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Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

googleenterprise.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#431

Post by alanctgardner2 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #413
alanctgardner2 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A company of one definitely needs the most reliable communications it can get Is that clear enough for you? Self-hosting is a poor idea because screwing up once costs you real money, probably more than you'd spend on a year of hosting at a small business.

Sssoooo you used a story about losing business when using gmail for hosting to say that self-hosting was bad? I'm sorry, I still don't understand.

My point is, I made a minor mistake in configuring GMail. That was my own fault. Multiply that amount of configuration by a million, and see if you don't make a mistake. Do ongoing maintenance, and see if you don't make a mistake. Keep everything secure, make sure you're whitelisted by every major provider, and ensure no messages ever bounce one way or another.

My point is, fucking up is bad and easily costs you money. Giving yourself infinitely more ways to fuck up to save $50 a year is stupid. I don't know how I can put it more plainly than that. At this point you're pretty much just trolling.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#432

Post by atourgates »

gtt wrote: post #72

On a related note could dear hn crowd suggest email provider (maybe paid, say up to 30-40$ annually) caring about my privacy a little bit more? Really delete my messages when I want to is a good start. Google is all good but I feel I should not put all of my emails in one account..

I setup one small business on http://atmail.com/products/ cloud - which seems to work pretty well. It's $2/user/month, most beautiful webmail client I've seen, calendars, contacts, etc...

And, if you'd rather run your own server, you can of course just buy their software. But I don't have any experience running that.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#433

Post by thisisdallas »

wilfra wrote: post #315
blhack wrote: post #245

Huh. Just want to point out that one of the main reasons we're using google apps at my company is that I use google apps for hosting my personal email. When it came time to make a decision on that, and I am the one who makes that decision, I chose google apps because it was already familiar to me. Poor choice, imho. I'm curious what the actual overhead is for people like me. I have 1 account (as in: 1 email address)…

Never thought I'd see the day when Google forced me into Microsofts' arms. Wow. http://domains.live.com was actually far simpler and faster to setup than a free Google Apps account - which I've done probably 20 times and still struggle to figure out each time. MS version took me about two minutes and was extremely easy to understand - and I can't recall the last time I've signed up for an MS web product. Probably Hot…

I am pretty sure you stole this post right out of my head. First it was the removal of the left sidebar search criteria e.g. search by date as well as removing the image search options e.g. search by image size. Now, Google takes away their free apps plan. I am about to launch a startup/service and the integration of Google apps was going to be part of it. Now, it looks like the integration of Microsoft's live/office services are going to take the place of Google Apps.

Oh well...

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#434

Post by tikhonj »

fakeer wrote: post #354
tikhonj wrote: post #150

Wow, now I feel really lucky that I signed up for a free account just a couple of weeks ago. Then again, being forced to find my own email hosting would have made me less dependent on Google, which may have been a good thing...

Agree. I really think it's a bad idea to be tied to an ecosystem for all your needs. I, for one, would sure want to Keep all my chat contacts to some other service than Google/Gmail, Calendar with an independent provider. Unfortunately, unlike Calendar and some other services services like SNS and Chat are dependent upon what and where your other friends are. I would love it if I can have my own chat setup and I can…

Google chat actually uses Jabber[1]. I believe nothing stops you from using some other Jabber service with GChat.

[1]: http://www.jabber.org/

Now Facebook, of course, is another story. My impression is that they use a technology based on Jabber but not compatible with anything outside of Facebook. I could be wrong--I simply never use Facebook chat.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#435

Post by davidandgoliath »

zmmmmm wrote: post #24

I really hate it when companies try to sugar coat a decision that is all downside for their customers. It may be really hard to do, but Google should just come out and say it: there is no upside for this to anyone except Google . It is not about giving you a better experience or making things more straightforward . It is all about Google deciding to maximize their profits at the expense of their users. That's fine, i…

Referring to unpaying users as customers is hilarious. Users are not google's customers, they're google's product.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#436

Post by davidandgoliath »

ramsevak wrote: post #293

Actually they forcing small business to move towards hotmail. Spending $500/year for e-mail service is not worth for small (offline) business.

Just over a dollar day isn't worth it? I'd disagree. But with that said there are reasonable alternatives out there for less.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#437

Post by davidandgoliath »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #262

I hope they don't do this with Google Analytics next. Not just because it is a great product to get for free (I'm a massive fan vs other systems). To me it would seem wrong to come into the market @ free, wipe out or reduce much of the competitors and then expect everyone to pay up now they have a market dominance.

They won't. They get data on 100% of your user's / visitors this way and can use that data to advertise to them via their search engine.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#438

Post by meaty »

wildcard0 wrote: post #426
jeltz wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually all SSH attacks are of the nature mysql:mysql or mysql:password, so you should be safe as long as you can trust your users not to be stupid. The attackers prefer quantity over quality when looking for targets. And if you use SSH keys you should be totally safe. Remember to apply security fixes though since the automatic attacks also probe for ancient versions of SSH servers.

If you're worried about ssh brute force or just don't like all the noise in your logs, moving the port tends to drop off about 95% of them. In addition, running iptables tarpit rules (or your OS equivalent) tends to kill the rest fairly quickly.

Annoyingly I did this once and then promptly forgot the port number, resulting in nmap time :(

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#439

Post by ikailan »

spankalee wrote: post #102
rgsteele wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with this. I signed up for Google Apps for the sole purpose of having an email address at my own domain, and I always wished I could just have that email address supported by my existing Gmail account, rather than having to deal with the hassle of yet another account somewhere. I would gladly have paid for that. Google's always been pretty good about making sure you aren't locked in to their servic…

Yes, there's really two parts to a "vanity" domain: I want a nice looking email address, and I want to own my email address no matter what service I use. It's nice to be able to also use an awesome service like Gmail on top of it. It's worth some value to me, but $50/user/year is a bit much for a family of ~5 light email users.

I think this is only for new customers, not existing ones.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#440

Post by markokocic »

mdasen wrote: post #189
yanw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from this and previous threads people here are either distrusting of free services or aren't willing to pay for the goods (not everyone obviously) which is quite the paradox. I'll chalk this one down to the startup nature of this community, seeing as some are probably involved with competing products or are developing some, but the matter of fact is that this announcement is perfectly reasonable: “vanilla” gm…

You're correct to point out that there's no swindling or bait-and-switch happening here. I get to keep my Google Apps account for free. Google did the right thing. I think what we're reacting to is that the free tier of Google Apps doesn't seem any different (from a cost perspective) from regular Gmail. They're giving me the same storage, showing me the same ads, providing the same no phone support, etc. The real dif…

> For anyone who might be looking for an option for the future, Zoho offers a free tier for up to 3 inboxes: https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html.

I actually started with Zoho a few years ago before switching to Google Apps. But, inability to sync contact and calendar, and use activesync with my android phone was a deal breaker for me.

I see that they offer Active Sync in free tier too. Does it actually work reliably?

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