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nz66

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Thread starter
Aug 9, 2023
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Hi my question is this. Most free emailproviders have an expiration policy, so you must log in every x months to keep your account. Now as long as you use their own android app, never a problem. But what if I use for example Bluemail or other third party app for protonmail account or AOL? Does that also count as "logged in" in terms of expiration policy? Thanks, Niels
 
All email apps work in a similar way. So it makes no difference if you're using the stock email app that came with your phone or you've opted to use a third-party email app instead. Either way it's just an email client (the app running on your phone) logging itself into an email server (the online server that's managed and maintained by your chosen email service).
Functionally there's very little difference in how whichever email app you use in the backend, those are interactions taking place in the background. The primary differences between different email apps are their user interfaces. That's what we interact with.
 
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If you are concerned about privacy there is one difference of significance: does the third party app simply transfer between the mail provider's server and your phone, or is there processing or storage of the mail by the app provider's server? For example if an app talks about "intelligent sorting" of your inbox that may be done by the app, but more likely it's done by the app vendor's server which means that they are analysing your mail in their systems. You may or may not be happy with that, but it requires a higher degree of trust so to my mind is a significant difference.

(The only first party mail app I use is ProtonMail: I use third party apps for all other mail).
 
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