Hi Karl,

My daughter with her Windows laptop created an account for me on
fastmail.com successfully.  The kapcha took a form I have never seen
before.  Instead of an image to copy to an input field,  it took the
form of a series of statements to click on, each of them reading:

I am not a robot

When she clicked the submit button, it welcomed me by name, "Hello
Chuck, Welcome to Fastmail ... " That's the good news.

On my linux desktop, I entered:

edbrowse www.fastmail.net

and got their opening page again. Selecting the Log In link this
time instead of the Sign Up link, I got to a page that said "3 lines
were replaced by line 1" and the page before me was one line long,
with no printable characters on that line.

I thyped qt on that line, returned to my shell prompt, and once
more typed:

edbrowse www.fastmail.net

and this time it opened the page where I had previously typed qt.
In other words, it bypassed the opening screen.

In order to test sending and receiving mail using the account I
had created, I had to know the format of the smtp and imap servers
(fastmail no longer supports the pop protocol) so I did a google
search for:  fastmail smtp server name

I reached fastmail documentation and found what I think is a
showstopper.

I cannot use my account password to connect to their servers. Instead,
I need to create and use an "app password".  It turns out I can only
create an app password for an app on their list of supported apps,
and of course that list does not contain any Linux apps: no mutt,
no alpine, and of course no edbrowse.

I think I have run this into the ground, and will have to look
elsewhere for an alternative to my gmail address.  Too bad. The
fastmail I knew and loved had lots of nice features and was totally
accessible.  I was mistaken to think their upgrade was now accessible
just because their opening page seemed to be.

I wonder how long it will be before google requires the use of an
"app password"?  To paraphrase our fearless leader:

HEY RUSSIA, IF YOU'RE LISTENING, FIND ME AN ACCESSIBLE EMAIL SERVICE
THAT LETS ME USE WHATEVER APP AND OS i WANT!

Chuck



--
Here too, In Northeast Ohio, The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (59% of Full)
If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.
Sent from Viola's missing iPhone.

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