I haven't read all the comments but so far from what I have read I haven't found anyone mentioning Protonmail. Is it bad? Or not that known to people?
Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
341–350 of 589 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#342Earlier 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.
I do this and make a new alias for everyone I give an address to (such as hn@domain.com). It can be interesting to see who leaks/sell your email address. You can also shut down alias that get out of control.
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#343Does anyone know a (preferably self-hosted, but can be commercial) mail client that is as as good Gmail for power users? I always found it rather straightforward have a custom domain and even operate my own mail server, but haven't been able to do the same for the client. The features most important to me are: - Gmails speed and accuracy in search, especially on large mailboxes (100k+ emails) - this one is usually th…
How about Zoho mail
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does Fastmail provide any kind of "bundling" or "priority inbox" features? Since using Inbox on Android, I can't imagine going back to being notified about every single email. Automatic bundling of messages and the custom rules that you can then set on those bundles is a killer feature. If nobody comes along with a decent alternative before Inbox is shutdown then I don't know what I'll do!
I don't know if fast mail provides it out of the box but I have started to test out spark: https://sparkmailapp.com/ as a replacement for Inbox. While it is a bit from as good as Inbox it can get the job done, and has bundling. I simply set it up to archive when swiping (which is what Inbox seems to be doing). However, it's notifications are far from as good and you can't archive straight from the notification, which…
FYI: They store your credentials on their servers. Its not like outlook/thunderbird where you credentials are stored locally.
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#345For personal mail, Zoho is hard to beat. Free up to 5GB and $36/year for up to 30GB. They also communicate very well about any downtimes, disruption, which is extremely rare. Also, there is real customer support. I've accidentally deleted spam messages and they recovered it within hours after shooting one email.
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#346FastMail. 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
Does Fastmail provide any kind of "bundling" or "priority inbox" features? Since using Inbox on Android, I can't imagine going back to being notified about every single email. Automatic bundling of messages and the custom rules that you can then set on those bundles is a killer feature. If nobody comes along with a decent alternative before Inbox is shutdown then I don't know what I'll do!
This would be my complaint having had a quick look at Fastmail. Their mail client provides only the most basic of email functionality - folders, filters, contacts etc. It seems like you're paying a monthly subscription for privacy when you may as well host your own if you don't need any features beyond what IMAP offers as standard.
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 genera…
Calling Lavabit a scam is a bit of a stretch. They, by all appearances, genuinely tried to offer email as secure as it could be, given the limitations of the protocol, and when pressured to give up the keys chose instead to inform their users and fold the business.
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#348FastMail. 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
While you're absolutely right, details that are sensitive in nature should be encrypted using end-to-end encryption. Otherwise you won't be safe regardless of email provider, as the other correspondents will often be using a US email provider anyway.
If your threat model includes an actual threat from organizations like the NSA, then I'd say you have bigger problems than the choice of email provider.
EDIT: I self host.
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#349For personal mail, Zoho is hard to beat. Free up to 5GB and $36/year for up to 30GB. They also communicate very well about any downtimes, disruption, which is extremely rare. Also, there is real customer support. I've accidentally deleted spam messages and they recovered it within hours after shooting one email.
Umm, aren't you worried that they're able to restore DELETED emails? Just curious.
Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
#350Is there an open source email client which supports a conversation view similar to Gmail's? I find that to be an amazingly useful feature. The other thing Gmail does which has a lot of potential is message labeling (e.g., newsletters automatically go into a separate tab/folder).
Mutt, threading.
Most mailers, actually, including basic ones such as Sylpheed.