because Google changed the way their system works. So sign in and use your calendar or not. The choice is yours.

So I signed in. Thunderbird then appeared to lock up, and kept showing as (Not Responding). I had to exit it a couple of times, as I couldn't do anything, and it didn't show my calendar content. Then yesterday, it loaded up my calendar content. (I don't understand why this wasn't cached locally on my PC.) It also displayed reminders for every event in the past month. Today, almost all my calendar content apart from odd items has gone again. (Again, I don't understand why this wouldn't be cached on my PC.) At least it isn't locking up, but it's no use as a calendar. (It is even less use than the Windows 8 calendar which won't write to Google calendar and never reflects changes to calendar items.) It's not prompting me for a login, so presumably it's not an authentication issue. The content is there in Google, if I log in through my browser, and it's there on my phone. Apart from the fact that this change has effectively broken the calendar functionality, I find it strange that neither Google nor Mozilla communicated anything to users about the change or made it clear what the new authentication method was so that people didn't assume it was malware as I did.

So, I have upgraded Thunderbird. I thought it was set to upgrade automatically, but obviously not, as it just has gone from 24 to 31. I have also upgraded Lightning from 2.6.6 to 3.3.1. I have Provider for Google Calendar, but it is not obvious whether it is 1.0.1, which appears to be the latest version. The parts of Thunderbird for managing add-ons etc. don't seem to clearly show what version is installed. (And what is the distinction between a plug-in an add-on and an extension?) I have removed Provider for Google Calendar, restarted Thunderbird and then reinstalled it. I have deleted my Google calendar from within Thunderbird, restarted it and then created it as a new calendar. I then left it to load up the calendar, though it didn't seem to be "Not Responding" as it had been yesterday. Having come back to it, it seems to have loaded up my calendar content. Definitely not an automatic upgrade.

Google just assume we should all trust them. AS far as the Mozilla team goes. Lets be specific. There is one person who works on the calendar component and he is a very busy individual. He simple has not got the time to chase down every nuance of poorly documented change that comes out of Google.

This is how I wasted a large part of my weekend. http://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/lightning-and-caldav.html and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1081613

As long as the day does not come where Google decides which emails are suitable for you and which are not!

It is my right to decide what I want and need and not the Google despot forcing me to sign in so they can monitor my online behavior! Yes, reads their terms of use and the rights they reserve for themselves!

I'm getting tired of all this! Soon you can mail me first class with 46cts stamp again! At least the postal service does not snoop around and open you mail!

I have opened accounts with GMX...No muss, no fuss and based in the EU where the Germans make sure everyone knows about privacy. Also very big in Europe