this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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Someone who's still using POP instead of IMAP4 probably hasn't updated their setup in 20 years.
This is a good reminder to use the secure ports for IMAP (993) and SMTP (465). Don't use ports that use opportunistic TLS (STARTTLS), which are 143 for IMAP and 587 for SMTP. These start unencrypted and switch to using encryption once the server says it supports it. An attacker can just modify the response and say the server doesn't support encryption, in which case the connection will remain unencrypted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunistic_TLS#Weaknesses_and_mitigations
You can force encryption on the client side... but then you may as well just use the port that's always encrypted.
(yes, I know that the TLS handshake isn't encrypted either)
You'll understand one day that pop3s has its uses for certain situations.
I used to use POP for some situations, but the protocol is extremely limited. I don't think there's anything POP can do that IMAP can't.