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Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

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Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#331

Post by geowwy »

vbezhenar wrote: post #299
geowwy wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$3 per month is very costly?

I'm using my own domain, so it's $5 per month. Considering that I'm using VPS for less than $1 per month, that price seems absurdly high. I would consider paid mail for $5/year with 25GB storage and fastmail features, otherwise free mail looks much better.

Even $5 is not bad, I’m guessing most HN readers wouldn’t miss $5 a month.

Anyway services like Facebook extract around that amount from you via targeted ads, I’m happy to pay if it allows to me to isolate myself from that a bit.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#332

Post by bensonn »

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.

ZOHO!

FREE PLAN - Up to five users. 5GB/User, 25MB attachment limit.

This is to have all 5 users in one "organization".

ZOHO offers full G-suite replacement, free. They have many more applications too.

I used the free plan for a few years, then started paying $24 per year for more storage. What you get for $24 per year is amazing. What you get with the free plan is amazing. Their business model is to impress you with their products enough for you move to a paying plan. They do NOT make money harvesting your personal information and selling it third-parties.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#333

Post by tomerbd »

i'm going to miss inbox so much.

1. Reminders together with emails in same inbox. 2. Can change Reminders text. 3. Bundling. 4. Snooze Repeat. 5. Snooze Location (RIP). 6. Google Keep Reminders.

Not sure how i'll manage my life back after March 2019.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#334

Post by rcruzeiro »

kaivi wrote: post #257
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

I second this. Their service was exceptional for 3+ years I've been with FastMail. Got many small businesses I've worked with to migrate. Only thing which annoys me is that their push-enabled iOS app does not support multiple accounts. It has been like that for years, I've heard that a new app was in the making, but nothing came out yet.

I use Airmail as my client (both on iOS and Mac OS) specifically for the push.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#335

Post by geofft »

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.

Because the service provider receives the unencrypted email and can choose to save a copy, encrypt it to a different key, etc. This was the scam Lavabit pulled, and the government called them on their bluff and asked for a copy of the key and Lavabit had no legal ability to refuse.

If the threat model does not include a government with the ability to use legal process, it needs to be defined more precisely. In general the US government can use legal process in the US and just straight-up hack into things elsewhere (who's going to raise a diplomatic incident over it? Russia is literally poisoning people, nobody cares, and their military is less powerful than the US's). If your threat model is other governments or just unrelated attackers like advertisers, there are more straightforward approaches.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#336

Post by bensonn »

pmorici wrote: post #239
charmides wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think paid email services are a great idea, but $50 a year and 2 GB of storage for Fastmail seems expensive to me. Why not something closer to five or ten bucks a year? Can someone explain to me why this type of pricing makes sense?

The Fastmail pricing tiers are $3, $5, and $9 per month which is $36, $60, and $108 per year respectively. If you look at their primary competition their prices are on par or slightly better. Here is a sampling... Google G Suite: $5, $10, and $25 per month per user. Microsoft: $4, $8, or $12.50 per month per user. ZOHO: $3, $7 per month per user billed yearly. [0] https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html [1] https://pr…

ZOHO also offers the free plan.

FREE PLAN Up to five users. 5GB/User, 25MB attachment limit. Web access only. Email hosting for single domain.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#337

Post by geofft »

samlewis wrote: post #315
_jcwu wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Huh, I haven't had that problem in about 7 years of using a custom domain name. Maybe the distinction is that mine is a .com? I feel like enough businesses themselves use custom domain names that dropping unknown .coms would break a ton of legitimate B2B traffic, but perhaps .me less so.

How did you notice this?

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#338

Post by kameit00 »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #265

I recently switched from GSuite to MXRoute.com after being recommended the service here on HN. Unlimited accounts/subdomains and 5GB space for $30/year.

I also use MxRoute. No problems so far. I would recommend it too, if you don't want to run you own email server. Also push works with macOS and iOS.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#339

Post by ataturk »

bad_user wrote: post #314
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'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 i…

The enemy? That is an easy answer: The enemy is the public/private parternship! It's not just the NSA, not just corporations. No, it is the seamless melding of the two which are wreaking havoc on our civilization. Freedom of speech is on the chopping block right now today.

Even HN has shadow-banned and otherwise taken part in censoring me and only because I express unpopular opinions about government and business. I get 1 post a day on this account. Why? What are they so afraid of?

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#340

Post by brantam »

bad_user wrote: post #323
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

+1 for FastMail — I've been using it for the last 2 years and I've got nothing but praise for them. ProtonMail seems to be another popular alternative, but their E2E encryption claims sound like snake oil to me, but snake oily as it is, it's still a better choice than Gmail.

I'm a Protonmail user. E2E isn't snake oil but it does assume you have an alternative secure channel for password exchange.

I like the fact that my mail archive is encrypted even though I don't send encrypted mail to others.

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