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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."
Mozilla Thunderbird. They've even recently added IMAP IDLE support! (It's in the nightlies.)
Accessing the AOL Mail System using
IMAP & Authenticated SMTP
An Unofficial Guide
no. In fact, when I was working for ATTBI a while back, people would get broadband just so that they could use AOL over it...
AOL email is currently accessable via the web and their client (either dialup or broadband).
Only email.
The "core" of AOL is the content that is inside of AOL. In that regard, AOL is not fundamentally different than it was 15 years ago (or so).
Now, allowing email via IMAP is pretty significant, but the community of AOL will still remain.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
AOL UK have offered this since about January - AOL Keyword: IMAP has details
But there IS something better than AOL's version
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is a tribute.
Only email.
Wrong. You can access email via a web-based interface.
It still is. TOC is a stripped down version of OSCAR, which is what AOL's IM clients (and other licensed IM clients like IBM's Sametime) use.
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 $7/mo, IIRC).
both netscape and walmart (and probably some others) have AOL linked/styled/ whatever you want to call it dial-up service for 10 clams a month. I was going to get it, instead of the 20$/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....
Trillian has all of the useful features of AIM, tons of useful features not available in AIM, support for skins and plugins, but none of the ads or spyware (WebTangent).
I have both AIM for Win32 and Trillian running right now. Currently memory usage:
AIM: 6060K
Trillian: 5456K
Which client is bloated?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is a tribute.
...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.
"You can use AIM Express from any browser, you have to allow the window itself to pop-up though. AIM even has a Linux client. Read all about it.Where IM is concerned, the market is cornered because the market is cornered. If someone were to come out with an awesome IM service, would anyone use it? "Hey, what's your AIM screen name?" 'I don't have one, I use Florbnab.' "What's that?" People already have established their screen names in various IM networks already"
Not to mention AIM is also on the Palm OS and PocketPC platforms, and every major mobile phone operator in the US. And as you noted, Linux. Can MSN do that? Nope - because they won't.
AIM will also be on the PS2/PS3 online project. Sony never got around to releasing their hard drive accessory for the PS2 (looks like Square did), but you can best bet AIM will be the IM client straight out of the PS3 box.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The insult puppet dog is from Conan O'Brien, not Letterman.
Two words: stack reset. IE is just integrated enough into the OS to get utterly fucked when the TCP/IP configuration of Windows is the slightest bit off. For any version of Windows prior to XP, remove TCP/IP and reinstall it. For XP, open a command prompt and type "netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt", and then merge Winsock and Winsock2 keys from a working registry. There are utilities which will do it for you.
It's not that AOL's IP stack is different, it is that AOL uses a different data link protocol than most dialup ISPs. Rather than opening a PPP session, when you connect to AOL, you establish a bastardized L2TP session with a machine referred to as a BERP. The BERPs essentially act as proxies for everything you attempt to access once you are connected. There are open source attempts to reverse engineer their protocols with pengAOL being the only one I can remember off the top of my head.
In regard to using proprietary protocols, it isn't that AOL has some master plan to lock customers into this proprietary infrastructure, it is just the way AOL has evolved. Imagine for a second, that you worked at an ISP with 22 million customers (up to 35 million at your peak). There is a point where the open protocols just don't fit your needs any more. AOL simply patched a solution together that has been working ever since.
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.
It is not IMAP, it is called HTTPMail and is a derivative of WebDAV. And it is not just for OE, hotwayd is an neat little gateway that allows any POP3 client to access hotmail mailboxes.