FREE yahoo! pop3 imap and smtp services

You can use Yahoo!'s SSLized pop, imap amd smtp services if you register your account within specific geographical regions. For me Australia worked like a charm. If you know other regions for which Yahoo! offers SSLized pop3/imap/smtp, let me know by commenting to this post ;)

How to enable the services:

1. (if you already have an account, skip this step) create a new yahoo mail account
2. choose: country=Australia
3. proceed and choose go to yahoo mail classic
4. in the upper left corner, click on "Hi, <username>" and choose "account info"
5. click on "Set language, site, time zone"
6. select: "Regional Site and Language" = "Yahoo! Australia"
7. select: "Time Zone" = "GMT +8:00 Australia(WT)"
8. save
9. go to http://mail.yahoo.com
10. choose "Proceed directly to Yahoo!7 Mail Classic"
11. on the upper right corner, click on "options" and choose "mail options"
12. click on "POP & Forwarding"
13. select the radio box "Allow your Yahoo!7 Mail to be POPed"
14. click on the "save changes" button up in the page

let's see if we activated this way pop3, imap and smtp services  for the newly created account. I'm going to use openssl to connect and talk to their servers; blue is me, red is them (of course, I had to remove my username and password):

checking pop3 access...


openssl s_client -connect pop.mail.yahoo.com:995  -ign_eof -quiet -crlf
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=pop.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=pop.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=27:certificate not trusted
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=pop.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=21:unable to verify the first certificate
verify return:1
+OK hello from popgate 2.48.1 on pop101.plus.mail.ac4.yahoo.com
user rucu******c 
+OK password required.
pass pass*******here
+OK maildrop ready, 1 message (20200 octets) (890)
quit
+OK server signing off.

POP3s service status: ENABLED
POP3 service ip4 address: pop.mail.yahoo.com
POP3 service tcp port: 995
SSL-ONLY: yes

checking imap service...


openssl s_client -connect imap.mail.yahoo.com:imaps  -ign_eof -quiet -crlf
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=imap.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=imap.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=27:certificate not trusted
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=imap.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=21:unable to verify the first certificate
verify return:1
* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 ID NAMESPACE X-ID-ACLID UIDPLUS LITERAL+ CHILDREN XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE XYMHIGHESTMODSEQ AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=LOGIN AUTH=XYMCOOKIE AUTH=XYMECOOKIE AUTH=XYMCOOKIEB64 AUTH=XYMPKI] IMAP4rev1 imapgate-0.7.65_14.298026 imap406.mail.ird.yahoo.com
1 login rucu******c pass*******here
1 OK AUTHENTICATE completed - Mailbox size in bytes is 890
1 logout
* BYE IMAP4rev1 Server logging out
1 OK LOGOUT completed

IMAPs service status : ENABLED

IMAP service ip4 address: imap.mail.yahoo.com

IMAP service tcp port: 993

SSL-ONLY: yes

checking smtp service...
note: i'm gonna use plain auth. to generate your auth base64 encoding, use

perl -MMIME::Base64 -e 'print encode_base64("\000username\000password")'

openssl s_client -connect smtp.mail.yahoo.com:465 -no_ssl2 -tls1  -ign_eof -quiet -crlf
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=smtp.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=smtp.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=27:certificate not trusted
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/ST=California/L=Santa Clara/O=Yahoo! Inc./OU=Yahoo/CN=smtp.mail.yahoo.com
verify error:num=21:unable to verify the first certificate
verify return:1
220 smtp109.mail.bf1.yahoo.com ESMTP
ehlo dynamic-ip
250-smtp109.mail.bf1.yahoo.com
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN XYMCOOKIE
250-PIPELINING
250 8BITMIME
auth plain AHVzZXJuYW1lAHBhc3N3b3Jk==
235 OK, go ahead
mail from: <ru*****@yahoo.com>
250 OK , completed
rcpt to: <cia@**d.ro>
250 OK , completed
data
354 Start Mail. End with CRLF.CRLF
from: ru******@yahoo.com
to: cia@**d.ro
subject: via yahoo smtps 


ok bananas
.
250 OK , completed
quit
221 Service Closing transmission

SMTPs service status: ENABLED

POP3 service ip4 address: smtp.mail.yahoo.com

SMTP service tcp port: 465

TLS-ONLY: yes

nice ha?