Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#461

Post by Wicher » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 11:45 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #272

jrockway wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run my own one-user email system. The hosting alone cost $240 a year. And I had to spend a lot of time configuring exim4 (and spamassassin and clam-av), figuring out which email indexer to use, setting up offlineimap, running cron jobs to archive mailing lists, coercing a friend to run a secondary MX for me, etc., etc. I didn't enjoy it all. And no matter what I did to reduce spam, about 10 messages a day a…

Not to mention that you have to pay to be 'recognised' so that your emails aren't autobounced by some enterprises. I have a friend that runs his own domain email for himself and friends and it's surprising to hear just how complex it can be just to get mail accepted. I can't recall if it was a whitelist or a certificate or what, but I do remember at one stage he was happy because he found a way around having to pay a…

I've been running a mailserver on my domestic DSL line for almost ten years now. Apart from my private domains it also hosted some domains for organizations, with mailing lists.

Last year I moved and my IP address changed (ISP didn't). I expected to lose the "reputation" the previous one had built up. But I did not have any problems whatsoever. I do hear rumors like yours every now and again but I have a hard time believing them.

I think that large email providers, the likes of Gmail/Hotmail, actually look at the email addresses / domains / servers that their clients send email to. Then they assign trust to those tokens. If you're a large provider, you can do many things with the data you get from your own customer's behaviour. How about looking at accounts that have been in use for some time, seen regular web interface action, and send email to other @hotmail/gmail accounts that actually get read and not flagged spam? If those accounts send mail to my mailserver, then my mail server / domain must have something good going for it. Well that's what I would do if I were running a huge setup anyway...

As for incoming spam: I'm using various postfix tricks, greylisting, and dspam. I have no problems. I should write a howto ;-)

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#462

Post by meaty » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 12:11 PM UTC

munger wrote: post #454

meaty wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I put info like this in a password manager for sanity (Keepass, I work on a PC). One easy way to manage it is make a folder for each hostname, and add things like mysql root password, ssh port, public IP, pivate IP as different entries relating to the all aspects of managing the host.

Yes I use keepassx as well now :)

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#463

Post by brandonfish » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 2:12 PM UTC

camus wrote: post #363

Could someone explain me why a business providing a service should ? give it for free ? are google engineers working for free ? is google running its servers for free ? so yes , google is rich , but so is your electricity company , most gaz companies and most supermarkets. Do they give you stuffs for free ? "freemium" model is dead , in the future you'll pay for every service you use on the web.

yes, your electricity company cannot earn money using ads. google's business is mostly built on ads. see the difference?

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#464

Post by circa » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 2:42 PM UTC

bummer. the first thing I do when I buy a new domain is sign up there. they make it so easy to manage. all good things must come to an end I guess.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#465

Post by chmars » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 3:28 PM UTC

RobAley wrote: post #346

chmars wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a mail address different from your default Gmail (or Google Apps for Business Mail) address unfortunately does not work for some recipients. It seems that at least some versions of Microsoft Exchange/Outlook always show your default address and not the different mail address you actually used.

For anyone considering it, some MS clients (and a few others) show something like : myemail@gmail.com on behalf of Rob Aley [me@mydomain.co.uk] It maybe looks a little unprofessional, but as long as your gmail account isn't something like offensivewords@gmail.com or cutesexyman32@gmail.com, its not too bad.

It is not too bad IMHO if you only use a slightly different domain for the same purpose but with completely different domains, it looks odd. And there is always the problem that some mail clients use your default Gmail address to reply and not the one you actually used.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#466

Post by dcotton » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #231

antihero wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet this doesn't appear to be any sort of mail-hosting thing, so you'd still have to sort out mail with an entirely different provider to receive e-mails on your domain. This is pretty awful.

You're going to need a hosting provider to host your website anyway; mail service is probably included. How is that awful?

That's not correct at all. You don't need website hosting to have a domain, and you could use free google apps on any domain you own, without paying for a host.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#467

Post by sciurus » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 7:57 PM UTC

white_devil wrote: post #459

gfosco wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people would consider that cheating... You're hardly running your own email server, and still using Google. I actually miss running my own email domain, the privacy of it, not the actual administration. I stopped when I had gotten so crazy with aliases and disposable addresses that the spam overwhelmed me. Wasn't worth the time to 'do it right,' and I gave up my privacy for the simplicity of GMail. I wou…

If you get a domain at Gandi.net, it comes with a free e-mail service for 5 accounts. You could see if that suits your needs.

Seconding this; Gandi works well for me as a registrar, DNS provider, and email provider.

There are many email providers you can use with your own domain. For example, rackspace is $2 a user a month. https://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/rackspace_email... I'm not sure why people are jumping from "Google won't do this for free for me anymore" to "I must do it myself".

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#468

Post by sciurus » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

gmac wrote: post #320

xentronium wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are alternatives to google that are free of charge. For example, Live (Microsoft service)[1] or Yandex (Russian google vis-a-vis). [2][3] [1] https://domains.live.com/ [2] http://pdd.yandex.ru [3] Major caveat: the interface is in Russian only now, but after initial setup it shouldn't be a big deal;

Also FastMail.fm, which I'm very happy with.

FastMail costs $40 a year to use your own domain.

https://www.fastmail.fm/signup/personal.html

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#469

Post by michaelbuddy » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 4:04 AM UTC

camus wrote: post #363

Could someone explain me why a business providing a service should ? give it for free ? are google engineers working for free ? is google running its servers for free ? so yes , google is rich , but so is your electricity company , most gaz companies and most supermarkets. Do they give you stuffs for free ? "freemium" model is dead , in the future you'll pay for every service you use on the web.

I agree with you on some points here, but your statement, 'freemium is dead' makes no sense. Gmail and all included apps is the free and Google Apps (business) is the pay premium. If anything the model is seen fully validated here, not dead.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#470

Post by GFischer » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 4:40 AM UTC

rajuvegesna wrote: post #139

Google made a mistake initially by 1) Giving too much away for free and 2) Charging too low. It is probably trying to correct these mistakes. 1) On giving too much away… Remember, Google Apps started with 200 free users, later reduced it to 100, then to 50, then to 10 and now to zero. http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/23/google-puts-the-squeeze-on-... At 200 free users, there was no room for a new entrant in the market.…

I was going to suggest Zoho as an alternative - I have my personal email set up with you guys :) , and had no problems whatsoever.

However, I'm still used to Gmail's web interface, so I redirect my mail there.