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</head><body><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">A couple or three days ago Thunderbird stopped receiving messages from my primary email account.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">Turns out I can now only access Comcast email through the Xfinity webpage and through the mail app on my old Apple iPod 3. Have yet to try my old Android tablet apps.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">Incoming mail server, imap.comcast.net, fails to connect with up-to-date Thunderbird on three different laptop computers: My newish HP-Notebook running Kubuntu 18.04, my wife's newish HP-Pavilion running Ubuntu MATE 18.04, and my older Acer A0722 Netbook running Lubuntu 18.04.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">The netbook case is particularly interesting in that the Xfinity email webpage completely crashes Falkon browser and loads exceedingly slowly with Firefox. Moreover, just as with Thunderbird, Comcast server will not connect with Sylpheed mail client. Netbook has only 2MB RAM so lightweight, speedy, and stable Falkon is usually my go-to browser thereupon.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">Have tried alternative second-choice ports as suggested in Comcast support pages, but these don't work either.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">I have two other mail accounts, Google Gmail and Microsoft Hotmail/Outlook, both of which continue to work on all machines with Thunderbird and Sylpheed just fine.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">Anyone else out there having similar Comcast/Xfinity trouble? Thoughts, suggestions?</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">My own bleak opinion is that now that our Comcast/Century Link duopoly has moved from modest net-neutrality regulation under the FCC to near wholesale unfettered accommodation under the FTC--and this after having benefited from de facto conception and nourishment almost exclusively at taxpayer expense (DARPA), and then on to all-out corporate gigantism through gross legal financial exploitation of the consumer (your bill as opposed to one you might experience in, say perhaps, France)--well, they just seem to do to us whatever they think they might be able to get away with. Which under the current political regime seems to be pretty much anything they want.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">Another dark thought is that permitting access to email exclusively through compulsory use of a website under the complete design and absolute and control of Comcast/Xfinity is partly a ploy (typical of such behemoths) to obtain my (everyone's) cell phone number (which they presently do not have) and thereby gain commercially-exploitable near total knowledge of my whereabouts and most of my economic activity at any and every waking moment. All this being accomplished in concert with, and under cover of, the ruse of the somewhat reasonable general perception of a legitimate need to firmly establish ubiquitous two-factor authentication protocols everywhere.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">What they can't steal from us most of seem to be willing to give to them for free. So much for any hope of anonymity or privacy from our corporate overlords. Might as well let them tatoo a barcode on your forehead--though that wouldn't be nearly as effective.</p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;"><br></p><p class="default-style" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif; color: #333333;">Enough unsolicited ranting. I have to check in with the Thought Police.</p></body></html>