I usually check my Gail in Thunderbird, on my laptop. I set it up so that I don't have to use Internet Explorer, and I don't have to enter my Gmail password. But recently, Gmail is denying me access through Thunderbird. When I open Thunderbird, Gmail prompts me for my Gmail address and password, and warns that providing that information means that I agree to their privacy policy. Since this is all new, I click the link to read their privacy policy, which doesn't work, but instead causes Thunderbird to disappear from the screen, even though I can see in the Task Manager that it is still active. So I removed my Gmail account from Thunderbird and then added it all over again. But now I get a pop-up that says Gmail requires that I go online (not through Thunderbird) to get my mail. Doing so, I have found that Gmail considers Thunderbird to be "a less secure app," and requires me to agree that I understand this before they will allow me to access my Gmail through Thunderbird. Why is this happening NOW and not before?