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Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

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Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#53
post #6

I like fastmail personally because aside from being a fast experience, I like their well written guides and articles. It helps me set stuff up without feeling like I'm just following instructions and helps me understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

I can't recommend them because they recycle email addresses when you stop paying for them. Not really something I can take seriously. They should just hold your email hostage until you start paying them again. Instead, they leave money on the table and create an amateur security failure.

We do have plans to stop recycling email addresses quite so quickly. Having said that, if you have your own domain (recommended by most people so you can move providers) you also don't get the namespace reserved forever if you stop paying. Domains get recycled too.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#54
post #9

Most important thing is to buy a domain so you can port your email address from provider to provider. I’ve had the same email address and several hosts over the years. I’m currently on Fastmail and find the service good.

Fastmail has worked well for me with custom domains. It's nice being able to create custom aliases for when an address is publicly visible e.g. GitHub so I know through what funnel emails are coming from.

Like others have said, the Android app is not worth installing unless you're okay with limited and, in some cases, poor functionality.

I suppose you can set it up with the Gmail or Outlook Android apps? I've never tried, as this defeats the purpose of not having those companies as your email provider :)

Still searching for a good Android mail app...

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#55
post #9

Most important thing is to buy a domain so you can port your email address from provider to provider. I’ve had the same email address and several hosts over the years. I’m currently on Fastmail and find the service good.

Another vote for fastmail. They even do a pretty decent job being a DNS host as well. Simple setup to add subdomains if you're already using them as your primary/sec NS.

Their static file hosting is great too. Automatic Let’s Encrypt support!

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#56

I've been very happy with Fastmail.

Another happy customer of Fastmail here, and these are my opinions why you should give it a try:

1. They often express their opinions on topics like security and privacy. Like how things impact their users, where they stand, and how they plan to do. As a user I am happy to see a company actively talk about hard topics like these.

2. While they are not the most stable software service I ever use, but they always provide timely update. They also write postmortem to explain what happened technically, what did they do, and their future plans. As a developer, I am appreciated when a software company spent extra effort to acknowledge and explain issues of their service.

3. Their business model is simple. I pay money, they provide service.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#57
There are so many threads like this and the answers usually boil down to the self hosting group and the other group who believes that paying someone to do the job is the right thing to do. I’m in the latter group and always recommend Fastmail. I migrated all of my families accounts there with multiple domains and couldn’t be happier. For something I use hours every day it’s well worth paying someone to keep it secure and online.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#58

I'd love to switch away from Gmail, but its security is so compelling that, afaik, nobody else comes close. How many other companies have Tavis Ormandy's on staff to do security audits for their users, let alone free users? Is there a single other email provider that gets security right to the extent Google does?

ProtonMail's security is formidable, but the messages are encrypted in such a way as to not be searchable.

If security is your concern and long-term search isn't, consider giving them a go. Great mobile app, too.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#60
Which service is best? The one you roll out on your own, in your rack, on your own servers in the basement. Unfortunately, configuring a complete end-to-end e-mail solution in 2018 is an incredibly complex affair. The hardest part is the SPAM filtering.

On the command line, I use pine with the maildir patch; in the browser, I recommend the open source version of "eGroupware", a complete replacement for Microsoft Outlook:

https://github.com/EGroupware/egroupware/blob/master/README....

https://www.egroupware.org/

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