Live data from Hacker News

Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

nationworldnews.com

21–30 of 127 posts

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#21

I migrated to Zoho back in January for email and opened a regular Google account for YouTube etc. Just waiting for them to kick me off now.

How did it go for you and how does Zoho compare? Did you migrate from free G suite specifically? Did you have custom domains?

It takes some getting used to. There are some rough edges, mainly with the UI and figuring out where things are hidden behind deep menus. Calendar sharing is not as straightforward. Otherwise it's been a good experience so far. I have 8 custom domains for about 8 users. Transition was easy too, you can do it from within zoho for the most part. The only thing that takes a bit of time is domain propagation.

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#22
post #10

Any suggestions on a stack if one wants to run their own mail server? Debian with postfix and some sort of round cube still the way to go? I am aware of what it entails regarding IP "cleaning", setting a reverse record, SPF and DKIM. Just looking for tips on the software stack side.

There is a hidden cost to this though. Running your own email server, or even having a lesser-known company manage your email server, can cause your emails to be sent to spam without any action on your part. You aren't notified when your email goes to a spam folder, so you always have to worry that the recipient of your emails didn't receive the email, even if you only ever send legitimate emails. If you stay on top…

The hidden cost of me keep using google is that all my mail is stored who knows where, can be take away at anytime, is read by who knows what and pricing may change at anytime as it has with this "will always be free" version...

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#23
Yeah, this is a pain and I hope there will be some good news soon. My family runs on this - the only advantage over free Gmail is that we can use our own domain name, and we're going to suddenly have to pay $42 per month (okay, $36 if I trim one of the accounts I hardly use). We've got loads of Photos, movie purchases etc which I don't want to lose, plus all the kids Android phones, 2 x Home, 2 x Chromecast.

Friends who use regular Gmail accounts get to use things like Family Link etc for parental approval/monitoring as well... which I'm still not going to be able to use.

Come on Google, please come up with a family service which allows you to use your own domain name. Pretty please! I'd still pay a few $ per month for it, especially if it's good on parental controls and monitoring.

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#24
> Google is holding all your old free G Suite accounts hostage

They are not holding these accounts hostage. You can export mail from Google. You can change your MX records to different servers.

I've been bit as much as anyone by Google killing products, but honestly, it's amazing they've kept this product free for so long. And in this case, the product isn't being killed; they've simply decided to start charging for it.

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#26
post #14
post #3

Yet another good, working service that Google shuts down for the almighty dollar

What free services do you operate?

Google doesn't operate "free services", they operate services in exchange for user data and advertising views.

A lot of the times it's a bait and switch. They give you a service in exchange for your data, then they pull the service away once they've got it.

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#27

Any suggestions on a stack if one wants to run their own mail server? Debian with postfix and some sort of round cube still the way to go? I am aware of what it entails regarding IP "cleaning", setting a reverse record, SPF and DKIM. Just looking for tips on the software stack side.

iredmail is good

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#28
So the last I heard about this, Google had relented to some extent and was going to offer some offramp for people who had data, purchases, etc. in an old free Apps for Domain/G Suite/Workspace account. They had a form you could submit to saying you wanted more information about those options. Has anyone heard any more on this front?

I don't mind paying someone else just to run email for my domain (or potentially even paying Google) but I'd like to offload my Android app purchases and all that kind of stuff I have on there.

Re: Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

#30
post #3

Yet another good, working service that Google shuts down for the almighty dollar

I don't even mind paying for it but the nature of the transition and the cost for the features is obscene. For example, I have a secondary address for business reasons and in the new g suite that has to be an "account" which costs money every month

As others have said, you can set up aliases / groups and those do not require additional accounts.

Also if you’re the only account then you can just configure a catch-all in the routing section so that anything@your domain goes to you. That’s no additional cost even on these basic accounts I believe.

I use this so I can also track by using a new address for each service (e.g. twitter@mydomain.com, ebay@mydomain.com, etc)

Post reply on HN