Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bypass “Less Secure Apps” in GMail With SeaMonkey Mail Using IMAP.

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer

Problem: Google doesn’t support STARTTLS or plain username and password over TLS anymore.



Google has declared war on mail clients. It will probably get worse in the near future, but for now, you can still log in with a proper email program, like SeaMonkey.



When Google makes these additional changes I’ll see if I can hack around them too and update everyone.



(Google really doesn’t like IMAP because they can’t shove ads that look like email messages in it like they do in the Web Mail version. These are basically a phishing attack that Google lets advertising companies pay for.)



To help keep your account secure, from May 30, 2022, ​​Google no longer supports the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account using only your username and password.



Important: This deadline does not apply to Google Workspace or Google Cloud Identity customers. The enforcement date for these customers will be announced on the Workspace blog at a later date.



If an app or site doesn’t meet our security standards, Google might block anyone who’s trying to sign in to your account from it. Less secure apps can make it easier for hackers to get in to your account, so blocking sign-ins from these apps helps keep your account safe.

-Google


Solution: Fake the User Agent for Google.com and GMail.



Even though SeaMonkey Mail doesn’t have any security problems that Thunderbird doesn’t have, Google allows Thunderbird and denies SeaMonkey. They both use the same code to implement mail support.



To get around this, lie to Google about your User Agent String.



In about:config, right-click, make a new String.



Paste in general.useragent.override.gmail.com and for the value, use Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:115.14) Gecko/20100101



Be careful there’s no whitespace. Then do the same thing, make the value



Paste in general.useragent.override.google.com and for the value, use Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:115.14) Gecko/20100101



Then select OAuth as the authentication type and set up your GMail account in SeaMonkey and sign-in again (you may need to click the “Get Messages” button), and instead of seeing the “less secure apps” warning, it’ll log in and fetch your mailbox.



Every 18 months or so you have to bump the fake User Agent. This should be easy because Thunderbird uses ESR branches of Firefox (currently 115) and the minor builds on this ESR branch normally go to .14.



They only check the minor revision to make sure it’s not lower than the minimum required Thunderbird. They don’t check the major version to see if it actually exists yet or not. So putting “current ESR plus .14” works even though there is no such version.



This is important because I have also found out that if you’re not “following minor versions” of Thunderbird, Google will log you out and your mailbox will disappear from SeaMonkey until you bump it. And you usually only get two minor releases behind before they do this!



So really the only thing to bump is the rv:xxx.xx part of the String, whereas the x’s indicate the major and minor build of Thunderbird you’re claiming to be.



If you look in the “apps with access to my account” you’ll see an entry for “Mozilla Thunderbird” with “Access to GMail”. This is SeaMonkey.



“Security that you lie your way past. I like it.



Very “I’ll make three Windows Registry entries and Windows 11’s installer has no Secure Boot, TPM, or minimum processor anymore.” (which is also a thing) of Google.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
 
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead