Ask HN: If you were to ditch Gmail, what would be your alternative to email?

I like Protonmail, I use it. But one should realize that search works only on the headers, because, well, the content of your mail is encrypted ... doh!

Re: Ask HN: If you were to ditch Gmail, what would be your alternative to email?

#8

Post by fwgwgwgch » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 4:19 AM UTC

How does it matter if most people are still using Gmail? Email is a very open and widespread protocol. I'd continue using email 100%.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to ditch Gmail, what would be your alternative to email?

#9

Post by 8_hours_ago » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 4:38 AM UTC

I switched from Gmail to Fastmail a few years ago and couldn’t be happier.

I much prefer to pay for a product than be the product.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to ditch Gmail, what would be your alternative to email?

#10

Post by benjaminl » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 4:49 AM UTC

Fastmail is a great standards based Gmail alternative. They use Cryus Imap under the hood and give back to the community. It is both powerful and easy to use. They were the only ones to be able to accommodate my formally self hosted overly complicated email setup. For the truly esoteric needs, they support custom Sieve code. [1]

For business purposes Office 365 is great. It has the full power of Exchange under the hood. (I was recently able to setup forwarding only email addresses to external email addresses, without needing new licenses or setting up mailboxes.)

[0] - https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/12/why-we-contribute/

[1] - https://www.fastmail.com/help/technical/sieve.html