eM Client not respecting privacy settings for its own emails?

Hi,

I have been a user of Sparkmail on macOS, and currently using Postbox on Windows. I heard about eM and was hoping to try out before buying a lifetime license.

I noticed something quite weird.

eM Client seems to not respect the privacy settings for itself.

  1. Images from the sender [email protected] are shown.

  2. Images from other senders for example, Google are correctly blocked by default.

  3. The settings do not have any of eM Client’s email addresses in whitelist.

This forum did not allow more than one image so here is the collection of screenshots: https://share.getcloudapp.com/collections/DlfxPv/em-client

In plain simple terms, eM Client is not respecting the privacy settings for emails from its own addresses?

As a potential customer this is a quite off-putting because the sales pitch includes “Message encryption” and privacy features, and even shows up a step in the onboarding wizard to setup PGP encryption.

I wonder if this is just a bug that no one has reported yet, or this is a deliberate measure to track customers who sign up to the platform.

Are you sure these are images and not formatted text?
There is a whitelist - setting/mail/privacy.

Also, are you inviting someone to download images from an unknown source? Not very clever!!.
In my experience on this forum, those who start with: “before buying a lifetime license.” are usually trolls paid by competing products to try to rubbish others.

Are you sure these are images and not formatted text?

I am a software developer and not a delusional fan/user/employee of eM Client. I usually know what I am talking about. I downloaded the client. Signed up and setup a gmail account of mine.

I saw that the welcome email from eM Client showed images. I went through the settings and checked that there is a whitelist which did not have [email protected] on it.

The whitelist was empty.

Also, are you inviting someone to download images from an unknown source?

Did not wish to, but that’s how the maintainers of this forum (which runs on Discourse BTW, for which I have written code and contributed to it) have chosen to allow only one image upload per post from a new user.

That’s fair.

I felt the need to share more screenshots to confirm that I am not mistaken, and hence shared using a service that I pay for.

In my experience on this forum, those who start with: “before buying a lifetime license.” are usually trolls paid by competing products to try to rubbish others.

I can see that to be true. And normally that is quite true.

But just to prove that “you” (whoever, you are, employee, fan, user) DO NOT know what you are talking about here is a recorded GIF of the same welcome email on Gmail’s web interface.

Have a great one, I am sure losing a customer is not big deal for this hostile community but then the maintainers for this product and this forum let people like you troll others who are raising flags.

No love lost.
Cheers

Hi @moderators , tried deleting my account on this forum - got asked to contact a staff member. Here I am contacting publicly.

OK - I just uninstalled the client application as well and you have a nice survey form to link to, here is my honest feedback (“in case I appear to be paid by competitors” :man_shrugging: ):

Sunday 27 September 2020 :: 2106hrs (UTC +01:00)

Hi @raisedadead

I’ve been watching the exchange and I am also a developer/programmer; I favour open source, use Debian, Apache, Nginx, Exim, Redis, MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL. I often write my own tools using Perl, Bash, HTML, CSS, JS, plus blood, sweat and tears. I rely on Git for process and revision control. I commit and test before I enliven.!
I mention this only to perhaps offer some credibilty - I do not work for or have any connection with eM Client save for the fact that I am a satisfied user and have been for some time.

I have previously looked at and tested the ‘Whitelist’ and have found it to work well once an email address has been added through the receipt of or sending of an email.
I concluded that *@emclient.com is probably hard coded, and as such does not show in the ‘Whitelist’ - I think a reasonable assumption, though I have never queried this.
I any event I was not over bothered as all my incoming mail is via Mailwasher Pro where it is all checked against Friends & Blacklists, customizeable RegEx Filters, First Alert!, SpamCop and a Profanity List before it is automatically passed to eM Client.

Perhaps you might want to reconsider your decision to not use eM Client.

¡Saludos desde la soleada España!

Russ

[email protected]

Hi @skybat

Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply.

My sincerest apologies for the earlier tone, I guess the “you are being a troll, if you are raising flags as a new user” hit a nerve. Wasn’t my intent.

Anyways moving on:

I guessed that to be the case as well based on my cursory analysis that is what is possible.

I would not have given this a second thought if the email address was in the whitelist by default. I would not even remove it, the fact that it seems to be hidden is kind of shaddy and off-putting.

Again, I would give gladly give the devs a benefit of the doubt by ruling this as a bug. I understand how seemingly innocent things become a nightmare.

However, I will probably reconsider the choices when we have some constructive explanation from the staff team, I guess.

Have a good one, and thanks again.