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Switching from Gmail to FastMail

maxmasnick.com

21–30 of 230 posts

Re: Switching from Gmail to FastMail

#22
For me, it's not that I'm afraid of GMail removing IMAP, it's that Gmail IMAP works really, really bad. For an email-client to work well with Gmail, it has to be tailored to Gmail, and that has given me some issues lately.

For instance, most of my mail is sorted into labels, skipping the inbox. When using a mail client with IMAP, these labels shows as folders. Deleting the mail from my client, doesn't delete it from Gmail, only removes the label. Useless.

Re: Switching from Gmail to FastMail

#23
post #19

Am I the only one here that doesn't care about Gmail ads? I don't even notice them.

My point is that if you don't like Gmail ads, you should investigate switching to something else. I feel like many people are uncomfortable with the ads but might feel locked in. I actually don't care that Google is machine-reading email to serve ads (see http://www.maxmasnick.com/2012/02/12/gmail_paranoia/ ), but I do care about polluting the interface with ads that look like email for the same reason I don't like t…

Or just, you know, block the ads for a fraction of the effort.

Re: Switching from Gmail to FastMail

#24
post #17
post #8

I think it's fair to assume that HN is a fairly technical community and could manage such a feat on its own, so these: "here is how to switch from [insert Google service] to its competitor" posts strike me as karma-bait (and they do get votes). As to these ads you're so troubled by: Twitter ads look like tweets, Facebook ads look like Facebook posts, and of course search ads look like search results, at least in Gmai…

[deleted]

I'm comparing ad formats. And I'm illustrating that in the case of these new gmail ads not only are they restricted to a designated area, they can also be disabled altogether.

Re: Switching from Gmail to FastMail

#25
I love FastMail's interface and used it for couple of months. Recently, I let my free trial expire and allowed my account to be deleted. Why? Because it's not just about email. Everything, I mean everything, is in my Google account...docs in Drive, 10s of thousands of photos in G+...and it's all integrated so well. Bailing on the email part of the Google suite just adds a layer of disconnect and complexity...it's unfortunately just not worth it to me at this point.

Re: Switching from Gmail to FastMail

#28

> their servers are in New York For us as a European business, that's a dealbreaker. It's not that we are completely paranoid and migrating off of American systems in a big hurry, but moving forward, not in the US and not owned by an American company is a requirement for any new service we use. Even if we didn't care, we have to take into account our clients, and "no data under US control" has become not just a selli…

You're naive if you think hosting in Europe means you're necessarily any safer.

Re: Switching from Gmail to FastMail

#29

American company, American servers, American jurisdiction. Sure they won't read your email, but the NSA will (just like Gmail.) Update: hmm, so Opera aren't american? interesting. All the servers are definitely in the US though: > "we have standard servers and a high speed connection in the US." - https://www.fastmail.fm/help/overview_about.html

Yep. If the servers are in the US, or any of the NSA-tained countries like Australia, somebody is reading it.

Re: Switching from Gmail to FastMail

#30
post #22

For me, it's not that I'm afraid of GMail removing IMAP, it's that Gmail IMAP works really, really bad. For an email-client to work well with Gmail, it has to be tailored to Gmail, and that has given me some issues lately. For instance, most of my mail is sorted into labels, skipping the inbox. When using a mail client with IMAP, these labels shows as folders. Deleting the mail from my client, doesn't delete it from…

I agree that IMAP will probably stick around in some form. My big concern is if they start doing some kind of rate limiting, it could make it very difficult to get all your email out.

However, along these lines the removal of Jabber support from Gmail is a little bit scary (first they removed federation support, then they killed it altogether). Limiting or removing IMAP is not outside the realm of possibilities.

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