JTK wrote:
> Yep. Sure be nice if some "Open" mail/newsreader wouldn't be so afraid
> to "innovate" and came up with a way to interface to these systems and
> bypass all those godforsaken banner ads.
The problem in doing this is authentication. Most webmail services are not
simply a webpage accessing a POP3 server (like the webmail.pl script). Most are
servers internal to the webmail provider that are securely accessed over the
providers internal network, with the data queried by the database, framed in
their custom content, and then passed to the user. The only way to "bypass" this
is not a bypass at all. The solution would be to somehow strip the mail message
content from the HTML. While this is somewhat easy to do for any one system (as
long as the format of the page generated in the end doesn't change), it's
impossible to create a single system to access all webmail sites. You'd have to
recode it for every type of page, and recode it again every time they changed
formats.
> > Hotmail probably makes more on selling their user
> > lists than banner ads, but they are an exception. If someone writes a
> > client that can take someone's mail from a web service and bypass their
> > revenue stream, they don't like or allow it.
> How are they going to know, and if they even do, how are they going to
> stop it?
Just like AOL blocks some clients from accessing the AIM server, but not others.
Authentication. Either active authentication where the client must provide
'credentials' or passive where the server analyses the request itself for user
agent strings, or other identifiers. It's quite simple actually.
> > It ain't Netscape corp or AOL
> WHO'S RUNNING MOZILLA.ORG? DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION, ANSWER THE
> QUESTION!
Mozilla.org is run by the "drivers" and "staff" which is comprised of
volunteers. Some of them work for Netscape, some work for Redhat, some work for
Billy-Bob's World O Beef, some work for themselves, some are unemployed or
retired, etc.
> <apologist_mode>
> > AIM uses a proprietary standard for communications. No one other than
> > AOL is allowed to use it to connect with AIM users if AOL doesn't want
> > them to. Not Mozilla's open source equivilant, not Microsoft, no one.
> <\apologist_mode>
This is why I find that you are willfully ignorant. This is a fact. AIM clients
must authenticate themselves with the server. This authentication method changes
at the will of AOL, without the need for the client to be updated, thus it works
to filter out any undesired clients they choose. This is not apoligistic, it is
fact. Simply look to the fact that clients like MSN Messenger and Yahoo!
Messenger are cut off, while clients like GAIM are not.
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