K-9 Mail is looking for funding
k9mail.app
k9mail.app
To accept contributions from small corporations using your app, consider offering a low-friction non-charitable service such as a one-year placement on a "sponsors" page of your website, like (the Python Software Foundation does this for contributions of any amount. [0])
Another option could be an annual per-user license (for organizations large enough that the person with a credit card wanting to support you cannot also influence the advertising budget.)
If you're a solo developer, don't forget small businesses when considering how to raise funding!
[0]: https://www.python.org/psf/donations/ [1]: https://liberapay.com/about/
GitHub displays the avatars of sponsors. Maybe that's an option that satisfies the "acknowledges sponsorship" criterion? https://github.com/sponsors/cketti
That's clearly advertisement and paying extra to have your logo on a product is an established business practice.
This does not apply solely to taxation, but also what is an easy sell to management.
All of this is extra administrative work that understandably you don't want to deal with, but it may open the door to significantly more sponsorships, so it could be worth looking into.
Disclaimer: I am neither a lawyer nor a CPA.
So give me a way to "purchase" and I'll be happy to donate.
The betas are almost night (mode heh) and day apart, the UI and operations have almost a complete overhaul from the old days and it looks (and works) really great on my Android 11 device. This isn't K-9 Mail on your T-Mobile G1 anymore, it's a brand new day for the betas.
The version is also split on GitHub[1] and I can only guess why.
It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge.
People that either want to avoid walled gardens or need proper encryption to their mail need to support this project!
IMHO, it's also the best if you're using Gmail: Google has been breaking its UIs for years (both on the app and on the web), especially for people like me who try to use proper quoting and signatures, or to send plain text emails. Apart from some glitches with reflow, K-9 does that very well even with Google as email provider.
I can't compare against Microsoft products since I've never used them on mobile, but seeing how horrible Outlook is on the desktop for plain text emails (and that's not an hyperbole), I bet K-9 is better as well.
the only way to make it usable again is to switch to the plain html mode, that uses no javascript, loads very fast, and reminds me a lot of the first gmail ui, back from ~15 years go.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbm...
Injecting non-google code inside my gmail window sounds like a very dumb idea to me, honestly.
I already trust google very little and keep my gmail inbox because I'm basically being coerced/forced to (no gmail = no apps on android)... The last thing I want is adding another entity to the picture.
This helps avoid app-specific passwords when you use 2FA, and lets users use their regular sign-in flow (which could include enterprise SSO, TOTP, U2F key etc).
I imagine that there's the ability for Google to set some cookies as part of that process, although knowing Apple, would not be surprised to learn they had sandboxed that instance of the browser, to prevent cookies persisting into regular Safari.
K9 originated in the old android AOSP email app, and I think the developer of FE wanted to cut loose from that and build it according to newer design patterns.
So I wouldn't worry about it.
What information would you like to find on the website exactly?
As a caveat here, at least in the non-beta version, support for PGP signatures is intentionally crippled because the original author dislikes them and apparently wants to push encryption (eg, https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2375), ignoring everyone who points out that this feature may be important or required by policy for them. By default, PGP signatures on unencrypted emails are silently hidden and the emails are displayed as being unsigned. There is no way to sign emails by default, and trying to sign an email results with a popup telling you not to.
* https://k9mail.app/2016/11/24/OpenPGP-Considerations-Part-I....
I think there are implementations out there that don't let you send encrypted but unsigned messages (anonymous encrypted). This stuff seems to bring out the enforced opinions in people.
With that being said, K-9 is the best Android app I've seen for mail that isn't made by Google.
edit: it seems the work has already been done, thanks for the correction.
I've been running the betas since more than a year without any problems whatsoever. (If you don't need push obviously)
I definitely struggle to udnerstand why IMAP IDLE is critical for a release.
Edit: Oh, probably a minSDK force - i.e. the cost of standing still in mobile development.
Edit: oh, randomly spotted this:
> A major factor was the API level requirement by Google Play. It required us to make changes to internals of the app in order to be able to publish updates via the Play Store.
I don't get the problem. Why not do a release? If google doesn't want the hard work and updates yet, fine, you can still tag a new release and people can use f-droid, download the apk, whatever right? (I'm using it via f-droid, thought most people would be doing that since it's an open source client with graphics from the 2009, the kind of thing you only use as foss fan).
Historically, Apple gives you about a year before you have to compile against the latest SDK, and Google gave you a lot longer.
However, recently, both have become more aggressive about requiring new versions to be compiled against the latest SDKs.
Thus you can't do a "proper" release without moving up to the latest SDK.
Compiling against the latest SDK often breaks things, especially for an app which does a lot of things in the background.
This is part of the "cost of staying still" in mobile app development, which is both hard to predict, and can be very expensive.
The functionality is present in the latest stable version, but needs to be reimplemented in the new version. As a user I would be upset if the app was updated and that feature taken away, even if it was only temporary.
Installed it from Github, it wanted me to pay for putting a colour on my account(??) and it will remind me of something something.
Nah man...don't do that if you actually want to sell a pro version. Just state it upfront and I will consider it. putting it in while I'm already adding an account and letting me read some long list of features I won't have if I continue right in the middle of the configuration is a dark pattern to me.
They lost a potential customer here.
OTOH the "free-tier" is what attracts your interest as bait, probably accounts for the number of app installs visible on the store too etc.
That definitely looks like the non-pro version is meant to be a free-to-use product.
> Tried to install it from F-Droid, didn't work.
Developers get very little say in what version F-Droid builds and ships [1]. I think there are some very minor differences between the F-Droid build and the regular (open source) build when it comes to OAuth API keys - centralised mail providers often don't agree to the keys being used in those builds made by third parties.
> Nah man...don't do that if you actually want to sell a pro version. Just state it upfront and I will consider it.
Not really sure how much more the developer could do here to make it clear - the app description [2] states it contains in-app purchases (at the top). The 5th line of the description says "Almost all features are free to use, but to maintain and support the app in the long term, not every feature can be for free. See below for a list of pro features.", and there's a full list of pro feaatures lower down the description.
Not really sure if I would agree this is a dark pattern as such - I've seen far worse store listings that don't call out "pro" features until you start using the app, and discover 90% of the advertised features are paid.
Maybe I have more sympathy for open source developers, but I think it's getting increasingly difficult for them to compete with the commercial apps that are "free" (with data mining), or are paid. Looking at how regularly updated FE is, and how responsive the developer is, I imagine it could be a monthly paid subscription, based on how much time many people spend using email, and it would probably be more than worth it. Certainly looking at SV SaaS pricing, it feels that FairEmail is probably very much under-priced. And open-source too, so people really are just paying for convenience.
Comparing it with hey's email service + client at 99 USD/year, it's not easy for open source apps to compete, but it's in our collective interest for there to be good, credible open source options available.
[1] https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-5-0-fairemail-fully-f... - commenting on not knowing when F-Droid will ship that version.
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.em...
K9, to me, is just too much options and features. A lot of which needed tweaking and tuning, and were not something one could simply ignore.
Good example, a recent release [1] fixes a couple of bugs that look to have originated from upstream Android projects, and added some new support for removal of "tracking" parameters from Facebook URLs.
I'd agree with your comment that stripping out donations is "allowed", but "not nice" - I can only sympathize with the developer of FairEmail - it is clear he puts a huge amount of time into an app that has no "covert monetisation" like most apps.
I was never particularly happy with other email apps and privacy (especially not the commercial closed source ones which receive your emails on their own server back-end, but keep this part quiet in their description, just to make push easier) - for me, at least, FairEmail delivers the same or better, but all entirely on-device. There's even some basic learning-based on-device support for sorting mail automatically into folders (spam, FYI stuff, etc). That's for me the spirit of FairEmail - doing what others do server-side, on-device, without spying.
But it is clearly a challenge to make money from this, and I think (based on FAQs) that the developer has a struggle with those who think that everything should be free.
No relation to the app, just a happy user that likes to pay for open source apps rather than become the "product".
TBH, that's actually a good thing. Material Design was a mistake.
If i ever pick up a librephone, pinephone, or something that can be switched to another OS, i'd like to try it again, even though i don't like using phones in landscape mode anymore. Maemo raised the bar so high on landscape orientation user interfaces that everything else is a joke.
That being said, there are lots of things that could be improved upon the current release version (especially wrt search), and I understand that just keeping up with the Android ecosystem is not a small task.
I've just set up a small recurring donation. It's more than worth it.
It used to be able to connect to Exchange servers, but hasn't been able to for nearly a decade.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-ap...
Currently you have to allow "less secure apps" on your Google account to use K-9.
- Support IMAP IDLE
- Support all the major business platforms: Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
- Support email encryption on a one off basis as needed. Nothing fancy just encrypt the email with AES256. Don't worry I'll get the key to the reipient.
Why this would be super successful.
1) It would eliminate instant messaging for most business use.
2) Consistency, simplicity and ease of support.
3) Contrary to popular opinion, 99 percent of business communication is not super secret stuff. It doesn't warrant the complexity of full time end to end encryption. But it is nice to bave it readily available for the 1 percent where it is really needed.
And yes, I have used K9 personally and I will support it but it doesn't begin to meet my business needs.
What I need and what I think most businesses need is Delta Email instead of Delta Chat.
- With email you write to a specific address. With NNTP you write to a group. In a business you almost always want to target multiple people, because activity is interesting (and relevant) to many people.
- To solve that we have a hack that is mailing lists; they work, but still only allow people to receive content _if they were in the recipient list from the beginning_. With NNTP the actual users are abstracted from the recipient, which allows people to read content in a group _even in the past_, or unsubscribe from a group and not bo bothered by new content
- Because it is ingrained in the protocol, creating/modifying/removing groups is easy to do, contrary to mailing lists. You don't need a special team to do that. Many times there is some content that needs to include multiple lists, but not everyone in those groups is relevant to the discussion... but you still include the different maliing lists because "that's the people who _might_ be interested". No more CC forwarding ad nauseam.
- Side-effect of having well-defined groups: because groups are more fluid they match better to actual people, and so the groups becomes a good denominator of what the "mail" might be about and whether it is important or not (compared to a sender and 189 random recipients)
Just look at the way the latest business IMs like Teams are working. They might not be perfect but they map much more to NNTP semantics, and have become the preferred way to communicate, even in long-ish form, rather than email.
(They do have one big advantage over NNTP though: message editing)
At this point, if a new software is needed anyway, we might as well ditch email and use a better protocol (even if it is not NNTP)
Or how about just an email client with better support for mailing lists?
The SMTP protocol supports multiple recipients adequately enough --- it's the client software that could stand some improvement to make it easier to apply/use.
Everything is just a very clunky experience made with ducktape and handmade scripts for something that can't even do all we want. It's totally normal that people flocked to other solutions.
> IMAP IDLE – This is the last big item blocking the release of a new stable version.
> Integrate Autocrypt support
Unfortunately, they only apply to Android with K9.
K9 would be much more popular if businesses could simply tell employees, "Use K9 for mail" or even "Use K9 for mobile email".
So I'm going to donate, because this app is fantastic and I really want it to keep existing.
What I love the most is how easy it is to sort E-Mail and to actually use existing Folderstructures.
I almost dont need a desktop client anymore to handle my mail.
Absolutely love Nine - it works marvellously with my own IMAP and SMTP servers, my work O365 etc. And everything in the UI is configurable. I think Nine is actually the only Android app I've ever actually paid for - highly recommended it.
(*My only real complaint about Nine is if I try to import more than a few months worth of email history into the local cache it slows to a crawl and starts breaking. I'd pay for an app that locally indexes a few tens of GB of email history and makes it instantly searchable.)
It did take them (the new owners) awhile to get the O365 MFA support coded in, which is when I purchased Nine and used it for a year or so. Once AquaMail got their code updated to handle that, it was like a breath of fresh air coming back to the client. (the export/import of your settings - which are plentiful - works great, I've also upgraded phones many times)
I've thrown in a few quid.
There isn't anything to rival it so I hope it gets some more developer time.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago, I tried the app again and was disappointed at how it looked basically identical to the last time I tried it. Seeing that, I just assumed it became abandonware.
Does this fund raiser mean I was wrong, and the app was always under development, or that it was recently revived?
[0] hey.com