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Is it possible to have my email usage through FastMail but keep my email address to log in to google so I can still access all my docs?
Or do I need to create a gmail address and move my docs over, then move my email over?
If you are concerned about privacy and gov tracking and getting their hands on your email then whats the point of migrating from one "unsecure" email provider (gmail) to another one (fastmail)? With some of the fastmail servers in US jurisdiction your email is just as safe as with gmail.
That's not really true. The servers themselves and their provider may be under US jurisdiction, but not FastMail itself, which means they can take measures against unauthorized access (e.g. encryption) and they can detect breaches and take steps.
Nothing will be foolproof, of course, since the NSA is the worst enemy you could have and if they have physical access to those servers, you simply can't claim you're 100% protected, but it's much better than nothing.
See: https://www.fastmail.com/about/privacy.html
Furthermore, there are actual trade agreements between countries and if the NSA would access the servers of foreign companies on simple whims, the US can lose a lot of money if customers find out. I know of at least one big German multinational company that banned the usage of several US-based services and tightened security, after the Snowden revelations, for fear of industrial espionage.
In other words, the price for breaching users' privacy is significantly higher, because in Google's case, they just have to ask for it and Google can't even disclose such breaches to their customers even if they wanted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know what data is transmitted via GCM? It could be a simple "hey check your email" ping to trigger a sync. I doubt the message size allows for much more anyway. It might also be encrypted, whatever it contains.
You would still have some meta-data :-)
Honest question: How is it that GMail is perceived faster than a locally running MUA like mu4e which is quoted in the article? I'm actually using mu4e for exactly this reason: It's so much faster than any web client could ever be. And I'm saying this as a professional web dev^^ And yeah, I know GMail - I was an early adopter and have seen two companies migrate to it in the last five years. Of course, running mail wit…
Let's just say that mu4e gets its efficiency from memorisation (e.g. hotkeys) and a quirky way of working ("all organisation is a query"). Gmail and FastMail get their efficiency from standard UI elements that most computer users will already know how to use, and discoverability is via UI elements not manpages.
mu4e undeniably has a maximum higher speed. But you'll spend a lot of time fighting the tool until you reach that nirvana.
Why would you use FastMail when hosting your own mail server has a much higher privacy level? It seems no better than gmail in this respect.
Honest question: How is it that GMail is perceived faster than a locally running MUA like mu4e which is quoted in the article? I'm actually using mu4e for exactly this reason: It's so much faster than any web client could ever be. And I'm saying this as a professional web dev^^ And yeah, I know GMail - I was an early adopter and have seen two companies migrate to it in the last five years. Of course, running mail wit…
Webmail often has a really fast pipe to the email storage, which means it can get the headers faster and then extract only the parts it needs. Webmail is not required to use IMAP (though many do) an optimized protocol can offer advantages.
Why would you use FastMail when hosting your own mail server has a much higher privacy level? It seems no better than gmail in this respect.
These are just some of the reasons.
Why would you use FastMail when hosting your own mail server has a much higher privacy level? It seems no better than gmail in this respect.
That, and all the complications that running your own email server brings with it. If you read the article, the author explains it very well.
"The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, are an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence." Austrlia is spying on your email on Fastmail the same way NSA is reading your gmail.