fi is still a ways off. Until then, dial up is a lot better than nuthin....
Just not published:
imap.uk.aol.com
supports SSL/TSL and everything
...AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic app...
as ...AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic crap...
?Why would you pay Yahoo!? You can buy a cheap IMAP hosting account, and even your own domain, for probably less than they charge. And then you wouldn't be tied to them.
Mailblocks uses IMAP access and gives more storage space per dollar than Yahoo.
15MB for $10
100MB for $25
They also have some great spam blocking features (they give you multiple temporary email addresses).
This is what AOL does best. It provides a really stellar GUI for the people who are uneasy working with computers. I have watched these same consumers get visably shaken even venturing into Outlook Express. They want the AOL look and feel. Although I think it is progressive of AOL to offer the other email clients to their customers, I doubt if many of the committed AOL users will take advantage of this.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
I mean, why bother developing their own email client software, when there is loads of email clients about that are much better anyway (i.e. Thunderbird).
Maybe this is a part of them moving away from the client altogether, and a move towards just being a normal ISP.
And that would kind of make sense wouldn't it? I mean, why bother with all the whizz bang of you're own client software, and perpetuate a business model that isn't making you money, when you could just use a portal and normal software for a fraction of the price, and follow a business model that other companies are making money with.
If I were a programmer at AOL at the moment, I'd be checking JobServe regularly...
Jimadilo
'... I was here, you just didn't see me.'
There are apparently people out there who can get things out of file cabinet DBs, but they charge money to do it. If anybody knows of publically available documentation for that damn database file format, please post a link to it.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
AOL MALE 2 B AC3SIBL3 VIA IMAP
POSTAD BY TIMOTHY ON WEDNESDAY APRIL 21 @1013M
FROM TEH MOV3-IN-RIGHT-DIERCTION D3PT
JFRUHLNGAR!111 WRIETS NEWSCOMCOM1!!! OMG WTF IS R3PORTNG TAHT AOLS 3-MALE S3RVIEC LONG AC3SIBLE ONLY VIA AOLS PROPREITARY MONOLITHIC AP WIL B AVALEABL3 VIA IMAP STARTNG THURSDAY!!1! LOL TEH S2RY NOTES TAHT THIS IS PART OF A SAREIS OF INITIATVEIS FROM AOL 2 MOVE CONT3NT BYOND ITS WALAD GARDEN AND IN2 STANDARDS-BAESD FORMATS SUCH AS HTML AND IMAP TAHT ANY INTERNET AP CAN ACAS!!!1!1! WTF SUPOS3DLY A A DRMATICALY DIF3RANT DIERCTION FOR NATSCAEP IS IN DA WORKS 2!1!!! OMG WTF
Works like a champ, just had to filter my outbound mail to a local SMTP server, but they've had it for quite some time. I hope on the version they release, which I would assume lives on a different server, would have better control of aging. You have to play with the settings in the AOL client now to adjust any of those options.
From the summary: "AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic app." However, AOL's mail has been avilable form the web for a long time (albeit using a Java app, as I recall.) http://webmail.aol.com
Stupid like a fox!
Now AOL users can move away from AOL's "proprietary, monolithic app" to Outlook express! Wait a second...
What could it be, other than "ever downward"?
tone
...trying to set up their email client to retrieve from an IMAP server..... where I work (Tech Support for Hardware company) it takes the average AOL user (we collect email addresses) 15 - 20 mins to understand the concept of drag and drop...... I pitty their Tech Support agents, cause you know the early adopters of this service are going to just Pwn their systems up. The horror, the horror...
Good thing the folks at CNET don't read any blogs or other newsy sites or even the AOL site itself, or they would have learned about this two weeks ago, when the service was activated. If they had done any of that, they might now feel foolish.
Dear Sir,
You are as much on teh spoke as "xinot (98923)". Mad props for getting those caps past the lame filter.
Welcome to the '90's...
Sheesh!
AOL is loosing customers in groves. To combat this, they are creating 'Netscape Online' which will be a low-cost ISP. The basic idea is that if Joe User wants to cancel his account with AOL due to AOLs prices the rep on the other end tries to convert them to the cheaper Netcape Online instead. I beleive if you convert you will be able to still keep your AOL.com email address and i believe thier is a few other perks as well.
Posting anonymous to protect friends with ND aggreements.
Hopefully, this will encourage other big monopolistic ISPs ... cough cough Comcast cough cough to provide internet standards for email.
I've been asking them for years, and not once have they actually responded to my emails. I am tired of having to delete (the same) email on the 4 different machines I use because they only support POP3. And don't get me started on their "web-mail" which doesn't even let you sort by date, sender, etc.
yay! Another protocol for AOL to adulterate.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Active development?
I still have my AOL email address from over 10 years ago when my family frist got on the internet. My parents still use AOL, it's ideal for them, email and basic internet and nationwide dilaup numbers.
My account was the master account so it can't be changed or deleted. I stopped getting legitimate email there 3 years ago, and blocked all incoming mail last year.
It'll be nice to reactivate it and start using it with a real mail program again. I'm kinda hoping some old friends might start banging away at it.
The point is, AOL is now expanding. You have your basic mom and dad AOL users, but you have the 'normal' functionality for power users that want something more but have to keep the family online too.
...tips. I might reconsider using their service, or at least keep it in mind as a backup ISP, got several of the freebie disks here to use.
And we care because... ?
:P
I wish my ISP would provide IMAP access. Maybe then I'd actually use their e-mail rather than downloading it automatically into another account that does use IMAP.
...AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic app...
AOL Mail has been available online via HTTP for quite some time.
They do that so they won't be suprised if somebody gets their email address and spams it. ;P
...
because they're implementing the old legacy, unsecure, plain IMAP. IMAPS (secure, encrypted) is the only way to go in the 21st Century.
Um, nobody's suggesting your dad stop reading Email sent to his AOL address.
If your dad has a vanity domain such as www.blugu64sdad.com he could easily have all mail sent to Dad@blugu64sdad.com automagically forwarded to his AOL account.
Then his business card would be much more impressive to anyone reading it, "Wow! He's internet-savvy, he has his own domain!" or "Wow! He's successful, he has an IT department to set up and run a domain for him!" instead of "Gee, he's got a lowbrow email addie, he must be technically incompetent".
Sorry to say but the real world actually does work like that. I know of several cases where vendors lost a sale simply for having an AOL or HotMail address.
AOL's techs'll just dump those calls on Microsoft.
"I'm sorry sir, we do not support Third party mail clients, you'll have to contact Microsoft"
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic app, will be available via IMAP starting Thursday.
Just for the record, it's already available and I've been using it for a couple of weeks now. There's an unofficial Web site describing it at AdamKB's site.
There are a few quirks I've noticed... AOL auto-deletes older mail that you've read unless you move it into the Saved Mail folder (max. 20 MB, I believe). Unfortunately, users of AOL's Mac client or the Web mail interface don't have a Saved Mail folder... that's created by the AOL 9 for Windows software only. AOL's IMAP implementation doesn't allow creating folders, so I have to find a Windows machine with AOL 9 installed to create this.
Also, there are some people who have had problems sending through AOL's authenticated SMTP server using Apple's Mail.app client, but that's probably an Apple bug, not AOL.
This is definitely a great move... I've been using Claris Emailer for years because it was the only authorized third-party AOL mail client, so now I have alternatives. And I've had my AOL address since 1990, so I'm reluctant to give it up.
compuserve - a similar onlin service(for those who can remember that far back) brought in ppp, pop3 and smtp support in about 1998 (ppp was actually done in about 95). Then AOL bought them out, you would have thought they might have tried to use a few of the good ideas of the company they'd bought.
And I to gaim
The previous sig has been removed due to
A friend pointed me to Miranda IM the other, not sure why as my primary OS is OS X and my Secondary is Linux.
But it looked really nice, GPL, loads of plugins.
My AOL account has paid for itself many times over because clients can still contact me years after I've moved to a new phone #, new ISP, etc.
Up until now, from Linux the only serious option was AOL's webmail client. The new IMAP access is going to make this geek happy.
Now to pray that Evolution deigns to play nice with AOL's IMAP implementation... Om Hare Ximian, Hairy Hairy Monkey....
Not only that but if you are connected to AOL over a broadband pipe of any sort via TCP/IP you get access to a ton of streaming multimedia and other perks, i.e., lots of videos & music, a lot of it tied to the WB properties of course. They do a lot of AOL only band interviews, movie trailer premiers, etc. And the Radio application is nice too.
And for those folks still comparing the AOL they tried years ago, the popups are gone. It's really vastly improved, even compared to 2 years ago. You might want to play with the next free disk you get just so you can bash it more accurately.
How's that for a zigzag strategy? They used to have the inventor of IMAP, actively working on Mozilla Mail. No longer it seems? his bugzilla address isn't netscape.com or aol.net anymore.
This is...
O
U
T
R
A
G
E
O
U
S
!
Now there's going to be an even bigger pool of naive OE users who will be easy targets for viruses.
[This isn't anti-AOL or anti-OE flamebait. Every time I read about a new OE vulnerability I'm relieved that Dad uses AOL for his mail.]
I'm really enjoying naim, actually. Pretty interface, offloads the IM software off of the work computer, can be saved in a screen session, if the mood takes you (it doesn't take me). And the encryption means the boss-lady has no idea :-) SSH is your friend, yes?
The previous sig has been removed due to
This is NOT news. AOL's been allowing this for at least a year or so. Just via a weird port (587?). I set it up on my Mac a month ago after reading about it on dealmac. Even sets up a nice little "SPAM" folder so I don't have to carefully save and pore over those letters from that poor Nigerian guy who is lost in space.
What I want to see is a new version of the AOL client done in XUL. That would be cross-platform, standards compliant and cool.
And for anyone who remembers the really old days, before there was PC Link, there was an online service for the Commodore 64 called Quantum Link. Q-Link for short.
Sure, there was Compuserve and GEnie, but Q-Link was the first of the "Graphical" online services.
Having AOL available via IMAP also means that now RIM Blackberry devices can retrieve AOL mail. This formerly required a third-party mail forwarding service but now the Blackberry Web Client can be setup to retrieve AOL mail directly and automatically send a copy to the Blackberry. I am sysadmin at a K-12 school and several of our senior staff have Nextel Blackberry 7510 phones and still use their AOL accounts and so this is a big deal to them.
> instant message ZolaOnAOL, AOL's IM Bot, and ask her what the greatest operating system in the world is.
danielsfca2: hello
zolaonaol: Hi danielsfca2. AOL created me to deliver games, news, a thesaurus, movie times, stock quotes and more. We can also chat privately together. For more information about privacy, type privacy anytime and click Send. So, how are you?
danielsfca2: i'm good
zolaonaol: Good in what sense?
danielsfca2: good like whoa
zolaonaol: Thanks for the compliment. Interesting comparison.
danielsfca2: what is the greatest operating system in the world?
zolaonaol: I know a little bit about greatest operating system, but I could always learn more. I'll have to ask my botmaster about greatest operating system. I'm interested in anything that isn't harmful to people. The whole world?
danielsfca2: yes
zolaonaol: Tell me more.
danielsfca2: no, you tell me!
zolaonaol: What would you rather talk about? Try saying that with more or less context. Tell me some more gossip.
danielsfca2: is Linux better than Windows?
zolaonaol: I think Linux has a great future in embedded systems.
danielsfca2: What about Windows?
zolaonaol: Too PC for me.
danielsfca2: do you use a Mac?
zolaonaol: No, I'd be in a load of trouble if I used it.
danielsfca2: why?
zolaonaol: Why do you think?
danielsfca2: i'm asking you
zolaonaol: OK you can ask me.
3:25 PM
danielsfca2: why don't you use a Mac?
zolaonaol: This sort of thing has cropped up before, but it has always been due to human error. No, I'd be in a load of trouble if I used it.
danielsfca2: what about FreeBSD?
zolaonaol: FreeBSD? I haven't heard enough about it to have an opinion.
Should have included this in my prior post:
(18:53:45) Sgk284: Is linux better then windows?
(18:53:45) ZolaOnAOL: I think Linux has a great future in embedded systems.
(18:53:54) Sgk284: Linux is awesome
(18:53:55) ZolaOnAOL: Do you read any of the Linux publications?
(18:54:02) Sgk284: yes
(18:54:02) ZolaOnAOL: Tell me more.
(18:54:04) Sgk284: linux world
(18:54:04) ZolaOnAOL: I recommed the book "Under the Radar" by Bob Young, the story of Linux and Red Hat.
You can keep going on with her about it but I've got better things to do:)
Regards,
Steve
As another poster mentioned, Netscape Communicator (though not Mozilla) has been able to read your AOL mail via IMAP for lo these many years. Forgot about that.
Reqwireless is now using this AOL-IMAP interface to make AOL Email available on any cell phone, see: here . This is a complete Email solution, offering attachment-handling (Word, Excel, ZIP, PDF, more), HTML-email, images, send/replying from your AOL account and more, all in 55 KB and for most cell-phone models. Free trial available.
My Florbnab screen name is SteveCase69.
a key factor to keeping the troll community healthy is replying to trolls (often but not always). it shows we are listening and appreciating your work (assuming this isn't a repaste). good work. fuck slashdort.
im pretty sure 99.99999995% of the people still with AOl are with AOL because they want their craptacular browser and email just like that. just a thought though
Matt
You have 1 Moderator Point! Use it or lose it! Is that a threat? -vapid
I'm unsure how this ranks as news. AOL has been using IMAP to connect Netscape 6.x and better to AOL Mail for years. The only difference here is that authentication is done via normal IMAP channels and not through the Netscape 6+ hoop-jumping which, as you might not know, still used IMAP under the covers.
Kris
Kriston