from Hacker News

FairEmail: Open-source, privacy friendly email app for Android

by mpsq on 3/8/21, 2:54 PM with 117 comments

  • by kop316 on 3/8/21, 4:15 PM

    I was curious to see if FairEmail could work with OAuth without Google Play (I have a school Google account that does not allow me to log in without OAuth):

    https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-co...

    "OAuth for Gmail is supported via the quick setup wizard. The Android account manager will be used to fetch and refresh OAuth tokens for selected on-device accounts. OAuth for non on-device accounts is not supported because Google requires a yearly security audit ($15,000 to $75,000) for this. You can read more about this here."

    You can see it here too: https://support.google.com/cloud/answer/9110914#zippy=%2Cexc...

  • by sebsauvage on 3/8/21, 4:03 PM

    I have been using this email app for months, with 4 different email providers. It works like a charm, it's snappy, and privacy-oriented (preview links before opening them, block pixel tracking, and lot of other clever features.)

    Oh and the developer is very active (several versions a week), very kind and answers very quickly.

    One of the best bargains. (I bought the full version)

  • by pw6hv on 3/8/21, 4:06 PM

    Just switched from K9-mail to FairEmail.

    I was using the Google Play version of K9 so at the moment I am quite happy of the switch. There is only one thing that I did not manage to find in FairEmail which is the ability to read the header of emails. Like the whole information, from SPF, DKIM validation and so on. Does anyone know if it's possible to get this?

    For the moment I am planning to stay with FairEmail and maybe one day try the F-Droid version of K9 as I heard it has evolved a lot in the recent times.

  • by doc_gunthrop on 3/8/21, 9:24 PM

    FYI this is by the same developer who authored the popular NetGuard (https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard) for Android.

  • by throwaway81523 on 3/8/21, 5:21 PM

    I'm using F-droid K-9 and am happy with it. What would be the point of switching? If the new thing is flat-out better then it might be worth considering, but I haven't seen any explanation of this.

  • by dane-pgp on 3/8/21, 7:51 PM

    It's interesting that the FAQ says:

    > FairEmail will send the Autocrypt header for use by other email clients, but only for signed and encrypted messages because too many email servers have problems with the often long Autocrypt header.

    That might be out of date, now that Autocrypt version 1.1 has been published:

    > the 1.0 version of the Level 1 spec mandated RSA 3072 keys for ecosystem reasons and only the more recent 1.1 version from February 2019 now mandates that the new default scheme for creating Autocrypt keys is Curve 25519 keys.

    https://autocrypt.org/faq.html#why-also-rsa3072-and-not-only...

  • by bantunes on 3/8/21, 4:11 PM

    Good it's open source and all that, but it's very hard to use and parse what's on the screen.

  • by sundbry on 3/9/21, 3:45 AM

    It looks great, I want to give it a try over K-9 Mail. Your f-droid apk link looks broken however:

    https://hostux.pics/image/screenshot-20210308-194330.ulO

  • by rexreed on 3/8/21, 6:26 PM

    Am I a weirdo for using POP mail on an Android? I don't trust any third party with storing my email. Is there a reason why I should move to IMAP?

    I mean I know the technical reasons. But it says on the FairEmail page: "FairEmail might be for you if you value your privacy." and also says "works with virtually all email providers, including Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo!"

    For me, privacy is more than what's on the client - the server matters too. POP has seemed to work for me for 25+ yrs.

  • by Snetry on 3/8/21, 4:14 PM

    I've been using FreeMail for a while now and I can only say that its a fantastic app. The setup and settings are a bit unintuitive but despite that its great

  • by curt15 on 3/8/21, 5:12 PM

    K-9 Mail had some difficulty getting IMAP IDLE to work with Android's Doze. Does FairEmail fare better?

  • by aasasd on 3/8/21, 7:45 PM

    Am I the only one who can't make FairMail deliver mail faster than 15-20 minutes? The notification is on, the battery optimization for the app is off, still nothing. K9 actually receives the message earlier, despite not having a persistent notification.

  • by mike-cardwell on 3/8/21, 5:21 PM

    Can somebody with access to an Android phone test out this client with https://www.emailprivacytester.com and report back please.

  • by cassepipe on 3/8/21, 5:39 PM

    I was wondering it seems like when you get a mail app, Android ends up storing that mail address as an account in the account section of the parameters. Is there a way to avoid this ?

  • by CuriousNinja on 3/8/21, 4:50 PM

    Does IMAP clients handle Gmail labels well? Last time I tried to use an IMAP client it treated all the labels as separate folders.

  • by igorstellar on 3/9/21, 5:44 AM

    This is amazing, happy to support! I have a question: when developing an app with strong privacy guarantees, how do you handle analytics and crash reporting? E.g what if some group of users gets some weird error in a use case, or what if the app crashes? How do you figure and fix such issues? Many thanks for the app!

  • by ancarda on 3/8/21, 7:16 PM

    Is anyone else getting this error on F-Droid?

        Download failed!
    The requested file was not found.
    https://f-droid.org/repo/eu.faircode.email_1518.apk
    How can I download this app? I use K-9 Mail at the moment, but I'd like to try this to see if it's any better.

  • by spacebeer on 3/8/21, 5:42 PM

    I've been using FairEmail for some time (premium version, F-Droid) and it is great. I have my main IMAP account there

    But I also use K-9 Mail (beta, from F-Droid). It is easier for me to handle multiple (secondary) accounts with K9, than FE

  • by safaci2000 on 3/8/21, 8:19 PM

    it looks like a cool project though what I'd love to see is some solution that makes PGP/Secure Email more accessible to the common person. I know hushmail, tutanota, and protonmail are all around, but still only works if everyone is on the same service.

    it's interesting how secure email has been solved decades ago (how to do it) but making it accessible has been an ongoing struggle. :(

    Anyone ran across a more tangible solution for the common man?

  • by meremortals on 3/8/21, 5:20 PM

    I've been loving FairEmail for the last 6 months

  • by hnarn on 3/8/21, 7:05 PM

    While I applaud any effort to make email more usable and secure, I can't escape the feeling that email is quickly becoming the new snail mail. It seems most people only use it for very "official" communication, or communication with more or less autonomous services, while using other channels for almost everything else.

    For me at least, email is moving into the same space as a phone number: something you know you need to reliably have, but you'd throw out in a minute if you could get away with it.

  • by fungos on 3/9/21, 1:38 AM

    I've been using SimpleMail. Seems to have all the same features as FairEmail but without banners and paid Pro-version.

  • by saagarjha on 3/8/21, 10:02 PM

    Scrolled down to the bottom to look at the screenshots, but they look mildly stretched to me. Is anyone else seeing this?

  • by cassepipe on 3/8/21, 9:50 PM

    Just bought the premium features because this is both simple and well thought and works very well. I really like it.

  • by jesse_m on 3/8/21, 9:16 PM

    I love this app. I really like how it shows you tracking images and stuff in the emails.

  • by Black101 on 3/8/21, 7:33 PM

    been using this app for months... my favorite email app in this current market.

  • by andrewshadura on 3/8/21, 9:20 PM

    No JMAP support?

  • by Animats on 3/8/21, 6:03 PM

    I've been running that for years.