Tails

Before replacing TorBirdy, we meant to default to POP3 instead of IMAP if Thunderbird persistence is enabled, by using the extensions.torbirdy.defaultprotocol preference. The rationale for this was:

• In general, we prefer encouraging users to use POP3 instead of leaving their full mailbox on the email server, so we default to POP3 when persistence is enabled:
  • It gives users more control over their data.
  • It’s nicer for friendly email server admins (less resources, smaller legal responsibility).
• Without persistence, POP3 may fetch messages and then they’ll be lost when shutting down Tails ⇒ we default to IMAP in that case.

We believe this automatic protocol selection used to work initially, but was broken at some point (at least in 4.0 it does not work according to Feature #17219#note-16): IMAP was always selected by default for new accounts.

Do we want to reintroduce this protocol auto-selection? That would mean we would have to create another Thunderbird patch. We should discuss whether that’s worth it.