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Track any email to its Original Location by Finding the Email IP Address

Melanie Gross — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 07:40:44 +0000

Millions of emails fly through cyberspace daily, and as is the case for many users, it can be useful to identify the location that the e-mail originated from. Persistent spam and malware attachments abound. Sometimes it is best to say, “I have had enough!” Particularly for e-mails that include malware, this is important. By reporting these locations, you spare others from having to deal with malicious programs or domains. Let these users know that you know where they are and don’t hesitate to report malicious software spammers to the appropriate authorities.

On a nicer note, it may be useful to know the location of a prospective client for business purposes so you may prepare a proposal significant to their demographic. This can be a benign and useful process as well as one to defend. The process is the same. You choose what to do with it. This gets technical, so prepare for some work.

Here is how to take the steps for Google, Outlook, and Yahoo.

Gmail

Click the down arrow to the right of the reply ink and choose “Show original”.

Now this moves on to the technical part. Seek out the text lines that start with “Received From.” You can press Ctrl+F to search the phrase automatically. Note that there are many paths that the e-mail is received from. The true original location will be found furthest to the bottom of the text. It is advantageous to see all IP addresses involved. Here we find the original IP address and host name of the sender. Make sure you always select the last Received From entry in the listing.

Yahoo Mail

Open the email that you want to analyze. Scroll all the way down to the bottom until you see the toolbar at the bottom. Locate the Actions menu and click on it.

Select View Full Header to see all email header information.

Hotmail

Sign in to Hotmail and open the email. Locate the down arrow on the right side next to the Reply link. Click on the arrow and select View message source.

Locating the IP

The next step is to find the location of the IP address.

This is done by using a simple location lookup on the IP address. There are online programs that you can locate IP address information through, such as What Is My IP Address and these give broad map of the territory in which the IP address is located.

There are plenty of online services that allow you to look up IP address locations. When it comes to finding IP address locations for security purposes, it is important to find a reliable service. There are other services available. It is suggested that you use one, either free or with premium features at a small cost. This will make the discovery of the IP address location easy and minimize expenditure of time. It is a broad subject to go into when it comes to doing the search yourself. For practical purposes, third-party finders are affordable and accurate. Know where your e-mails are coming from. Mysteries mean risks. Otherwise, use the Ctrl+F option.

What To Do When Your Email Account is Compromised

Ryan D. Lang — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:18:37 +0000

More and more I see spam coming from friends when I open my e-mail. In addition to this, people are telling me that they think their e-mail accounts have been hacked. Signs can be friends receiving messages you did not send, mail is marked read that they never saw, settings are changed, or anything else out of the ordinary. In any case, the question is the same: “What do I do?”

While many Ghacks readers may know to follow these steps, having a guide handy for others is a useful thing. I can imagine many readers are resources for friends, family, and coworkers. These steps can serve as a checklist to ensure thoroughness.

This is a guide on how to reasonably secure your e-mail account. What to do if you lose access to your account is a different problem for another article. This article assumes you still have access, but strange things (as mentioned) are going on. It will cover the three most commonly used e-mail account types: Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail. While changing the settings is pretty easy, finding them can be less than obvious. Here are some screenshots to help you find the general settings page for your account.

Step 1 : Change Your Password

You need to do this immediately. This is akin to changing the locks on your doors. When you do not know exactly who has a key to your home, the locks are a liability. Count yourself lucky that you can get into your account. To change your password, log-in and go to Settings. Then follow the steps appropriate to your account.

In Gmail: Mail Settings > Accounts and Imports > Change Password
In Hotmail: More Options > Account Details (look for “Change” next to password)
In Yahoo Mail: Mail Options > Account Information > Change your password

Step 2 : Check Your Recovery E-mail Address

Your recovery e-mail address is the one that you use to reset/regain your password. However, if it was changed, it can be used to get the password to your account. Take a look to see if it is set to another account you own. If not, change it immediately. You also may want to follow these steps on that account.

In Gmail: Mail Settings > Accounts and Imports > Change Password Recovery Options
In Hotmail: More Options > Account Details (look for “Remove” next to an odd e-mail)
In Yahoo Mail: Mail Options > Account Information > Update password-reset info

Step 3 : Change Your Hints

Most people forget about this, but it is a good idea to change your hints. If the hacker knows the answer, they may be able to regain access. This usually requires the recovery e-mail address to be altered, but it is still better to change your hints. Since hints are usually used to reset passwords, they can be used to change your password.

In Gmail: Mail Settings > Accounts and Imports > Change Password Recovery Options
In Hotmail: More Options > Account Details (look for remove next to a question)
In Yahoo Mail: Mail Options > Account Information > Update password-reset info

Step 4 : Check Your Forwards

Checking your forwards is going to be a tedious process, but it is important. If you only have time to skim them over, then do so but make a thorough look your next priority. Your bank account may depend on it. Your e-mail account can be set up to send letters to other e-mail accounts. Most websites are set up to send new passwords to your e-mail address. That means that an unscrupulous person could ask the site for your password, set up your account to forward it to an account they have access to, and the get into the site. That could be a bank site, a blog, FaceBook, or anything else.

In Gmail: Mail Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP
In Hotmail: More Options > Email forwarding
In Yahoo Mail: Mail Options > POP & Forwarding (note: a premium service)

Step 5 : Change All Your Passwords on Connected Accounts

Sadly, you have to assume that your forwards are compromised. You are going to have to go through each site you used your e-mail account to sign up with and change the password and hint. You might even want to associate them with a separate account to isolate critical e-mails. Alternatively, you could just change your password and hint on sensitive sites. Your bank and any financial websites should be first. Social networking site like FaceBook and Twitter should be next.

Keep in Mind

You should always use a strong password for your accounts: one with uppercase, lowercase, numeric, and symbol characters. Ideally, you should have a different one for each account. At the very least your e-mail, financial, and social networking sites should have separate passwords. Security is not about absolutes, but about making it difficult for others to gain access to you account.

It is worth noting that each of these services has an extra security feature. You can actually set up your account to use your phone for e-mail recovery. As I have not used it, it is beyond the scope of this article, but is worth considering.

Addendum

If you have troubles logging in at all, you may want to take a look at the following guides to resolve the problem:

The guides aid you in password, username and account recovery.

Use MailStore To Backup Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Emails

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 12:51:06 +0000

Cloud based email is great. Providers such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo Mail offer web access to their email services that allow users to access their emails from everywhere, provided that they have an Internet connection and compatible web browser at hand.

A minority of Gmail users recently noticed that all of their emails were missing. Their inbox showed zero emails, and while Google was able to correct the issue later on, it was a shock for them and demonstrated that individual backup strategies are a must for cloud-based storage solutions. Users need to make sure that they have access to their emails, even if they become inaccessible online.

What can you do to protect your emails so that you won’t be losing the data in similar situations? The emails need to be backed up regularly, of course. This may sound cumbersome and complicated, and that may be true for the setting up part, but once that’s done it is not complicated or time consuming at all.

Most email providers offer Pop3 or IMAP access next to web access. These protocols are used by desktop software and mobile applications to retrieve emails from the provider. Most applications can be used for backup purposes, but they lack advanced features that may be needed. We are going to show you how to utilize the free email backup software MailStore Home for the purpose of backing up email accounts that support the POP3 or IMAP protocol.

The program can backup POP3 and IMAP mailboxes, as well as email inboxes from popular desktop clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Exchange or Thunderbird. Support for Google Mail has been integrated directly which eliminates several configuration steps when configuring a Google Mail account, more about that later.

MailStore Home displays all email archiving options on startup.

Backup Gmail Emails

Gmail users have the easiest configuration ahead of them. All they need to do is to click on Google Mail and enter their Gmail email address and password. They do however need to make sure that IMAP is enabled in Gmail. This can be done under Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > Enable IMAP > Save changes.

MailStore Home will backup all Gmail emails to the local computer system. The emails can be read, searched and restored whenever the need arises. More about the program’s functionality later on in the guide.

Hotmail Backup

Hotmail users need to select POP3 Mailbox from the available choices. The required Hotmail Pop3 information are the following:

Email address: The hotmail email address that needs to be backed up.
Host: pop3.live.com
Access-via: Select POP3-SSL
Username: The hotmail username, usually the email address
Password: The password of the email account

A click on Next displays the archiving options. Here it is possible to select whether the emails of the account should be deleted after backup or left untouched. The default setting is to keep all email messages. It is possible to delete all emails after archiving, x days after archiving or to delete emails that are older than a specified time period.

MailStore Home establishes a connection to the selected email host after the initial configuration has been completed. The connection and backup process is displayed in a log.

Backup Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail does not support Pop3, only Yahoo Mail Plus users can enable that feature. Yahoo Mail Plus users need to enable POP3 access under Options > Mail Options > Pop & Forwarding.

Email address: The Yahoo email address that needs to be backed up.
Host: pop.mail.yahoo.com
Access-via: Select POP3-SSL
Username: The Yahoomail username, usually the email address
Password: The password of the email account

The tricks that worked in the past to add POP3 access to Yahoo Mail standard accounts do not seem to work anymore. Programs like YPOPS and setting the region to Asia worked in the past, but seem to have been fixed by Yahoo in the meantime.

Backup other emails accounts

Windows users can backup all email accounts if they support either POP3 or IMAP. Most providers disable the protocols by default which makes it necessary to enable them in the web email options. Some, like Yahoo Mail, offer these features only for premium account owners.

MailStore home Features

MailStore Home offers a search which can be used to find emails. It can furthermore import existing folders if supported so that the original layout is preserved. The advanced search is sophisticated. It is possible to search for any of the following: Subject, Message Body, Attachment contents, sender, recipient, attachment file names.

Filters are available to search only specific folders, dates, email sizes, priorities or messages with or without attachments.

Emails are displayed right in the main program window from where they can be saved or printed.

Another interesting feature is the ability to export archived emails. It is for instance possible to export them into desktop email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Windows Mail or Thunderbird, or to an email address via SMTP.

The latter option can be used to restore deleted email addresses to the primary email client or web mail client.

It is possible to schedule backups, but not from within the program. Existing backup configurations can be saved as shortcuts to the Windows desktop. These shortcuts can then be scheduled in the Windows Task Scheduler or a comparable program to run regularly, for instance once per day or month.

Verdict

MailStore Home is a flexible email backup solution. Especially the ability to re-import email messages after backup is interesting. The free software program can be downloaded from the developer homepage over at Mailstore.com.

Yahoo! Mail Watcher For Firefox

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:37:15 +0000

One of the problems associated with web based email services is that users only get indications of new emails when they are on the providers web page and logged into their account. That’s different from desktop email clients which usually show notifications somewhere on the screen.

Email notifiers are available as desktop applications and browser add-ons. The former display notifications regardless of the applications open, the latter only if the browser the add-on is installed on is open at that time.

Yahoo! Mail Watcher is a Firefox add-on that works pretty much like the Hotmail Watcher which we reviewed in the past.

The Firefox add-on notifies the user of new email in Yahoo Mail. For better security, it works only if the user is already logged into Yahoo Mail which means that the Yahoo Mail username and password do not need to be entered in the add-on.

New email in the inbox is indicated with a sound and a clickable notification window which loads the Yahoo Mail inbox directly in the web browser.

The add-on can be configured to display a notification in the Firefox status bar / action bar. The icon lists the unread email and flashes its icon if the count is greater than zero. A right-click on the icon displays options to change the auto check interval from once per minute to every hour or no checks at all.

Sound, blink and display alerts can be disabled individually, and it is furthermore possible to check for mail manually and to open the advanced options.

Here it is possible to configure a custom system sound, change the appearance of the toolbar button and to change alerts to only notify when the unread mail count increases.

Yahoo! Mail Watcher is a handy add-on for Yahoo Mail users who use the Firefox web browser as they will get notifications of new emails even if Yahoo Mail is not open in a tab.

The add-on is available at the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Yahoo Mail Beta, Faster, Unlimited Storage

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:10:40 +0000

Yahoo today unveiled a new version of their online email client, improving the performance, search and spam filtering as well as unlimited storage, mobile and social media integration.

Every Yahoo Mail user can switch the interfaceto Yahoo Mail Beta with options to go back to the old Yahoo Mail (available under Help > Return to original mail). Yahoo users can sign up for Yahoo Mail Beta from the official beta page at features.mail.yahoo.com. Logged in users can instantly work with the new interface and features. Users who are logged into the old interface need to log out and in again in that tab to see the Yahoo Mail Beta interface.

The design has changed quite a bit, which is likely the first thing that users will notice. Yahoo Mail Beta feels very responsive, which is likely because of the speed improvements. Especially the search is now a lot faster, with additional options to narrow down search results by sender, date, folder or unread and flagged.

Introducing Your New Inbox

Another interesting new feature is the ability to display message previews right in the main folders. A click on Show preview splits the email pane to make room for a preview of the selected email on the same page.

See Who Else Is Online

With an improved Search design, it’s easier to find emails quickly.

Click on a name to start an instant message.
Right-click to see more options.

Search Your Inbox

The Search box now appears at the top of the page.
Narrow your results by clicking on one or more filters on the left of the Search Results view.

Multitasking

You can work on an email and check your inbox mid-thought–just click back and forth on the tabs.
Instant message or even text someone while you’re emailing, without ever losing work.

There is also a demonstration video showcasing some of the new features.

Yahoo! Mail @ Yahoo! Video

Have you placed around with the new beta interface? What’s your opinion so far?

Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail Comparison

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:20:08 +0000

Have you ever asked yourself how you did end up with the email account that you are currently using? Chance is that you have at least one account at one of the three most popular web based email service providers Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Hotmail.

This question might have become insignificant in recent years as all three email providers have started to follow suite if one of them raised a limit or introduced a new service. But not everything is equal and some email users might be surprised if they take a look at the differences between these email providers.

Did you for instance know that a free Yahoo Mail account expires after four months of inactivity but is the only one to offer free unlimited storage space?

Gmail on the other hand is the only email service that is not expiring the account after a certain time of inactivity. It is on the other hand the email service that is offering the least amount of free storage space if you take Microsoft by the word that they increase the Windows Live Hotmail storage space automatically if the limit of 5000 Megabytes is reached.

Take a look at the following chart to see how the three email providers compare.

The chart should be up to date. If you spot an error let me know and I fix it asap.

Back to the original question: Which email provider are you using primarily and why? Here is my answer..

I mainly use email accounts that have been created for my web projects. I also use a Gmail account; Primarily because it is linked to other Google services that I need to use. I do have a Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Live Hotmail account but I barely use them. Mostly for services that require such an account.

Yahoo Mail Notifier

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:55:30 +0000

Ghacks has been pretty Gmail centric in the last year. The main reason for that is probably because there is more to write about Gmail than about other email services like Yahoo Mail or Live Mail. Could also be that Google is doing a better job at communicating changes they make to their email service. We have published a post a few days ago about Yahoo Mail login problems that some users experienced on the Yahoo Mail website.

These users have two alternative options on how to connect with their Yahoo Mail account if they experience the problems. The first is by using a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird, the second a notifier like Yahoo Mail Notifier for Firefox.

Both solutions obviously only work if the username and password of the Yahoo Mail account are at hand and still working. They can however cope with display or loading problems of the Yahoo Mail website. Yahoo Mail Notifier is a simple Firefox add-on that will display the unread mail count of a Yahoo Mail account in the Firefox statusbar. The add-on supports multiple Yahoo accounts which can be switched easily from the statusbar.

The preferences contain options to change the frequency new email checks, clicking preferences to open Yahoo Mail and notifications if new emails have been received.

Yahoo Mail Notifier is a simple Firefox add-on that can be helpful for users who do not want to check the Yahoo Mail page all the time to see if new emails have been received. It is available at the Mozilla Firefox website.

Yahoo Mail Login

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:35:21 +0000

Yahoo Mail is one of the most popular web email services next to Windows Live Mail and Google Mail on the Internet. The Yahoo Mail login information can also be used on other Yahoo owned web services and properties including Flickr and Yahoo Messenger. This is similar to Google’s web based mail service Gmail which also shares the login with other Google services.

Yahoo Mail accounts are hit by phishing attacks regularly and Yahoo recommends to perform the Yahoo Mail Login only at the official Yahoo website and not at other websites (unless they are also owned by Yahoo).

The official Yahoo Mail login website is https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?&.src=ym. Another option is to visit the main Yahoo website and open the Yahoo Mail login website from there. The Yahoo Mail login screen should look exactly like the screen above except for the red stars and rectangle around the username and password fields. Those are added by the Last Pass password manager add-on that is available for several web browsers including Firefox and Internet Explorer. Last Pass can automatically fill out the Yahoo Mail login data and perform the login as well. Best of all, it is a very good protection against phishing attempts as the Yahoo user does not need to enter any data in the login form at the Yahoo Mail website.

Yahoo has created a password helper application for Yahoo Mail that can aid users if they cannot login into Yahoo Mail. It can help when users have forgotten their Yahoo Mail username or password.

Xoopit To Become Yahoo Mail Exclusive

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:46:22 +0000

Xoopit, a company that was bought by Yahoo not long ago, developed email indexing and photo sharing technologies that have since then be integrated into Yahoo Mail. Gmail users, among others, were also able to make use of the interesting options that Xoopit provided through the use of the Xoopit for Gmail Firefox add-on.

Yahoo and Xoopit have now announced that they will discontinue the Xoopit services for Gmail, Facebook and basically any other service except for Yahoo Mail. Xoopit for Gmail and the Xoopit web service will be closing down on November 13. The Xoopit team has created a faq for Gmail and Xoopit users that is trying to address the most common questions.

Xoopit itself has been rebranded as the My Photos application in Yahoo Mail where it allows Yahoo Mail users to quickly look at all pictures that have been send to them. Additional features include photo uploading and sharing capabilities. The following video outlines the features that My Photos is offering to Yahoo Mail users.

The official reason for discontinuing support for Gmail is the following:

We’re sad to say goodbye to our users on Gmail but we know that we will not be able to keep investing in our Xoopit for Gmail product, and don’t want you to end up with a lousy experience.

Many users on the other hand suspect that it has more to do with the competition between Yahoo Mail and Gmail that the service is discontinued.

Yahoo Mail Integrates Drop.io To Support 100 Megabyte Attachments

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:22:13 +0000

Big companies are not only currently competing with each other in the search engine niche but also when it comes to webmail. It’s actually the same three companies – that is Yahoo, Microsoft and Google – that provide both search engine and web mail services. One of the latest areas of interest for web mail providers is the attachment size race. Google Mail recently raised the maximum attachment size for Gmail users to 20 Megabytes which was shortly thereafter matched by Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo Mail today announced the integration of the Drop.io service as an application into Yahoo Mail. Drop.io is a file hosting service on the Internet that can be used to upload and share files on the Internet.

The Yahoo Mail solution adds a one-click solution to upload attachments with a size of up to 100 Megabytes. Users who receive emails with attachments that have been uploaded this way will see a link that is pointing to the uploaded files. Recipients have then options to view online or download the attachments to their computer system.

Yahoo Mail users who do not see Applications in the left sidebar need to visit the Yahoo Mail Applications page to enable them. The Attach Large Files is then available from the applications menu. The feature makes it a bit easier and more comfortable for users to share larger files although this method can be easily replicated manually by users who use different online email services like Gmail.

Yahoo Mail, Search And Messenger Upgrades

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:49:11 +0000

Yahoo announced upgrades to three of their major products and services. Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Search and Yahoo Messenger were all updated on the same day. Social integration was the key phrase during development as most improvements to the products fall into that category.

Yahoo Mail now comes with a redesigned mobile version that is available at http://m.yahoo.com/ that now offers one click access to important functions, attachment downloads like pdf or Microsoft Word documents and access to personal folders. The attachment size was raised from 10 Megabytes to 25 which is the exact same size that Gmail is offering it’s users. The inbox of Yahoo Mail is expanded with an application box that is bringing third party apps like Picnik, ZumoDirve or PayPal to the inbox with more (Evite was mentioned) to come in future updates.

Yahoo Mail Contacts are improved as well as they can now be automatically updated whenever a contact changes their name, e-mail address or phone number.

Yahoo Messenger 10 Beta is now available for download. It introduces HD video calling and social improvements that keep users informed about their contacts including status updates. Other additions include Flickr uploads, Yahoo! Buzz stories, Tweets and more that are all available from the messenger’s interface.

Yahoo Search was upgraded as well. It does however seem that only search engine users from the United States will be able to access the new functionality that allows them to explore related concepts, filter results by popular websites only or narrow down search results by type.

Yahoo is adding more social elements to their products. They also started to add features that were introduced by Google and Microsoft services like the email attachment size of 25 Megabytes.

via Ycorpblog

Gmail Enables Mail And Contact Import For All Gmail Accounts

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:22:30 +0000

The option to import mail and contacts from other email accounts into a newly created Gmail account was enabled a few month ago. Long time Gmail users on the other hand were not able to use the email import option back then. Google today enabled the email and contact import feature for all Gmail accounts. Gmail users who want to import emails and contacts from other webmail and pop3 email services can do so by clicking on the Settings link in the top right corner of the Gmail interface after logging in.

This will open the general settings window. A click on the Accounts and Import tab will display an Import Mails and Contacts button. Pressing this button will initiate the process. Gmail will ask for the email address and password during configuration.

The following email providers are supported by Gmail:

* aol.com
* aol.fr
* clear.net.nz
* cox.net
* comcast.net
* cs.com
* earthlink.net
* freenet.de
* freeserve.co.uk
* gmx.at
* gmx.ch
* gmx.de
* gmx.net
* hotmail.com
* hotmail.co.uk
* hotmail.de
* hotmail.fr
* Ihug.co.nz
* juno.com
* laposte.net
* live.com
* mail.ru
* msn.com
* netscape.com
* netzero.com
* neuf.fr
* optonline.net
* optusnet.com.au
* orange.fr
* orangehome.co.uk
* orcon.net.nz
* paradise.net.nz
* rr.com
* slingshot.co.nz
* sprint.ca
* sympatico.ca
* tiscali.co.uk
* verizon.net
* voila.fr
* wanadoo.co.uk
* wanadoo.fr
* web.de
* worldnet.att.net
* yahoo.com
* yahoo.co.uk
* yahoo.co.in
* yandex.ru

The import of the data usually takes about a week. It does depend largely on the amount of emails and contacts in the other email account.

Firefox WebMail Notifier

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:29:16 +0000

Users who prefer webmail email services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Live Mail over desktop email software programs face a problem that desktop users do not have. They have to visit the website of the mail service to check if new emails have been received since the last visit which can be especially problematic for users with multiple accounts at different email providers. So called notifiers try to solve the problem by notifying the user in the web browser or on the computer desktop. The benefit is that the users do not have to log into the webmail interface or keep it open permanently to check for new mails.

Webmail Notifier is without doubt one of the most popular Firefox email notification add-ons. It supports a wide variety of email services with some already build into the add-on and others available as userscripts.

Webmail services that can be configured right away include Google Mail (Gmail), Yahoo Mail or Live Mail (with msn, live and hotmail). Userscripts are available for GMX, Web.de, Lycos, Fastmail, QQ and Orkut among others.

New email accounts can be added in the options of the add-on after installation. The users only need to add the username and password of the email account.

Some options are available that include the frequency of email checks and if alerts should notify the user if new or unread emails have been received.

Userscripts can also be added in the options. Several userscripts to add new email providers are available at the developer’s homepage.

The Firefox add-on can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

Change The Default Email Client In Firefox

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:40:00 +0000

Many Firefox users do not know that they can change the default email client in the web browser easily. What even fewer know is that it is even possible to not only select desktop email clients but also the web based email providers Yahoo Mail or Gmail as the default provider for all mailto links.

The mailto links in the format mailto:email@example.com are launched with the default application that has been set in the Firefox web browser. To change that one needs to open the options of the web browser. Windows users go to Tools > Options to open the Firefox options.

Users then need to locate the applications tab and filter for the term mailto. The menu should then look pretty much like the menu in the screenshot above. They then need to click on the pulldown menu on the right side to change the default email client in Firefox. Displayed are the current email client, the web based email clients Yahoo Mail and Gmail, the option to always ask the user and to select another email client not on the list.

The last option opens the file browser which makes it possible to select an executable on the computer system. It is therefor possible to select installed and portable email clients on the local computer system. It does feel a bit strange that neither Windows Live Mail nor Aol Mail are available from the menu.

Gmail Adds Email Import

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:33:12 +0000

One of the things that many users like about Google’s email service Gmail is that the service is constantly advancing. Users get to test tools in Gmail Labs all the time and new features are added regularly. One of the new features is the ability to import emails from other popular email providers such as Yahoo Mail, Windows Live or AOL but also POP3 accounts. There have been workarounds to accomplish that like the excellent gExodus email importer for the Windows operating system which allowed users to easily import mailboxes into Gmail. The new email import feature is not yet available for all Gmail accounts but will be added to all of them over time. New Gmail accounts on the other hand do have the email import feature enabled already.

Interested users find the email import option in the Gmail account settings. The second link is displaying as Accounts for users who have not had this new email import feature enabled and as Accounts and Import for those who have.

Gmail users have to provide account login data of the email service that they want to import into Gmail. Options that are provided allow the user to import emails and contacts, add a label to all imported mails and to enable email imports for the next 30 days.

Being able to import emails into Gmail is another feature of Gmail that is poised to become popular as soon as it is activated for most Gmail accounts.

Why I’m Still Using A Software Email Client

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:22:17 +0000

The question why I’m still using an email client came up recently in an article about adding Gmail properly to a software email client. That’s actually a pretty good question; Online email services have evolved in the last years. They provide so much storage space that most users would never be able to fill it in their entire life. They introduced features and filters to make the email client more secure but still lack a few that are essential for some users.

When we look at the requirements we see the following. An online email service requires an online connection which might not always be given, either because of the location of the user or a problem with it. It might also be that the email service itself is down and not offering services. All those cases would mean that it would be impossible to read or send emails.

A local client does not have these restrictions as it stores all emails locally which ensures access even without Internet connection. It requires on the other hand that one (or the few) computer(s) to work with.

I think it’s pretty much a matter of personal taste. I prefer to have my data close to me, as silly as it may sound. If something unforeseen happens I can still access my data providing I took care of creating backups and stuff like that.

Security is another aspect that might be worth investigating. Many email service providers like Yahoo or Google use the email accounts for various services on other parts of their sites. Google users can use Google Analytics, Adsense, Adwords, Google Talk and several other services all with that one account. This increases the chance of loosing the account due to an attack. Could be phishing, could be an exploit that makes use of the fact that you can be still logged into your Google account even if you closed the mail application. Just look at the top right of a Google search form. Do you see your email address listed there? If yes you are still logged in. Attackers have way more possibilities to attack the online accounts than local ones.

It’s on the other hand very convenient to use online accounts. Being able to log in from anywhere is a huge selling point. The question is if this feature is needed by many users. I for one use only my main computer and my laptop to check emails. If the need would arise for an online account I would still want to have all my mail on my own computer even if I would use an online service from time to time.

Which leads to the question: What about you? Are you using email clients or online email services? Let me know.

Gmail And Yahoo Mail Users Now Protected Against eBay And PayPal Phishing Mails

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:53:32 +0000

The award for the longest title ever could go to this one. But it’s good news actually. Both Email services are “supporting email authentication standards including DomainKeys and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) to verify senders and help identify forged messages” for a few years now but could not eliminate all phishing emails because of companies signing their mails only partly. The filter was therefor not perfect which still meant that users were seeing phishing emails in their inboxes and spam folders.

PayPal and eBay finally made the decision to sign all emails originating from their servers including the international versions which means that it is possible to eliminate PayPal and eBay phishing emails before they even reach the inbox or spam folder. The system was tested for a few weeks silently and only a few users did notice according to the official Gmail blog.

Now any email that claims to come from “paypal.com” or “ebay.com” (and their international versions) is authenticated by Gmail and — here comes the important part — rejected if it fails to verify as actually coming from PayPal or eBay. That’s right: you won’t even see the phishing message in your spam folder. Gmail just won’t accept it at all. Conversely, if you get an message in Gmail where the “From” says “@paypal.com” or “@ebay.com,” then you’ll know it actually came from PayPal or eBay. It’s email the way it should be.

Sounds like a dream come true and could pose an end to phishing if more companies, and mail providers, would jump on the bandwagon of signed emails. Companies that come to my mind first are financial companies and other online stores. I still would not blindly trust any email from PayPal or eBay that would arrive in my inbox but it definitely is a step in the right direction. The best way to handle it is to visit the websites manually and perform the eBay or PayPal login there.

Check Webmail with Mozilla Thunderbird

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:58:59 +0000

I received an email after publishing the article about YPOPS that made it possible with all email clients to retrieve and send Yahoo Mail emails. If you are a Thunderbird user you might find the Webmail extension for Thunderbird a better choice. It adds support for more than just one webmailer. You get support for Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Lycos, Mail.com, Aol and Libero. By default the webmail extension and at least one additional component has to be installed to add webmailer support.

A component is a plugin for one of the mentioned email services which means that if you use AOL and Yahoo Mail you would download and install those two. The main advantage of webmail is that you can configure all settings in Thunderbird without having to run an external software that listens on the mail port.

Setup involves three steps. First you make sure that webmail is up and running. You do that by opening the options of webmail. It should display a graphic that looks similar to the one below.

If everything is up and running select domains from the tab bar and make sure that the webmail providers that you use are in the list. If that is the case exit the options.It’s time to create a new account to retrieve and check email from those webmail accounts.

POP3:

Server Type : POP
Incoming Server : localhost
username: your email address which has to include the domain, e.g. @yahoo.com

SMTP:

Server Name : localhost
User Name : your email address which has to include the domain, e.g. @yahoo.com

Check out the setup guide if you are unsure about this, it explains every step with pictures. My thanks to Si Howard for pointing this out. Another option would be Freepops that I wrote about as well.

How to get Yahoo Mail Beta

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:55:02 +0000

To get Yahoo Mail Beta, just switch your content preference to Germany, Frence or UK. Then you will be asked if you want to join the beta when you log into your Yahoo Mail. Say yes, and join the beta. Then from the options menu, change your content preference what it was before. Then go to Yahoo Mail again. You should still see Yahoo Beta. If you don’t see it, go to options and click “Try Beta�? button. That’s all.

How to change your content preference:
* log in to Yahoo Mail
* click Options
* select Account information from the left panel
* go to Member Information, General Preferences, Preferred Content
* select, for example, Yahoo UK
* click Finished
* go to Yahoo Mail
* you’ll see a page that says “It’s the New Yahoo! Mail Beta… and you’re invited.”
* click on “Try Beta Now”.

If you need to enter a valid zip here are some for Germany: 45130 Essen, 12159 Berlin, 16356 Berlin

[tags]yahoo beta, yahoo, mail, mail account, yahoo mail beta[/tags]