I downloaded and installed Thunderbird Portable on a USB stick and tried it out at home and it worked fine. Could send and receive emails without any problems.
I went to a friends house, using a different internet provider. I could still receive emails but could not send. I kept getting an smtp error. The program asked for a password and everything but I still could not send from a remote location with a different internet provider.
I went to another friends house using the same internet provider that I use and I could send and receive emails without any problems.
Is this a weak point with portable apps, or is there a work around to the problem, or have I missed something in the settings????
Bob Owens
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Most ISPs block outgoing email to any mail server but their own to prevent spam. Spammers take over home PCs and use them to send out most spam.
You can sometimes get around this by setting up Thunderbird to use your ISPs SSL mail port, if enabled.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I am aware of what you are saying John, but I thought someone might know of a work around. The whole idea of Portableapps is a marvelous idea, but the email isn't much good if it can only be used at home. We really don't need to send emails from portableapps at home, do we?
It would be nice if the program could be reconfigured to go online using your email password to access your own provider and enable you to send from a remote location. I think this is what they have tried to do,(as it did ask for my password) but it dosen't work.
Anyway, thanks for your help and if you come up with anything please let me know.
Bob
Robert W. Owens
Like I said, the workaround is to use the secure port. 2 of my 3 email providers provide an SSL port for mail. It's the standard port of 993. This works on most ISPs since most ISPs block port 25 (which is used for both sending mail from a client to a server and sending from one server to another).
If a given connection you are using is specifically blocking port 993 (which I have never personally encountered), then you'd need to do something more complicated like setup a tunnel into your home PC.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks John, I'll look into this and give it a try.
Robert W. Owens
John,
I have researched the SSL setup and am ready to begin the process, but I would like to ask you one question. After you made the Thunderbird SSL were you able to send emails from a remote location, on an ISP different than the one you use at home?
Bob
Robert W. Owens
and I have ssl checked. I use it on my home, work, library and friends from many isp's.
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
Thanks,
I'll give it a try.
Robert W. Owens
ask your provider if you can use password access to the outgoing mail server. Here in CH most providers have that feature.
Some providers also use kind of simple authentication, called pop before smtp.
In this you have to access the pop server first and then during next 10 or 20 sec or so you will be allowed to use the smtp.
But smpt authentication with password should work now on most servers, since many providers will also filter out mails being sent via other provider then indicated in the mail address domain.
Your provider is using authentication by IP so far, but at least here in europe authenticatin by login and subsequent connection assited by the server is most common.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
Authentication doesn't get around port blocking. The ISP he's connected to the internet with (not his mail ISP) *should* be blocking port 25 for all connections except to their own mail server, as all good ISPs should these days to combat spam. Nearly all ISPs in the US do this now.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
John,
You are correct.
Here is what has transpired; I configured my desktop email and Thunderbird email as SSL. It did not work. I then contacted my ISP (Time Warner, Roadrunner)and the tech informed me that they did not support SSL. (Now, this may or may not be true, depending on the knowledge of the tech I spoke with) He did, however, give me a new smtp port number that he says will work with most providers. The change was from 25 to 587. It works fine for outgoing and incoming on my home ISP, but I have yet to test it on another ISP. I will do that at 2 pm today and let you know how it works.
Thanks for your help.
Robert W. Owens
John,
I was able to test the outgoing smtp port using 587 on a different ISP from the one I use at home. The test worked fine for outgoing and incoming emails. I did have to input my email password. I am anxious to find out how many different ISP's this will support.
Once again, thanks for your help.
Bob
Robert W. Owens
I'm honestly at a loss to understand how blocking port 25 helps at all. Smart spammers will just switch to a different port. Any port can be used for any purpose, so all the spammers have to do is set up a mail server that uses some port other than 25 and there you go.
Having port 25 open allows malware to setup a spamming mail server on every infected PC, sending it directly to gmail, yahoo, hotmail and every other provider. Port 25 isn't just used by your email program to send to your mail host (who passes it on to the recipient's host), it's used by mail servers themselves to send mail from one to another.
So, if my home PC is infected and my ISP doesn't block port 25, it can be sending out spam to you and everyone you know directly. If port 25 is blocked, it can't send out anything directly to your servers. It can only connect to another server (that isn't blocked) to send it. Which means all spam going through a central compromised server, which can be easily blocked by blocklists.
If all ISPs blocked port 25 worldwide, it would cutoff most spam.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
but this would mean that one can not send mail with his own mail account at all, appart from his IP selection at home. This would completely stop any mobile communication finally.
Here in europe, we are mostly not allowed to have as my replay address xyz@gmx.net and transmitt over the smtp of the provider we are just connected to. Such mails are considered spam. So we can not go to other place, let say a hotel and use the smtp of the provider of that hotel to send an e-mail to someone except we have mail account at that moment in the domain and ip selection of that provider.
If I travel, I am connected to different ip sets. I still have to use my own smtp server even when in completely different network.
And many mail providers do not have any own ip set for public, they are not providers as such , but just mail providers. Assume gmail is similar as gmx over here. Not able to recognise who is contacting the server properly.
I tried years ago to set up mailserver without authentication, it was blacklisted within hours worldwide!
Mailserver with authetication (argo mailserver) is now in operation for over 7 years and is nither blocked nor any spam passing it, we check the logs frequently.
Therefore we use authentication, user name and password, and still operate on 25 for smtp. By this 25 does not need to be blocked, but it is mor difficult to use it as relay. In fact it is abt same difficulty as reading mail on port 110 of someone elses account. So to enter username, can be also different from the one for pop and password, can also be different then pop solves definitely lot of spam problems. Blocking smtp completely for other ip then own range is not very nice and opening just other port for the same thing without authetication is rather pointless, since everybody can use it again, all spammers same way as before.
Yes ssl solves lot, but every spammer can use it if set up without authetication. And yes the problem here would be, that it seems majority of providers support ssl only on some commercial accounts, not supported for simple private accounts very often.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland