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Don’t Mess with The Google

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Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#231

Post by kuschku »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #140
jdietrich wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is unreasonable. I think we've fallen into a culture of low expectations regarding the ability of "normal users". Many people will (perfectly legitimately) choose convenience over quality or reliability, but I think we should be pushing users to engage more seriously with the tools that they use. We can certainly do more as developers to make things easier, but I think we have a tendency to pander to…

For a whole variety of reasons, you need know what you're doing to properly host your own email now. From the risk of domain name takeover, to hosting provider takeover, to modern spam requirements (ip reputation, dkim, spf, dmarc), to just plain sysadmin ability and ideally run an HA system. Agree that there are probably some startup opportunities, but the the reality is that you'll just be transferring the user's t…

Quite a few you're missing indeed.

Many ISPs give out a domain name and email service for free with internet contracts — you can set it to redirect to gmail until you need it, then just switch it over.

Tada, problem solved.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#232

Post by TheArcane »

perlpimp wrote: post #185
setq wrote: post #170

First post, might as well be a cautionary tale. My father, a pretty old programmer by anyone's standards, regularly warns me of this sort of thing. He was pretty much shafted by CompuServe many years ago on a miniscule scale compared to what is possible now. He lives his life in what I previously described as a paranoid bubble of data control. Until I inevitably burned myself with Google. I have no idea what happened…

Going on a tangent, there should probably be a set of universal backup formats that can be advertised as being somewhat portable. So that, if you need to can take your mail and other online business stuff elsewhere if need be. Beyond this article a user might start working for some place that does not allow external app use, but they can bring their data with, to be loaded onto the service. I guess like github and gi…

Emain inbox portability would be amazing!

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#233

Post by dkersten »

brongondwana wrote: post #75
a3n wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail. I'm just a regular (paying) customer, not a business or anything. I've opened a small number of tickets, one or two of the RTFM variety. I've always got a human response and satisfaction, even a "here, let me RTFM that for you." I can't imagine being locked out of my fastmail account for anything other than abuse of my fastmail account . Or not paying my bill.

We also stalk you on... I mean, we read the same tech news sites you do. (I'm on third line ticket duty right now, so if you have something significantly more complex than RTFM, or an actual bug, you'll probably be talking to me this week) The most common cause of getting locked out other than you abusing your fastmail account is having your credentials stolen and used for spam/fraud, which is why we recommend 2 fact…

I also transitioned from gmail to fastmail a few months back and am very happy so far. Haven't had any issues and moving over was less stressful than I had imagined.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#234

Post by detaro »

perlpimp wrote: post #185
setq wrote: post #170

First post, might as well be a cautionary tale. My father, a pretty old programmer by anyone's standards, regularly warns me of this sort of thing. He was pretty much shafted by CompuServe many years ago on a miniscule scale compared to what is possible now. He lives his life in what I previously described as a paranoid bubble of data control. Until I inevitably burned myself with Google. I have no idea what happened…

Going on a tangent, there should probably be a set of universal backup formats that can be advertised as being somewhat portable. So that, if you need to can take your mail and other online business stuff elsewhere if need be. Beyond this article a user might start working for some place that does not allow external app use, but they can bring their data with, to be loaded onto the service. I guess like github and gi…

With e-mail, as long as you have IMAP support you can relatively easily download all your mails and upload them to another server. Just takes a while if you aren't good at cleaning out old stuff. There even are companies offering that as a service if you don't have a fast internet connection, only a mobile device or ...

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#235

Post by hellofunk »

kuschku wrote: post #224
hellofunk wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about the guy whose twitter account was stolen because a hacker got access to his email _because_ the weak link was a custom domain and poor security at Godaddy. The domain was hacked, giving the attacker full access to email, and therefore ability to change passwords, transfer ownership of a prized twitter account and more. It has been discussed here quite a bit. The folks that answer phones at domain r…

Then don't trust a registrar. Get a domain directly through a NIC that offers that directly.

Can you recommend one? I've never heard of this.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#236

Post by matt4077 »

tempestn wrote: post #174
matt4077 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange – I've been using a .coffee domain and haven't run into a problem yet (although I've only used it maybe 30 times, not adding too many new accounts these days)

Many things support it, but many don't. I'd say something like 1/4 of the time I have problems. And often stupid problems, like sign-up works, but unsubscribe doesn't. That's frustrating.

Sometimes bugs just happen to be terribly convenient, don't they?

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#237

Post by chebum »

snowwrestler wrote: post #96
tw04 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They cut off access to a COPY of a users content. They didn't TAKE anything from a user. If, in 2016, you're relying on a free service as your only copy of important data, you're a fool. Countless governments across the world could literally, without any notice, delete all of your data at the drop of a hat on ANY public service. See: megaupload. It's not the job of a free service provider, who literally makes 0 promi…

"You don't need to worry about keeping your data anywhere else" is the heart of Google's pitch for all their services, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, and most recently Photos. I mean, the ads for Photos are literally people feeling better knowing that their stuff is safely stored with Google. It seems reasonable to hold Google responsible for what they say.

Google quite frequently lose photos people store with their services: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/QuKiYj... https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/bNSFIy... https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/photos/7Xf0Cj6_... https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/njdwFPaq...

Personally, I lost photos of my kid's Sep 1.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#238

Post by amelius »

mooman219 wrote: post #54
vilhelm_s wrote: post #8

This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. For telephone companies, there are rules about when they may disconnect you, e.g. the Arizona Utilities Division write > f I am unable to pay my entire bill, what can I do to maintain local dial tone? > The Arizona Administrative Code specifically states that a telephone company may not disconnect a customer for failure to pay an unregulated portion of their bil…

Opinions about regarding Google as a utility aside, I think the comparison this argument makes isn't as comparable as you make it sound. Using your example with telephone companies, this situation is like saying a specific 3rd party service accessed via telephone should be regulated without actually regulating the telephone companies first. I would like to see ISPs be regulated as a utility before individual web site…

Gmail is part of the chain of technology that lets me communicate, so I think a comparison with a telco is fair.

Also there could be a distinction in the law for mass communication, e.g. #users > 1M.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#239

Post by snovv_crash »

x0x0 wrote: post #178
rdtsc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might have to switch at some point. It is stories like these that are freaking me out. Were there any instances of them being DoS-ed or you not getting emails from others? I would also be afraid one day if Google sees people fleeing to them, they'd come in and buy them. I'd almost whish there was a public trust or non-profit who would run an email server. Post office is a government service (for better or for worse…

ime: their spam detection is definitely inferior to gmail; I've had 2-5 false negatives per month (spam not detected) and a handful of false positives over 3+ years. Plus a payment notice from my student loan that fastmail absolutely positively refuses to believe is not spam not matter how many times I so mark it. I've had zero deliverability issues. edit: to be clear, the spam detection works well, and if you're goi…

I get tons of false positives in Gmail. Mostly from mailing lists where I guess someone else reported it as spam because they were too lazy to unsubscribe, but also some others. But it means that I regularly have to dig through all of the Russian camgirl requests to make sure nothing important is there.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#240

Post by tdkl »

ubernostrum wrote: post #133
kajecounterhack wrote: post #120

Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google and don't have any real context into why this occurred. Speaking as myself, a private citizen. I work in Spam & Abuse and it's possible that this is the result of some clustering algorithm that was trying to take down sharders / phone buying rings. It's very possible that the SWEs responsible didn't consider this possibility (that legitimate customers would be used to shard purcha…

It's very possible that the SWEs responsible didn't consider this possibility "Very possible"? More like "guaranteed". Everybody who pays the slightest bit of attention knows Google has a gigantic blind spot when it comes to thinking through the consequences of algorithms and automation. And there's no sign that the company is interested in fixing that, ever.

But AI is the future and our AI is the only which is true, embrace it! /s
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