I've been using http://www.zenbe.com/mail for the past 3 months. Shareflow looks interesting.
I would recommend this too except zenbe personal is shutting down soon... http://blog.zenbe.com/personal-shutdown/
Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
81–90 of 142 posts
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#82Anyone have experience with atMail? (http://atmail.org/)
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#83I pay a small amount yearly for an account at FastMail ( http://www.fastmail.fm ) They have a very solid IMAP service, and a robust (though not Gmail-fancy) web interface. In the five years or so that I have had an account with them, I think I could total up about a half hour of downtime that I can recall, so they are very stable. I recommend them highly. (I'm not affiliated with them, just a satisfied customer.)
I'm using Fastmail to host email on my own domain (you can redirect MX records to them or just use their DNS servers).
I read email mostly in Thunderbird via IMAP.
At the end of the day your own domain is what you really want - you can host it on Fastmail or Google, and if any of them screw up you can move on to other hosting provider or to your own server.
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Yes, good point. And if the disks are encrypted, you will definitely know about it, because they won't be getting any data without you. (Unless the email police broke AES or the key-strengthening algorithm and haven't told anyone yet. This is unlikely, however.)
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#85I've run this argument through my head several times.
Here's what you should like about Gmail:
1) Google infrastructure is probably more secure than any server you could set up quickly. 2) Google handles all those pesky issue with IP blacklists, Spam, etc that you'll be forced to deal with on a DIY server. Granted, there are solutions for each of these; Its your valuable time, in the end.
On the other hand, for a DIY mail-server: you truly don't gain much besides having an accessible dump of your mailbox(in the event that all the gmail-specific datacenters get nuked in a single day?)
ISPs can and probably wil sniff your plain text email traffic now/in near future due to external police state pressures.
I live in India, and sadly I envision this place turning into a police state by sheer incompetence on the part of the administration who pass half-baked net-nanny laws.
The only solution to email privacy: Hard-to-reverse Encryption of the text (typically GPG). Most of the crowd here know this well. But making email encryption transparent and easy-to-use would be a killer product for those customers that value privacy. FireGPG is trying , but Gmail code changes keep breaking stuff sometimes.(http://blog.getfiregpg.org/2009/11/05/gmail-issues-fixed/)
Redundancy/Backup is another issue altogether. You should probably keep backup IMAP dumps in a geographically distant location if you fear Gmail will just cease to exist one day(without any warning).
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
In the government wants your server you can format your hard drive if you want.
That is illegal and ineffective. Full-disk encryption provides much more safety, both legally and technically. (They could still sneak into your house and install a hardware keylogger that gets your encryption passphrase, and then seize the disks. But this is real life, not a movie.)
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#87Earlier 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…
Not hiding from anyone, or especially worried—I was just inquiring if Google Apps Premium (or Standard) would address the grandparent's privacy concern: thought maybe there was a clause in the T&Cs I missed or similar.
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#88I'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.
Any improvement over Gmail/Apps search index is worth a look. Thanks.
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#89Run 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 haven't experienced getting added back to a blacklist off a significant webmail host after being taken off one. Once your IP is in the clear, it'd take some abuse to be put back (anecdotal). These 3 steps usually get me unblocked if starting with a bad IP:
1. Set up reverse DNS for your IP address
2. Publish an SPF record
3. Check the Spamhaus lists http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=1.2.3.4 and request removal if your IP address is on them.
As an addendum to grandparent: extremely comprehensive guide to postfix + dovecot here: http://workaround.org/ispmail
Re: Ask HN: Gmail alternatives?
#90I work at Rackspace and we see choosing our email solutions as alternatives... http://twitter.com/solevangelist/statuses/9028774642