[NFBCS] Gmail and Outlook: Recent Security Conundrums

[Curtis Chong]

Greetings everyone:

 

Some of you who use Outlook to read and write Gmail messages may have
noticed that there is a problem where you are being asked to enter your
Gmail password and that password is not being recognized. This is not a
problem with either accessibility or your screen reader. Rather, this is a
long-planned change that Google has implemented about which many Gmail users
were notified in advance.

 

While we can quibble about the effective of the communication from Google
and the complexity of the ultimate solution (yes, there is a solution to
this problem), please understand that nonvisual access in particular and
accessibility in general are not the issues here.

 

If your email software is, as they say, not modern, the only way around this
problem is to activate two-factor authentication for your Google account,
create what Google calls an app-specific password, and then use that
password in your email client.

 

Those of us who are using the latest versions of Microsoft 365 have had to
remove the Gmail account from Outlook and then add it back again.

 

I hope this helps to provide some clarification about an issue which, to be
candid, is hitting lots and lots of people.

 

Cordially,

 

Curtis Chong