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Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

9to5google.com

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Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#211

Post by [deleted] »

wayoutthere wrote: post #11
Normille wrote: post #2

Is this for real? I've not received that email from Google. If so, I guess it's time to setup my own mailserver. I've been meaning to do it for a long while now anyway, as I'm not comfortable with the thought that Google is data-harvesting all my and my family's emails. But with mailservers being notoriously difficult to setup and configure securely, I keep putting it off. Time to get reading a few tutorials, methink…

Email is increasingly difficult to do yourself with the proliferation of anti-spam and anti-malware protection, combined with consolidated usage of SaaS apps for email across the board. Most of the IP address space in AWS and Azure is blacklisted by spam filters (as is customer IP space from most ISPs if they don’t already filter SMTP traffic), so unless you want to roll the dice on config settings for everyone you s…

[deleted]

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#212

Post by jasonsync »

dylan604 wrote: post #174
jasonsync wrote: post #128

A long, long time ago I registered a domain name for a close group of friends, and the 4 of us have been happily use the free Gsuite for email @thedomain ever since. From what I can tell we'd will have to start paying CAD $31.20 per month for 4 users. Seems pricy for our use case?

do the friends only email each other on the domain, or use it for all things email? if doing it just amongst the friends, you can drop to just one account, then share the credentials amongst the group. use it like freedom fighters to just write drafts to each other.

It's their primary personal email account for everything. Mine too.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#213

Post by bsimpson »

acegopher wrote: post #140
signal11 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more reasonable approach would’ve been to offer custom domains as part of Google One, whose pricing is far more family-friendly. Eg, Google One provides 100GB of storage (shareable with your family Google accounts) for £16/year. Just let those who want that to link it to custom domains — Apple (iCloud+) and MS (MS 365) already offer this.

That would be a great solution. I would imagine many "legacy free" users are old GMail for Domains users who just want the same Google One functionality of @gmail.com addresses but with a custom domain.

I don't even use my domain name for anything but email anymore, but I certainly don't want to give up the address I've been known by for a dozen years.

As you can imagine, my username @gmail.com gets too much spam to be usable.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#214

Post by greatpatton »

edoceo wrote: post #190
q1w2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of the users of the free product just wanted to have their group/family/etc to use gmail with a custom domain. That product is still free at other providers. We'll just be moving.

It will cost you dozens of hours to move your 10+ years of digital stuff. The big G has done a real pinch here.

Yes but for my family of 4 it would cost me 4612= 288$ per year! That's about 50% of my yearly unlimited fiber internet access (that also come with a free email).

For me that's the last nail in the coffin, will make sure in the future to keep away from all Google product (private or professional).

What is strange is how in a few year Google went from the cool company where everybody wanted to work to something that can almost be compared to a tobacco company.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#215

Post by quesomaster9000 »

deckard1 wrote: post #192
cyberge99 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found Zoho to be fantastic. They offer good value, some extra shit if you want it, and you can bring your own domain. I think it’s about $35 USD a year.

Zoho offers a "Free Forever Plan" which allows one domain. It's excellent. I actually prefer their web UI to Gmail.

"Free Forever" somehow isn't legally binding, every year many companies renege on their promises or surreptitiously find ways to de-grandfather their customers plans via BS semantics or outright deceit.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#216

Post by mdcfrancis »

herodoturtle wrote: post #91

What are some (paid) alternatives to using G-Suite for emails? Context: We're a small but relatively old SaaS company. Been happily using G Suite's free tier since day 1 - only for email. This announcement is a tad disappointing, but as other commenters have said, 10 years of a free product is pretty great. We'll likely upgrade to Google's paid tier, but out of curiosity, since we're switching to a paid service, we m…

Amazon WorkMail, part of the AWS suite of tools, $4/month/user last I looked. If you host your domain on route53 setup is painless. It's an exchange server compatible service and provides some MDM functionality.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#217

Post by nighthawk454 »

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further".

The problem here is there's no way out now. If 15 years ago you made the mistake of wanting gasp a domain for your email, you're basically roped into paying now.

Almost everything a free G Suite user wants is identical to the free @gmail account, which is remaining free. Except the custom domain. Fine - but there's no way to just lose the custom domain at this point.

Over the years, the Google account has grown in importance and things tied to it. It's fairly un-viable to migrate it to an @gmail account. Especially for your whole family.

So, the options are nuke all your Google accounts and suffer the consequences, or pay up.

Not like we didn't see this coming of course, but still sucks.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#218

Post by herodoturtle »

jason0597 wrote: post #111
cpach wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail.

Seconding Fastmail. I pay about £45/yr for it and I am very satisfied with all the features it provides. What I most value however is the no-bullshit attitude from the Fastmail team. No random killing of features, no ads, no sudden UI changes. It might feel simple and old, but I like it simple and old.

Heya we're looking into migrating to Fastmail based on the recommendations here (including yours).

Have you had any issues with your outgoing mails being flagged as spam?

That's a (perhaps slightly paranoid) concern of ours, given Google's clout.

And to be clear, I'm not talking about spammy / bulk emails. I mean your standard day-to-day personalised emails (customer support etc.).

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#219

Post by tagrun »

q1w2 wrote: post #179
yaacov wrote: post #81

> As of December 6, 2012, Google stopped offering the free edition to new customers. 10 years of a free product is not bad

99% of the users of the free product just wanted to have their group/family/etc to use gmail with a custom domain. That product is still free at other providers. We'll just be moving.

What are those other free providers?

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#220

Post by SamCritch »

Oh this is a monster pain in the ass. All 5 family members are using this service for mail, Android phones/apps, TV, movies etc, plus I have a couple of extra accounts (e.g. separate email account for e-commerce orders). I already pay for extra Drive space and I buy movies frequently enough.

All I want is to be able to use my own domain for my family, and carry on using the current settings on Android etc. Now I'll be paying over $40/mo for it.

Can't Google just come up with an "own domain for families" version at a lower price, and make it work with the child protection features?

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