OT: Rant on Yahoo email and iOS

[Keith A]

Starting several days ago, I noticed that I was no longer getting notifications on my iPhone that I had received an email. I assumed it was one of the glitches that has happened in the past, and I never know if it's Apple or Yahoo that is broken. Tonight I was tired of this problem and wanted to find out how to fix it. I started searching and found plenty of complaints about this problem, but nothing recent. I tried deleting my account on the phone and fiddled with some settings...nada.

I finally stumble upon a discussion on Yahoo!'s forum that said that the Yahoo servers were no longer sending push notifications...WTH??? You'd think with something as significant as this, that maybe Yahoo would send a notification about this change or at least make some official announcement that could be easily found when searching on this subject. No they just want everything to think that their email notifications are broken, and waste a bunch if time trying to fix the problem.

Thanks for nothing...ya bunch of yahoos.

[CNY rider]

I had noticed the same thing.
Thanks for explaining it.
Yahoo absolutely, positively sucks. Only pure inertia has kept me using their email.

[Hilltopperny]

Thought I heard something about yahoo being bought out and that they'll be changing the name soon. I could be imagining this, but could have swore I heard it while listening to the radio. Maybe the new company is cutting costs while restructuring?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://arstechnica.com/business/2017/01/yahoo-board-drops-to-five-mayer-is-out-name-changed-to-altaba/&ved=0ahUKEwif04_D0Y_SAhVEKWMKHfYpD_gQFgiwATAS&usg=AFQjCNGMGYPOa_-iVOSOSniJ_zvwpdnrvA&sig2=FH9nDp563HDIlhWRQ6YM-g

[AngryScientist]

I had noticed the same thing.
Thanks for explaining it.
Yahoo absolutely, positively sucks. Only pure inertia has kept me using their email.

this describes my feelings exactly.

[pbarry]

I stopped using the yahoo app, and added my yahoo email account to the native android email app, so the one app sends notifications for yahoo and Gmail. There must be a way to do this with Apple.

[Keith A]

In order to have the iOS native email tool check your Yahoo account, you will need to change the setting for the "fetch" time interval. This is an inferior method for handling this, but it's the only way possible now that Yahoo has disabled the push option. Instead of moving forwards with technology, Yahoo just took a step back. BTW, if you open the iOS email app, it will force a check of your Yahoo account.

Here is the forum discussion that I found on this subject, which contains the specifics of how to change your fetch settings...
https://forums.yahoo.net/t5/Sending-and-receiving/IPHONE-PUSH-EMAIL-NOT-WORKING-WITH-IPHONE-MAIL-APP/td-p/189048

BTW, I did a quick search again today and couldn't find any official statement from Yahoo about this change :crap:

The other option to get notifications is to use Yahoo's app. You could still use the iOS native app when sending or replying to email, but Yahoo's app may do a better job of notifying you that you have new email.

[roguedog]

Yep. Have felt this way about yahoo email for some time now. I get all sorts of weirdness that drives me crazy. Have been slowly migrating most of my emails to gmail.

[Gsinill]

Yah... who?
Dumped them as my primary email years ago when their service started to go downhill and it became obvious that they are on their way out...
I still use it but only for any "don't really want to give out my email address" situations.

[Keith A]

Here's how you adjust your fetch settings...

The iOS environment supports 2 kinds of email notifications - Push and Fetch. Yahoo Mail is designed to work with Fetch, which will check for new emails at regular time intervals. You can decide how frequently the app checks.

Open the iOS Settings app.
Tap Mail, then Accounts.
Tap Fetch New Data.
Tap a time interval at the bottom.
Tap your Yahoo Mail account.
Make sure that "Fetch" is selected.

[benb]

You should be getting off of their ASAP anyway as their security issues are pretty horrific, you're putting yourself at risk.

Make sure you use a strong & unique password that you don't use anywhere else and don't send anything important through their email!

[Keith A]

You should be getting off of their ASAP anyway as their security issues are pretty horrific, you're putting yourself at risk.

Make sure you use a strong & unique password that you don't use anywhere else and don't send anything important through their email!Thanks for the warning. I do have a strong and unique password, but I've been using them for years and have so many accounts tied to this address :help:

[Davist]

hmm... I still seem to be getting the push notifications fine. I do see occasionally the "turn off less secure access" to your yahoo! account (from them! what, who has the security issues?!). I stay b/c of inertia, like many..

Google's blue tooth spying bugs me too (see new Chrome discussion) but anyway..

[Keith A]

hmm... I still seem to be getting the push notifications fine. I do see occasionally the "turn off less secure access" to your yahoo! account (from them! what, who has the security issues?!). I stay b/c of inertia, like many..

Google's blue tooth spying bugs me too (see new Chrome discussion) but anyway..Are you using the native iOS email app or Yahoo's app? If you're using the native iOS app, what is the "Fetch New Data" setting for Yahoo? Does it show push or fetch?

[Veloo]

We gotta remember that these are free services so really little to no recourse if anything goes wrong.
One example is my relative who is not too IT savvy. He was on Yahoo and decided to clear history and cookies on the browser. Well Yahoo no longer recognized the PC and asked for confirmation during the login. They sent some code or password to the cell phone that was registered for the email address. Well, turns out that cell phone number was his old one. He wasn't able to get that code or any help for the problem which he found others had too so he had to give up that email address and whatever was in that account.

I'm on Yahoo but looking at going to a paid service.

[gemship]

Personally Email to me is abfab but as of today it seems like an archaic term at at the least. Yahoo email...I'm surprised it still exists.

[fkelly]

Thanks for the warning. I do have a strong and unique password, but I've been using them for years and have so many accounts tied to this address

I'll echo Benb's warning. Yahoo has been terrible for years, and is well along the way to going defunct. I got my wife to get off their service last year. It takes a while to close something like this out. Email everyone in your contact list with your new email. They all won't respond and even with several iterations there will be some holdouts who can't figure out how to change their contact lists. One by one change all the web sites where you have an email registered. You will have some web site registrations where your ID is based on an email. Painfully change these one by one. It can easily take six months.

But bottom line, any large email service like this relies on technical staff to keep them going. With Yahoo, anyone with any technical expertise has headed for the doors years ago. It is headed nowhere but downhill, which in part means that security fixes won't get applied, the service will deteriorate, and eventually you will get hacked or lose material or both.

Bite the bullet and start the process to shut the account down.

[Keith A]

I'll echo Benb's warning. Yahoo has been terrible for years, and is well along the way to going defunct. I got my wife to get off their service last year. It takes a while to close something like this out. Email everyone in your contact list with your new email. They all won't respond and even with several iterations there will be some holdouts who can't figure out how to change their contact lists. One by one change all the web sites where you have an email registered. You will have some web site registrations where your ID is based on an email. Painfully change these one by one. It can easily take six months.

But bottom line, any large email service like this relies on technical staff to keep them going. With Yahoo, anyone with any technical expertise has headed for the doors years ago. It is headed nowhere but downhill, which in part means that security fixes won't get applied, the service will deteriorate, and eventually you will get hacked or lose material or both.

Bite the bullet and start the process to shut the account down.Not only do I have to do mine, but my wife's and my mother's :crap:

[CNY rider]

I'll echo Benb's warning. Yahoo has been terrible for years, and is well along the way to going defunct. I got my wife to get off their service last year. It takes a while to close something like this out. Email everyone in your contact list with your new email. They all won't respond and even with several iterations there will be some holdouts who can't figure out how to change their contact lists. One by one change all the web sites where you have an email registered. You will have some web site registrations where your ID is based on an email. Painfully change these one by one. It can easily take six months.

But bottom line, any large email service like this relies on technical staff to keep them going. With Yahoo, anyone with any technical expertise has headed for the doors years ago. It is headed nowhere but downhill, which in part means that security fixes won't get applied, the service will deteriorate, and eventually you will get hacked or lose material or both.

Bite the bullet and start the process to shut the account down.

Recommendation on where to go?
Google?

[gavingould]

this isn't really an Apple problem, it's that Yahoo no longer uses a widely-supported protocol.
Set to fetch instead of push and you're OK.

but yeah... i'd move away from Yahoo email (and other services if possible) ASAP. beyond their several breaches, i just don't see a viable business going for them and expect to see their various disparate products spun off or sold.

could be worse... my business (IT support) still has some people who won't move on from AOL email.

[likebikes]

yahoo! hasn't been relevant for over a decade now.

[oldpotatoe]

Recommendation on where to go?
Google?

Comcast email became clobbered with spam, set up a gmail account, really easy. NOTE-I are not a 'puter kinda guy, actually pretty 'puter dumm, for info.

:D

[jruhlen1980]

Yahoo has crap security.

Yahoo and Google (and likely any cloud webmail server with any infrastructure in the U.S.) have been letting the NSA read your emails for years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html

I use a non-US based webmail service that I pay for for everyday mail, and a different non-US based service with greater security for anything at all sensitive or private.

[Keith A]

Thanks jruhlen1980. Might I ask what providers are you using?

[Davist]

Are you using the native iOS email app or Yahoo's app? If you're using the native iOS app, what is the "Fetch New Data" setting for Yahoo? Does it show push or fetch?

It says "push"...

also for the gmail boys and girls, I'm not liking this:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/05/chrome_56_quietly_added_bluetooth_snitch_api/

[Rada]

I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but Outlook is pretty decent. If you like Firefox their email Thunderbird is ok.

[Keith A]

It says "push"...

also for the gmail boys and girls, I'm not liking this:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/05/chrome_56_quietly_added_bluetooth_snitch_api/
Weird, I can't even set mine to push. It's either "fetch" or "manual"...

[OtayBW]

Just climbing on board with :butt: for Yahoo e-mail. Cannot stand them, particularly after the recent (~few months ago) security breach that they announced involving ~500K accounts. It was at/near this time that they also announced the breach involving 1,000K accounts that occurred a year earlier. That is ballsy.

BTW - what in tarnation is 'abfab' as in:
Personally Email to me is abfab but as of today it seems like an archaic term at at the least. Yahoo email...I'm surprised it still exists.
A quick google lists it as 'Absolutely Fabulous', which I'm guessing is incorrect....:confused:

[AngryScientist]

ugh. i'm in the same boat. it's painful to think of all the stuff i've got linked to my yahoo account. i dont particularly like gmail either.

i do echo some of the comments above and feel like you dont really have much pull with a free email service. considering how critical email is to so much of the stuff we do today, it is kind of amazing that most all of us rely heavily on a free service.

i should probably do something soon.

[jruhlen1980]

Thanks jruhlen1980. Might I ask what providers are you using?

Fastmail for everyday use, Proton Mail for secure. Fastmail is based in Australia and I'm not sure how strongly an Australian company would oppose requests from the U.S., but at least it's one more step someone would have to go through.

[Kobe]

I knew about the first Yahoo hack, somehow I missed the second. Incredibly they sent nothing in the way of notification. Looks like it is time for me to leave Yahoo.

Thanks for all of the advise!

[fkelly]

Today's Times reports that the merger of Verizon and Yahoo is back in play. Oh great! Two crap email providers united.

For what it's worth, I use gmail. Basically, you have to give up the notion that anything you send is private. Google makes their money (part of it anyway) by reading your email, pulling out keywords, sending you advertising based on the content. The government intercepts whatever it wants to intercept. Unless your email is encrypted as you write it and not de-crypted until it's received (which takes a bit of setup on both ends), you can forget about true privacy.

Thunderbird and Outlook (mentioned earlier) are email CLIENTS that run on your PC or MAC or phone. They are not a substitute for a email server (Yahoo, Google, AOL, Verizon and many others) in the Cloud. I use Thunderbird (a Firefox, Mozilla product) on my PC's. The Microsoft Outlook client does basically the same thing.

I've thought of looking into Pobox.com but am not dissatisfied enough with Gmail to go through all that. The concept behind pobox is pretty cool, you register your email address the way you would a web domain name and thus it is independent of any particular server (and thus permanent). If I were starting from scratch I'd look at this pretty carefully.