Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#561

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 7:10 AM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #187

nadont8 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FastMail is good, but it's very expensive. I'm waiting for more competition in this space. I think, as people turn away from Google (and thus Gmail), more competition will arise and we'll finally see fair prices.

I don't feel like FastMail is that expensive for most people. Obviously, compared to free, it's expensive. But in real terms, I pay $70 every 2 years for it - works out about £25 a year for me, which is about the price of a meal out. I think that's worth it for secure and powerful email. I've never found it to be expensive.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#562

Post by conatus » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 9:32 AM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #303

conatus wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While they are on par for email, with Fastmail being superior in certain ways, you do get a deal more value from the Google G Suite as you get a lot more besides email incorporated in the price, i.e, cloud drive, the applications themselves etc. Thinking though this for a project I'm working on with a tight budget I concluded for money related reasons I'd probably have to go with Google even though I'd prefer not to.

FastMail is more than just email. They include a drive like feature with the ability to make a basic website. I use G Suite for my side business and while it seems like a great deal because you get all these other apps, in practice, I have never used them, not once.

Oh really. Thanks for this. Will check it out.

We are heavy users of Google Sheets and Docs already so I know these will be used immediately.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#563

Post by jaakl » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 9:41 AM UTC

In EU at least you can switch mobile operators and keep your number; also there is some bank account porting system (not sure if you keep your number). Same way E-mail porting should be also required, so I can keep my gmail address. If mobile operators could forced give up "their owned" number prefixes, and create (pretty expensive) technical solution, then why email domain holders cannot be forced to do same?

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#564

Post by obahareth » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 9:57 AM UTC

I would say ProtonMail:

https://protonmail.com/

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#565

Post by dotancohen » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 10:32 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #321

dotancohen wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've never lost a domain name I see.

As long as you're paying for it, there's very little probability of that happening. I got my personal domain (alexn.org) in approximately 2008, so that's older than most people's Gmail accounts ;-)

Well, my Gmail account dates to 2004 but my personal domain dates to December 2000! I've lost domains that I continued to pay for, in fact I'm pretty sure that Zoho was paying for their domains as well.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#566

Post by mikekchar » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 10:46 AM UTC

sumek83 wrote: post #546

mikekchar wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although available in Japan where I live, there is literally no way to transfer money out of my bank. You may think it odd, but getting a bank account in a foreign country is actually hard. The bank I use is not my choice, but the choice of my former employer -- that's how I got the account. When I set up my own consulting company, I ended up using the same bank. I'm trying get out of it. I have an account with an of…

And revolut? https://www.revolut.com/jp/?lang=en

I would somehow have to get money into the account... It's the same problem all over again ;-) I suppose I could put the BTC that I mined heating my house when CPU mining was a thing in there...

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#567

Post by abrowne » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:11 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #383

samlewis wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Make sure you setup SPF/DKIM/DMARC and you should be fine 99% of the time. - Disclosure, I work for dmarcian

Which FastMail does if you have them host your DNS!

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#568

Post by unstatusthequo » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:35 PM UTC

Protonmail.com

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#569

Post by cntlzw » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

posteo.de

Yes, this costs a small amount of money.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#570

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

gsich wrote: post #544

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had no end of trouble. I'm not the only one according to reports from others online.

Unused IP, set PTR (seems important) and MX, SPF and DKIM, although I'm not sure how relevant the last one was. I can imagine that Gmail will block you if you try to send mail from an IP that was previusly used to spam.

Couldn't really work out why Gmail wanted to block me, yes obvs using SPF/DKIM/etc. - long trusted domain (15y), never any spam, whitelisted on client side. MS blocked it according to their third-party system because it was associated with another IP address [ie other IP was once used by same ISP] that had once had spam on it (wasn't currently blacklisted in any SBL).

There's no way to check before you build out the system, so unless you have an easy way to change IP and ISP then I'd be cautious.