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Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#61

Post by imasr »

jrockway wrote: post #45
intranation wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Google Apps premium guaranteed to actually protect you from the aforementioned privacy concerns? It's still on Google's servers.

The government can subpoena your own server in your own house just as easily as they can subpoena Google's servers. So who are you hiding from? If it's the government, then you must use strong cryptography no matter where you host your email, and you must ensure that everyone you communicate with is as paranoid as you. (I would encrypt all my email, but nobody else I talk too will. So it doesn't work.) If it's advert…

On you own server you decide what and for how long data will be stored. In the government wants your server you can format your hard drive if you want (or whatever you think is fit). I bet you can't do that if your mail is on google (or yahoo, msn, etc for that matters)

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#62

Post by kogir »

jrockway wrote: post #45
intranation wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Google Apps premium guaranteed to actually protect you from the aforementioned privacy concerns? It's still on Google's servers.

The government can subpoena your own server in your own house just as easily as they can subpoena Google's servers. So who are you hiding from? If it's the government, then you must use strong cryptography no matter where you host your email, and you must ensure that everyone you communicate with is as paranoid as you. (I would encrypt all my email, but nobody else I talk too will. So it doesn't work.) If it's advert…

Yes, but if it's in your house, you at least know it happened and can try and fight it. If google hands over your data you may never know. I think in many cases they'd likely be barred from telling you even if they wanted to.

Note: IANAL

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#63

Post by qjz »

rufugee wrote: post #57
jdietrich wrote: post #23

Run your own mailserver. If you don't trust Google with your data, there's nobody else I would trust. There are plenty of open-source webmail apps if that matters to you.

Did it for years. Loved it. The only problem? Hosting providers and colos often reuse IPs that have been blacklisted because of spammers, so one day you realize some folks just haven't been getting your mail. I use a leased server and would switch back from GMail to Zimbra in a heartbeat if I thought I could reliably insure my email would not get blacklisted. There are services out there you can pay for that offer sm…

I've set up a number of mail servers for myself and clients. I've always asked providers upfront to guarantee that I can get assigned to a new netblock if any of the IP addresses they give me show up on any blacklists. In some cases, just asking resulted in getting clean IPs from previously unused netblocks. In the few cases where the IPs were blacklisted, I got new ones without any problems.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#64

Post by wheels »

rufugee wrote: post #57
jdietrich wrote: post #23

Run your own mailserver. If you don't trust Google with your data, there's nobody else I would trust. There are plenty of open-source webmail apps if that matters to you.

Did it for years. Loved it. The only problem? Hosting providers and colos often reuse IPs that have been blacklisted because of spammers, so one day you realize some folks just haven't been getting your mail. I use a leased server and would switch back from GMail to Zimbra in a heartbeat if I thought I could reliably insure my email would not get blacklisted. There are services out there you can pay for that offer sm…

We use SendGrid: http://sendgrid.com/

They've got a free account for up to 200 mails a day.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#66

Post by sandGorgon »

scorciapino wrote: post #20

I'm currently using sup ( http://sup.rubyforge.org/ ), which has labels and threads like Gmail, but is Free as in Freedom, runs on ncurses and, ironically, has a much better search mechanism, which was the main reason I switched from Gmail. There is also notmuch ( http://notmuchmail.org/ ), which is still alpha, but aims to be faster and more scriptable than Sup.

very nice - someone who has used sup should put it up on wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-mail_clients ).

I see every other client - mutt, pine, etc. there

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#67

Post by grumpyfart »

jdietrich wrote: post #23

Run your own mailserver. If you don't trust Google with your data, there's nobody else I would trust. There are plenty of open-source webmail apps if that matters to you.

There is a high possibility that Google's server is 10 times more secure than any average Joe's mail server. Even more secure than a security expert's server as well: http://www.darknet.org.uk/2009/08/dan-kaminsky-kevin-mitnick...

Do you have time to manage and keep your server secure? Can you patch a new 0day in an hour, possibly not.

On the other hand when men-in-black asks to Google yes they might give it away, which is another story.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#68

Post by jcl »

Maro wrote: post #19
mcantor wrote: post #9

It might be instructive if you included why you are trying to avoid Gmail in your OP, so we can avoid suggesting other apps that might have the same issues. For example, do you dislike it because of privacy concerns? Or because it's a web app? Etc.

I think the Gmail UI is excellent and I love it, but I'm starting to have privacy concerns.

Not to restate the obvious, but e-mail goes around in plaintext. Whatever Google is doing with your e-mail can also be done by your ISP (and your recipients' ISPs, and anyone between).

One could make the case that hosting on Gmail has greater privacy in this respect, since if you send to any other Gmail address, the e-mail probably stays within the Google network.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#69

Post by pyre »

ori_b wrote: post #54
jdietrich wrote: post #23

Run your own mailserver. If you don't trust Google with your data, there's nobody else I would trust. There are plenty of open-source webmail apps if that matters to you.

There are also plenty of open source desktop IMAP clients; I personally strongly prefer clients like mutt or sylpheed over webmail interfaces. with ssh, I can even look at my mail from anywhere.

> with ssh, I can even look at my mail from anywhere.

That's assuming you can get access to PuTTY and/or ssh from anywhere. :-P

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#70

Post by mey »

grumpyfart wrote: post #67
jdietrich wrote: post #23

Run your own mailserver. If you don't trust Google with your data, there's nobody else I would trust. There are plenty of open-source webmail apps if that matters to you.

There is a high possibility that Google's server is 10 times more secure than any average Joe's mail server. Even more secure than a security expert's server as well: http://www.darknet.org.uk/2009/08/dan-kaminsky-kevin-mitnick... Do you have time to manage and keep your server secure? Can you patch a new 0day in an hour, possibly not. On the other hand when men-in-black asks to Google yes they might give it away, wh…

In addition, I know of no company who provides better spam and malware filtering.
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