Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 589 posts

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#311

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

If you want to get your hands dirty https://mailinabox.email/ - The downside being no iOS push email as long you can put up with with that or you jerry-rig something else for push (say a simple a simple Slack bot to say "Hey you got mail from XYZ" and you then open mail.app yourself) or just live with the 15 min pull you will be fine. Have auto updates enabled and hosted on AWS with an RDNS record and not had any issues with it since.

If you don't want to get your hands dirty or you can't live without iOS push email then FastMail - Downside being $50/year (if you want to use your own domain).

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#312

Post by bluehatbrit »

BlindRabbit wrote: post #39
rgovostes wrote: post #23

I'd like to switch to Fastmail, but I have a handful of seldom-used secondary accounts (e.g., for family members), and it doesn't make sense to pay $5/mo/each when they're free on G Suite. Their pricing structure is designed for organizations or single users, but somehow my use case falls in between. It seems a bit off that my household can stream as many movies as we want for $11/mo, or have unlimited access to an e…

I had the exact same problem. Then I found https://www.migadu.com/ "Have as many email addresses on as many domains you need, anytime. No extra costs. All your projects, ideas, employees, family members and IoT devices are welcome. Pets too. Migadu is a radically different, independent email hosting from Switzerland. We do not count your domains, mailboxes, gigabytes or teeth."

I've been using migadu for nearly two years now. I've got multiple domains hooked up with no fuss. Their service is reliable, I've only had 1 down-time issue I can remember with their service going down but it only seemed to last 20 minutes and I don't believe I lost any emails during it.

The only downside I've seen is they don't have 2FA for individual mail accounts. They do have it for the top level account management UI though which is the most important thing for me.

The support team is also great, I've not had many issues but when I have I often end up emailing the same few people and they respond very quickly (I am in an EU timezone though).

I'm incredibly happy with their quiet and high quality service.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#313

Post by ashelmire »

ersiees wrote: post #300
brongondwana wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are moving away from Amsterdam - so it will be full copies on both sides of the USA, and nothing in Amsterdam any more.

Why isn’t it actually possible to just encrypt saved emails on server? So that government does not have access. Couldn’t one use a hash of the password as key for the data for the data and not save that hash to check password but another one. This way (practically), at least if the password is not eavesdropped and saved by the mail provider, it would be much harder to give away emails.

Without saving a hashed password, you can’t authenticate users. End to end encryption like what you really want requires the data to be decrypted by the recipient (using a key or password).

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#314

Post by bad_user »

simfoo wrote: post #159
lvillani wrote: post #86

FastMail. It's one of the few third party hosts to support push email on iOS with the native Mail app (it's a custom protocol based on APNS), since Mail doesn't implement IMAP IDLE [1]. They are also the main sponsors behind the JMAP protocol [2] and some open source projects such as the Cyrus IMAP server. [1]: https://fastmail.blog/2016/12/21/what-we-talk-about-when-we-... [2]: https://jmap.io

One thing to keep in mind about Fastmail is that all their servers are hosted in the US and they have no plan about changing this (I asked). Post-Snowden this means you can be quite sure that all mails will end up being analysed by the US authorities

I'm an European, but I don't mind.

First of all when making such a choice, you have to identify who the enemy is.

If you're talking about global enemies, like the NSA, then IMO without end-to-end encryption you're screwed. And if you're targeted directly, you're screwed regardless, given they have the capability to use whatever vulnerabilities they can find in your router, your phone, your OS, your browser, etc. If it's connected to the Internet, especially if you're being targeted, you're screwed.

Also many European countries have signed on joint cooperation agreements with US intelligence agencies. If for example you're using servers in the UK, it's in no way safer, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

So back to who is the enemy?

For me it's not the NSA or our local intelligence agencies. If I'm being wronged, I've got legal ways to fight back and I don't really care about the NSA.

What I care about is being _profiled_ by unscrupulous companies that may end up selling that data to other actors that may harm my well being. For example insurance companies could deny insurance if they discovered you smoked cigarettes 10 years ago. Or banks changing your credit score based on who your friends are. Or supermarket chains discovering that your daughter is pregnant before everybody else does. This shit is already happening!

I think the general discourse doesn't go in the direction that it should go. Organizations like EFF have been historically anti-government, but very pro corporate and private companies. Which is why I don't trust them fully.

Identify that enemy. If you're an European for example, that enemy is probably not the NSA.

I do prefer non-US alternatives btw, whenever I get that choice. I do so out of a desire to encourage competition and to reward EU companies that do well, as a "voting with your wallet" thing.

But choosing to reject non-US companies for the reason that some of their servers are located in the US, that's frankly childish. Servers located in the US are cost effective. Either provide better alternatives, or otherwise these services will not be able to compete on the global market from a price or latency perspective.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#315

Post by samlewis »

_jcwu wrote: post #243
vivan wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with FastMail is that if you stop paying for your email address, they recycle it. This means that someone else could potentially buy your old email address (if you migrate away) and use it for nefarious purposes.

You should be using your own domain anyways.

Last time I tried this, I found a lot of corporate spam filters seemed to (silently) drop my emails, so I went back to using GMail out of frustration.

Is there anything you do that helps with this? I was using GApps and I don't think my domain name was too spammy (samlewis.me).

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#316

Post by TsomArp »

pmorici wrote: post #308
TsomArp wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the problem is that fastmail only offers mail and calendar, while gsuite offers, word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, online forms, and photos...

Fastmail has a photos/files/website feature so it isn't just email. I use G suite now for my side business and I've never used any of the features besides email since I have Office on my machine.

It obviously depends on your use case, your personal situation, etc. But for me it is very hard to justify $5 per user per month (we are 5 so that is $25), when I can pay $10 to Microsoft for Office 365 for 5 users, and get, besides email, chat, and drive, word, excel, powerpoint, and skype with 60 mins of international calls.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#318

Post by fps_doug »

jsmeaton wrote: post #219
simfoo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind about Fastmail is that all their servers are hosted in the US and they have no plan about changing this (I asked). Post-Snowden this means you can be quite sure that all mails will end up being analysed by the US authorities

I dont think this is true. I don’t believe there is any evidence that the US government is analysing all emails hosted by all US companies. Rather, if the US government asks for a particular individuals emails the provider must grant the request provided there is a valid (possibly secret) warrant.

Post Snowden I wouldn't safely assume that the govt/three letter agencies don't do something just because there is no evidence. Snowden was years ago, the NSA surely didn't sit on their hands in the meantime, especially now with SSL being deployed everywhere. "Oh right what we did was evil and wrong, let's stop everyone"

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#319

Post by lallysingh »

mikejb wrote: post #305
raffael-vogler wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mails will end up being analysed by the US authorities I read somewhere that servers located in the US are actually safer from drag net eavesdropping b/c a judicial order is required.

IIUC, no judicial order is required for collecting. Only for looking at collected data; but agencies get creative around these processes, so I wouldn't count on legal protection from snooping.

But there's nothing to circumvent if the host isn't in the USA.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#320

Post by bambataa »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #127
bambataa wrote: post #103

I use mailbox.org. It’s sligtly cheaper than FastMail but there’s probably not much in it. It’s been a good service so far. I have no complaints.

Tried that. However, because they refuse to let their spam filter look at mail contents , it’s worthless. Other than that, it’s acceptable and custom domains are possible, too. Many of my mail addresses have been around for decades and receive substantial amounts of spam. Google correctly deals with that. Mailbox.org does not. In fact, during the week I experimented with it, their filter didn’t clear away a single sp…

I've not had a spam problem with them, but I did set up a new domain at the same time so the addresses I'm using have only been around a year or so.
Post reply on HN