I’m surprised no one mentions iCloud as a viable alternative. Reasons?
I like it, I use my custom domain as a spam filter and have a short me.com address.
Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
61–70 of 76 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#62OVH Exchange. Works pretty well, the anti spam could be better though.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#63I've been trying out Protonmail which I'm happy with, but in practice I'm still using Gmail. I'm reluctant to move away from my @gmail address, and inform all my contacts to use the new one. Besides that, I notice that orally communicating [anything]@gmail.com is much easier than any other domain. I wish I could take my gmail address to another service.
> orally communicating [anything]@gmail.com is much easier than any other domain Sure, if you had the foresight to reserve your.name@gmail.com twelve years ago, but today you'll have to use your.name772@gmail.com. Chances are that you won't even get incredibly.obscure.name@gmail.com. However, chances are better for your.name@fastmail.com, your.name@protonmail.com, etc.
I managed to get firstinitiallastname@gmail.com (account created in 2004ish) but for my Proton Mail account I had to add in my middle initial.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#64Very happy Fastmail customer here. Find the web interface more responsive than gmail and the IMAP implementation seems to be play better with apple's mail clients.
The web interface is fantastic, to the point where I use my Fastmail account for most of my email because it's less of a pain in the ass to go through. The mobile app is also fantastic, but I've had instances in the past where I've received no notifications if an unread email is left in my inbox. I'm the kind of person that won't check my email unless I get a notification, so there have been times when a week has pas…
The mobile app is pretty basic and doesn't support offline use. It's okay but I wouldn't rate it as fantastic. Outlook seems much better.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#65Any downsides to using the email service provided by your webhost, aside from the pain of potentially switching webhosts in the future? I've been using webfaction for hosting and email for 4 years now, and it's been great for both.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#66ProtonMail https://protonmail.com/
Very good privacy, spam detection doesn't work on content afaik (as they can't read your email)
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#67I'm in the process of migrating to mailinabox (mailinabox.email) right now! Migrated last week, I'm currently in the evaluation period. So far: * imap search is inferior to gmail (slow, no "did you mean"), but I can live with it. * greylisting is a pain, but I can live with it. Actually I'm on HN right now after alt-tabbing to wait for a "confirmation e-mail" to come through. Ironically, for an account on the mailina…
Regarding spam I recently found out this: https://heluna.com/ but haven't tried it yet.
Basically you set your MX to heluna and tell them which server to send the clean email to (and charge your for it....)
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#68If anyone is setting up email for elderly relatives, take a tip from me: don't use Gmail. Google is constantly changing (allegedly improving) the interface, gratuitously moving buttons from one weird location to another, and monkeying around with the UI. Certainly no problem for Hacker News techies, but once you've trained an elderly person on how to attach an image, print, forward, or reply, all your training goes o…
That's strange to hear, I thought it hadn't changed in ages.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#69I have been using Posteo for a few year ( https://posteo.de/en/help?tag=end-to-end ). Pro: - Cheap: 1€/month for 2 GBs mailbox - Basic functionalities such as Web interface, SMTP, POP3, CalDav, CardDav are all included. - They seem to take privacy and security seriously, including email encryption, 2FA signin or recently Autocrypt[1] - The warm fuzzy feeling of using 100% renewable energy for your email. Cons: - No c…
Hm, I thought about switching to Posteo, but no custom domain is a no go :/
Re: Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?
#70Zoho Mail and RunBox. Zoho has dedicated EU branch if you want that: https://www.zoho.eu/ https://www.zoho.com/ https://runbox.com/ FastMail gets a lot of love here but I think Zoho has more to offer in the ecosystem if you are willing to pay. It's a pretty decent drop in functionality replacement for a lot of Google (docs etc). RunBox is kind of simple and and old school but it's solid and works. Zoho Mail is also a…
I've been on the free Zoho plan with my own domain for years. There have been a few minor issues but in all I love them. Can definitely not complain about the price. The web interface is very capable and they seem to take security very seriously.