“We’ve noticed that you’re using non-AOL applications”
I received today a email from AOL, my current email service provider, with complicated and not easy to understand instructions I must perform by December 21st to be able to continue using AOL to do email, or else I’ll become unable, from that day on, to receive or send any more emails:
“We love that you love using AOL email. And we want to make sure you always have the best experience. That’s why we’re reaching out today.
We’ve noticed that you’re using non-AOL applications (such as third-party email, calendar, or contact applications) that may use a less secure sign-in method. To protect you and your data, AOL will no longer support the current sign-in functionality in your application starting on December 20, 2021. This means that you will need to take one of the steps below to continue using your AOL Mail without interruption.
But don’t worry, you have options:”
Well, these options require that I perform those rather complicated and not very well explained procedures I am not really keen to perform.
Curiously, looking around to see if this email is a scam — i.e. not really from AOL — I discovered that another email worded in the same way was sent last year with the deadline of October 20th, 2020, but that day came and went and nothing happened. I don’t even remember receiving that email, but I must have.
AOL is now in the hands of a financial company, no longer an IT one, which makes me doubt its “reliability of service” so I have been considering cutting my cord with it and attaching a new cord to another email service provider (are those companies actually know as “email service providers?”) And I am thinking about switching to Protonmail, at least for the time being, while keeping my AOL account while I try Proton and, if it works for me, have time to send my new email address to all those that are likely to write to me as well as places where they have my current email address, all this before December 21st.
But here is the thing: Proton (same as Gmail) keeps all of one’s emails in their “Cloud” servers, and I want to be able to keep copies of them also in my own computer, at home. So I would need to be able to use Proton as if it had an SMTP server for outgoing emails and a POP3 server for incoming ones, a deal that would let me keep copies of my sent and received emails. One of my two clients: Thunderbird, right now, with one AOL account only, is setup that way, so it keeps the copies of my emails without asking any external parties for permission, and I hope this may still be possible with Proton+Bridge: please, correct me if I am wrong.
There is an application the makers of Proton provide that would seem to allow things to work as if the receiving server were POP or IMAP. It’s called “Bridge”, but the explanations I’ve found of what it can actually be done with it are unclear, so I am left with the doubt as to whether it might or might not allow keeping copies of sent and received messages in one’s computer.
Trying to find out by doing Internet searches has been both very frustrating and unproductive.
If with Proton it turned out be impossible to do what I want, which other email services are there that are reliable, secure and easy to use?
I shall be very grateful for any clarification of these issues.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
