Setting up Thunderbird with Norton 360.

[Matt Harris]

A friend arrived at my home this past weekend with his new Dell laptop and asked for help installing an email program.  Not a problem I though so I downloaded Thunderbird, ran the installer and watched the new account wizard totally fail to do anything.  Just that nice blue windows cursor indication something was happening.  After a time I cancelled the account setup and disabled the "smart firewall"  tried again.  Nope, had to turn just about everything in the product, including mail scanning, just to get to the point of Thunderbird setting up the accounts.

I am dropping this mail here,  not seeking support,  but looking to generate interest and discussion in how we get Thunderbird to just work with these every increasingly rubbish security products.  Clearly if we are to grow a market share having the product set up an account without major changes to the anti virus/internet security suite is a given.

So what suggestions do folks have.  What we are doing not is clearly not working.

Matt

[Ben Bucksch]

Hey Matt,

thanks for the heads-up.

Which exact step of the dialog was failing? Just showing up? Or any of the specific config gathering steps - if so which one (it should be shown in the UI).

Which "security" product did he use? Which exact setting in the product was it that made it work? It would be good to know the precise setting, not just all or nothing disable.

My suggestion would be to not just disable, but uninstall all security products and only use Windows Defender and Windows Firewall built into Windows. Many other "security" products actually decrease security, instead of increasing it. But I understand that's besides your point, because it would be difficult to sell that to end users who are used to buying snake oil.

I think the best approach would be to find out the culprit, talk to the vendor, and whitelist us or our method.

Ben

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[Jörg Knobloch]

On 22/12/2017 00:48, Ben Bucksch wrote:
> My suggestion would be to not just disable, but uninstall all security
> products and only use Windows Defender and Windows Firewall built into
> Windows. Many other "security" products actually decrease security,
> instead of increasing it.

I half-way agree. Sadly M$ Windows Defender or Security Essentials have
the worst detection rates of all products as most tests of such products
show.

Further reading:
http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-software-except.html

Jörg.

[Matt Harris]

On 22-Dec-17 10:18 AM, Ben Bucksch wrote:

Hey Matt,

thanks for the heads-up.

Which exact step of the dialog was failing? Just showing up? Or any of the specific config gathering steps - if so which one (it should be shown in the UI).

The dialog initially got stuck with the fetch from the ISPDB (it was a google account).  So I turned off the "smart firewall"
Then it got stuck on the validation process.  So I turned off the identity safe and sonar email protection.  Unfortunately I do not know what worked and what did not as I sound go back and find thing had turned themselves back up as my 15 minutes were up before I had time to test the feature.

What is know is that the Norton issues are not new.  Turning off email scanning, the firewall and sonar are common first suggestions in support.  Although I understand you can turn the whole thing off from a menu.  Support feedback indicates that does not work for account setup.

Which "security" product did he use? Which exact setting in the product was it that made it work? It would be good to know the precise setting, not just all or nothing disable.

As I said in the Subject.  Norton 360 in this instance.

My suggestion would be to not just disable, but uninstall all security products and only use Windows Defender and Windows Firewall built into Windows. Many other "security" products actually decrease security, instead of increasing it. But I understand that's besides your point, because it would be difficult to sell that to end users who are used to buying snake oil.

You get no argument from me,  but we are stuck with Norton and McAfee... Dell install it to be helpful. Verizon flog it as "their" security suite.  So do ATT.  Then we have what is arguably the market leader Symantec.  Last known to be good when Perter Norton owned the company.

I think the best approach would be to find out the culprit, talk to the vendor, and whitelist us or our method.

Agreed.  perhaps you can get Symantec to talk to us....  they will only communicate with folk that have @mozilla email addresses.  I tried to open a dialog with them years ago regarding their firewall blocking each and every point release of Thunderbird. 

Matt

[Ben Bucksch]

Ovari,

Matt reported a specific issue with an AV product blocking and breaking our dialog.

What you say appears to be an issue with the dialog not finding the correct configuration for some specific university. That is to be expected, as we cannot correctly know all configs for all domains.

The page you mention is a page by Microsoft. Indeed, they give Chinese servers, which I presume is an error. Only Microsoft can correct their website. The page has a feedback button. Use it.

Ben



Am 23.12.2017 um 00:07 schrieb Óvári:

Recently we have had the same problem where ISPDB could not set up university accounts. We were helping to set up university accounts for someone who had a Mac computer. Unfortunately it did not work and the University tech support only advised:

On 4/12/17 1:59 pm, Student.Centre wrote:

Have you tried these steps? https://support.office.com/en-ie/article/Set-up-email-in-Mozilla-Thunderbird-8-0-f4726a9e-64d3-4494-9260-5762597fd1a6

The article mentioned refers to Mozilla Thunderbird version 8.0. Thunderbird is currently at version 52. So the article seems very old.

A concern is that the article refers to en-ie which is Irish. Is this correct?

Another concern is that the IMAP and POP is partner.outlook.cn and the server name for SMTP is smtp.office365.cn. These are based in China. Is this correct?

Would be nice if Thunderbird could configure university accounts automatically...

Wish you all a Merry Christmas!

[Óvári]

Recently we have had the same problem where ISPDB could not set up university accounts. We were helping to set up university accounts for someone who had a Mac computer. Unfortunately it did not work and the University tech support only advised:

On 4/12/17 1:59 pm, Student.Centre wrote:

Have you tried these steps? https://support.office.com/en-ie/article/Set-up-email-in-Mozilla-Thunderbird-8-0-f4726a9e-64d3-4494-9260-5762597fd1a6

The article mentioned refers to Mozilla Thunderbird version 8.0. Thunderbird is currently at version 52. So the article seems very old.

A concern is that the article refers to en-ie which is Irish. Is this correct?

Another concern is that the IMAP and POP is partner.outlook.cn and the server name for SMTP is smtp.office365.cn. These are based in China. Is this correct?

Would be nice if Thunderbird could configure university accounts automatically...

Wish you all a Merry Christmas!

On 23/12/17 8:47 am, Matt Harris wrote:

[Ben Bucksch]

Matt Harris wrote on 22.12.17 22:47:

> Agreed.  perhaps you can get Symantec to talk to us....  they will
> only communicate with folk that have @mozilla email addresses.  I
> tried to open a dialog with them years ago regarding their firewall
> blocking each and every point release of Thunderbird.

I have a @thunderbird.net email address.

What's the Symantec contact address? I'm not going to go to the hotline,
because I know that's futile.

Ben