Google can (does) read users’ emails. Can apps like K-9 Mail, FairEmail, SimpleEmail not do the same?
You mean that the Gmail app will send to Google your email or what?
What does this mean? Rephrase please…
Thank you.
I guess my question was naive. Apologies for the copy and paste but “whenever you allow a third-party app to access your Gmail account, you’re opening yourself up to the possibility that someone, somewhere is reading your emails. It may never happen, but once access has been granted you can never be 100 percent sure.” I assume one may substitute “Gmail” in this quote with any other provider; Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook, KolabNow, etc.
Can the developers of an app like I mentioned (that uses POP, SMTP or IMAP) read the emails. Can K-9 literally read my boring emails. Can FairEmail devs sit during their breaks and laugh at my romantic musings sent to my wife.
I’m not asking “Do they” but “Can they”.
Thanks again.
Ok, yes the warning is justified, there are apps out there that do this.
Those mentioned by you (K9, FairEmail, or forks like Libremail and SimpleEmail) however don’t do that.
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So, they can. And no 100% guarantees that they don’t or won’t in the future.
I’ll continue to trust my 3rd party FOSS app (I really like it) to consolidate my email accounts but signing in via browser would be more private.
Thanks for your answer.
Cheers.
Any software that you trust to perform network communications on your behalf is in a position to listen in. That includes your browser. This is why trust is so important. If you don’t trust your client, you could monitor network traffic (to be sure nothing funny is going on), or audit the code itself (not an option for closed source). I think the risk of using FOSS email clients is minimal…
This is kind of moot if its the server itself that is spying on you… In Google’s case they run the servers. They don’t need to use your client to read your emails, they own your inbox! Again, its all down to trust… If you don’t trust your email provider you should probably find another, or host your own.
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Well…you can look up the source code…you can use a firewall (like Netguard) and see to what servers it connects…etc
Look again from time to time 
And the browser could leak your emails you mean? Yes…that’s possible too
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I looked at NetGuard. It’s cool. But, won’t it be adding yet another server to the mix? Another service to be trusted? This is getting too complicated. At least for me. I still think a browser is the most private way to check email. Please, tell me if I’m wrong.
Thank you.
Maybe you didn’t look close enough…there is no server to speak of, NetGuard creates a “local VPN”, it’s not a “VPN service”.
It creates a VPN tunnel and Android sends all the data to the app, and the app, based on what you’ve setup, filters the connections, either lets them go to their destination or kills them.
I understand now. When I read “full network access” I took it to mean that data left the phone THEN it got stopped or allowed to pass on through after it went to NetGuard (server). If it went TO NetGuard I was thinking that all the traffic was available to be seen. I’m guess ‘true’ VPN’s work like that. Always learning. Thanks. I’ll check the app out further.
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