Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cloudflare for email people, its the best and free
Can you clarify this statement please?
I'm confused too. Cloudflare is a DNS, anti-ddos, CDN, and light cloud
Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
201–210 of 549 posts
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#202Register your own domain and use that for your email, and you'll no longer be held hostage by Google. Takes almost no effort and will cost you a few dollars a month.
But what do you actually use as the email host? If you just set up your own mail server, you're almost certainly going to have everything you send go straight to spam. You still need to register with someone like google, or Proton, etc.
I have done as OP suggested and the main benefit is that I can move my email elsewhere.
For now my email is with Apple, since they offers email hosting as part of the icloud+ (or whatever its called). If they decide to die/enshittify, then I can move to another host without having to change any contacts.
One the other hand, since I did use my bare gmail for some years, I am still stuck with it, in case I have some service that depends on it.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#203There is one way to sign up for a gmail account that does not require this: get an old chromebook out of the trash or for $20, then go through the account setup process on ChromeOS. It will create a google/gmail account that does not require use of a smartphone.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#204People complain a lot about Gmail, but honestly I kind of understand Google's plight here. They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free . If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used. But it's expensive, complicated and time-consuming to maintain - and both a source of and recipient of endless waves of spam and scams.…
You think goole is the victim here? Poor google, owning gmail.
You know, if it's such a bad deal they can stop owning it any time they want. They already lied about it - I was told I would never have to delete email, and turns out I had to.
I don't care either way, I moved to tuta last year.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#205People complain a lot about Gmail, but honestly I kind of understand Google's plight here. They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free . If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used. But it's expensive, complicated and time-consuming to maintain - and both a source of and recipient of endless waves of spam and scams.…
> But it's expensive, complicated and time-consuming to maintain - and both a source of and recipient of endless waves of spam and scams. It's an endless pile of data to hold onto, FOREVER, as well.
They should let others do email. The more email service providers we have the better it is for everyone
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#206This could well be to help prevent sms pumping — where someone makes money by receiving smss to a particular set of numbers. Requiring the user to first send an sms breaks the economics that type of fraud.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#207Gmail has been evil both for client privacy as they use email scanning for marketing purposes, and for 'spam' filters that reject legitimate emails. The fact that they're introducing QR/SMS/MMS/whatever they want is actually an interesting signal, because it will harm the customer experience, which might result in the growth of responsible paid email services.
The only “real” competition for Google Workspace is Microsoft if you need a full collaboration solution beyond just email, and 99.999% of customers of such hosted solutions need that full solution. It’s why Dropbox worked even though hacker news users probably roll their own sync solution.
Proton has calendars, drive and meet.
And is not a US business, which is an important selling point to several companies and public institutions here in Europe.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#208People complain a lot about Gmail, but honestly I kind of understand Google's plight here. They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free . If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used. But it's expensive, complicated and time-consuming to maintain - and both a source of and recipient of endless waves of spam and scams.…
You assume there will be no takers to replace Gmail, whereas there probably will be hundreds waiting to do it.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#209People complain a lot about Gmail, but honestly I kind of understand Google's plight here. They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free . If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used. But it's expensive, complicated and time-consuming to maintain - and both a source of and recipient of endless waves of spam and scams.…
Do you have any idea of how much they can datamine from an email service? Just making a special parser for amazon emails can give google a realtime insight on the ecommerce space.
For a while Amazon stopped giving detail about the purchased items in their emails, to prevent Google from doing exactly that.
A year or two ago they returned to full detail. I've always wondered if it was customer pressure or a backroom deal with Amazon was reached.
I kind of doubt that Google would cave to the former, right?
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#210People complain a lot about Gmail, but honestly I kind of understand Google's plight here. They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free . If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used. But it's expensive, complicated and time-consuming to maintain - and both a source of and recipient of endless waves of spam and scams.…
> They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free. If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used. Not even remotely true. They regularly shut down products and services with impunity. If Gmail cost more than the data they directly or indirectly mine and sell from their users, Gmail wouldn't exist either.
Yes it is remotely true. Name one thing they have shut off that a large number of people actually used and it was important. We all joke about Google dropping things and yes they have, but saying they can just drop Gmail is.. well, insane.