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Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#71

Post by pyre »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #43
jm4 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with handing over data in response to a subpoena. They're legally required to do so. The problem is with providers who hand over data without a subpoena.

It is their ability to decrypt that scares me. Most of the users were under the impression that Hushmail did not save their keys.

They didn't, but the they were forced to setup something on their servers that allowed them to capture the keys (or something like that) in one particular instance, IIRC.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#72

Post by KirinDave »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #43
jm4 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with handing over data in response to a subpoena. They're legally required to do so. The problem is with providers who hand over data without a subpoena.

It is their ability to decrypt that scares me. Most of the users were under the impression that Hushmail did not save their keys.

It's not clear it's legal for Hushmail to do that. or so I'm told.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#73

Post by thaumaturgy »

mrduncan wrote: post #46
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.

Any recommendations for open-source webmail?

I use RoundCube, and I'm very happy with it so far. It has a very active developer base, and it offers the closest thing to an email client experience. I'm currently working on an "Outlook" theme for it, which should be done soon.

My mail server stack looks like:

Linode + Postfix + Dovecot (w/mySQL & imap) + RoundCube + SpamAssassin + managesieve.

With this setup, I get more powerful mail filters than Gmail, a better webmail client than most ISPs, and spam controls that I can access directly from my webmail client.

It's not the easiest setup to pull off, though. I'll need to roll out a second one of these before long, and I'll try to write it up next time.

EDIT: Or for $5/month/domain (the same deal I give my clients), I'll give anyone unlimited domain email hosting, unlimited accounts, (practically) unlimited storage.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#74

Post by dan_the_welder »

dan_the_welder wrote: post #14

My tiny hosting company Varialhosting offers POP and Imap. I did a quick search and there are tons of providers that offer Imap.

Not my personal company, the one I use... which is tiny.

They have treated me well, I have not noticed any downtime, but I am not very sensitive to that.

They also allow virtual domains, so I have three websites, two very low traffic, for the price of one.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#75

Post by andrewcooke »

no-one has mentioned runbox - http://www.runbox.com/

that's who i was thinking of switching to (i want to be able to use google "anonymously", and it's tricky when also logged in to gmail). i scanned through the mail providers listed on wikipedia and that seemed the best. hosted in norway, iirc. surprised no-one else has mentioned it here, though.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#76

Post by thaumaturgy »

johnpaulett wrote: post #56
neilc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the GMail UI, SquirrelMail is pretty terrible.

Already mentioned by sucuri2 in another thread, but roundcube ( http://roundcube.net/ ) looks much more attractive. Still not GMail, but much nicer than squirrelmail.

If you pull down devel-threads from svn, add a couple of plugins, and tweak a few things, RoundCube IMO actually gets better than Gmail.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#77

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#78

Post by jdietrich »

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…

Absolutely, I use Google for pretty much everything and trust them implicitly. I don't believe that Google will leak anything that matters and think that the whole buzz furore is nonsense whipped up by people who had assumed privacy where there was little reasonable expectation of it.

However, if, like the OP, you do not trust a major corporation with a near-immaculate record on data integrity and an industry-leading stance on LEA disclosure, why trust any corporation?

Hosting your own server is inherently risky, but it is a different sort of risk with different mitigations. As you allude to in your post, the question is whether you fear malicious individuals, the workings of the state or corporate incompetence.

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#79

Post by alaithea »

Maro wrote: post #34
alaithea wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure they have any. Their marketing and communication tend to be pretty minimalist. I happen to like it that way. You can always get a free guest account to try it out. Or if you ask nicely enough, one of us who have accounts might be able to post a screenshot. ;)

Please do, I'm curious.

Here's an interview with the founder, which includes a screenshot of a message view.

http://www.emailserviceguide.com/2009/10/interview-with-jere...

Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?

#80

Post by Maro »

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's nothing especially secret or noteworthy in my inbox, so I don't really mind if the admin of the server it's stored on can read it. Go ahead, knock yourself out. What I do mind is Google coming up with new features, connect email with social networking, and in the process expose incidental information to my peers; eg. Maro knows X, X said Y on Twitter, how does that reflect on Maro?
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