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Goodbye Gmail

dangoldin.com

91–100 of 105 posts

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#91

Why wouldn't you just use imap in an email client? I don't see any benefit to using a cloud email service when you can just host email easily on a cloud server..

Why wouldn't you just use imap in an email client?

I agree, unfortunately, GMail has a non-standard IMAP implementation. As a result, it doesn't work well with Mail.app (while Fastmail's pristine IMAP does) and plugins such as MailTags.

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#92
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes not banging your head on the keyboard each day is worth $10/year.

Sure, but comparing a paid service to a free service and expecting the free service to be as good as a paid service is silly.

Trust me, if you used the paid Google Apps, it isn't any faster ;).

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#93
post #60

This article is misleading on several accounts (as others of its type often are). - Yes, initial payload size matters. But where's the true comparison about what each app is loading? How are the features and the UX? Would a power user be satisfied with Fastmail (e.g. search, filters, etc.)? (It looks nice, but none of this was discussed at all). - The disparate email count comparison is excused way too quickly. Have…

From a recent Gmail -> Fastmail switcher, who imported all emails from Gmail

- Fastmail's UI is far faster to use, viewing emails is instantaneous, loading a folder with 30,000 emails takes a second at most. They have infinite scrolling with native scrollbars, and it doesn't slow down as you scroll. It does break momentum scrolling sometimes.

- I'm not too sure about search compared to all the Gmail filters, but filters are run via sieve. A real power user can edit the raw sieve commands if they like, but there's a UI on top that's powerful enough for most uses. There's no "Filter messages like these" though, that was handy.

- Turning off Chat/Hangout did make Gmail use less RAM and start faster, but didn't improve load times once it was active.

- Switching was fairly easy for me, since I use my own domain. Fastmail imported my old Gmail data via IMAP and I just switched MXs.

- With you on Google Suggest. Fastmail have had their share of problems, but they report them quickly and write up what went wrong.

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#94
post #60

This article is misleading on several accounts (as others of its type often are). - Yes, initial payload size matters. But where's the true comparison about what each app is loading? How are the features and the UX? Would a power user be satisfied with Fastmail (e.g. search, filters, etc.)? (It looks nice, but none of this was discussed at all). - The disparate email count comparison is excused way too quickly. Have…

- Yes, initial payload size matters. But where's the true comparison about what each app is loading? How are the features and the UX? Would a power user be satisfied with Fastmail (e.g. search, filters, etc.)? (It looks nice, but none of this was discussed at all).

My experience with Fastmail's webmail (coming from GApps) is that it has all the features a power user needs, minus the annoying Google+ and Google Drive integration. Heck, it even uses GMail-style keyboard shortcuts.

The primary downside is that you lose labels (and get folders instead).

- Switching is never as simple as described, and forwarding is a fairly messy solution (and will only get messy as the author creates new login accounts and further forks his usage).

For me, the automatic IMAP migration in Fastmail just worked, ~21000 e-mails.

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#95
I'm considering switching from Gmail for similar reasons - multi-second delays when switching to a label are kinda unacceptable. But this is 2014, and if I'm going to switch, it needs to be to a desktop application so that I can have some vague semblance of security - at least supporting PGP mail and accepting messages which happen to be delivered securely with STARTTLS without the possibility of eavesdropping on my end, even if most of my mail is never going to use PGP. Plus, my laptop almost certainly has more CPU to spare than some random cloud server, so in theory searching should be faster, even if the rest of the UI can be equally snappy in a webapp as in a desktop app.

Unfortunately, after trying several candidates, I have yet to find an app whose UI I actually like, so I'm still using Gmail. I think I will try Mailpile once it's ready.

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#96
post #77
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or if pretty much everyone who makes should-statements on the Internet is recommending genocide No, you are seeing a reflection of what other people are searching too. It's a mirror into peoples private naughty thoughts. Stuff they wouldn't say themselves, yet they search for to see if there are arguments supporting the thought.

I've always wondered - are Google's autocomplete choices based on what people are searching for, or are they based on frequently-found phrases in website content?

I'm pretty sure it's based on the most commonly searched phrases with phrases containing words on a blacklist deleted. Add in some magic to throw off the spammers and competition.

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#97
post #95

I'm considering switching from Gmail for similar reasons - multi-second delays when switching to a label are kinda unacceptable. But this is 2014, and if I'm going to switch, it needs to be to a desktop application so that I can have some vague semblance of security - at least supporting PGP mail and accepting messages which happen to be delivered securely with STARTTLS without the possibility of eavesdropping on my…

If not Mail.app, what about notmuch with one of the supported clients ;).

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#98
Gmail used to be great back in the early 2000s, but its time has long passed. The metro-ified UI is ugly and clearly only designed for tablets, options are steadily being hidden or removed, and the privacy concerns have only got worse. Not to mention, if you want to use a better client such as Thunderbird, their IMAP is glacially slow and often breaks altogether. The only other alternative is to use POP3 to bulk download all mail and sort through it locally.

I switched from gmail to running my own mailserver a couple of years ago; best decision I ever made about email. It's faster, more private, I can issue my own DKIM keys (and I know my signatures haven't been messed with), and I get sane spam filtering with visible scores that doesn't source its data from other people's email and has a much lower false positive and false negative rate, which only improves via Bayesian learning.

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#99
I thought I would give fastmail a try and whilst I agree that gmail isn't as slow as the article makes it out to be (for me at least) I do like how fastmail just does mail, it's simple, there's nothing else I have to worry about turning off. It does one thing and it's the only thing I want it todo. I have only just signed up so If my opinion changes then I'll post back here but so far it looks quite nice. I'm yet to decide if I want to make the switch though!

Re: Goodbye Gmail

#100
pretty bad post, more evidence of relevant factors would be useful to add credibility. It seems this experience of lag is really not the norm, so why rant about it in such general terms. it's your machine/environment probably Enjoy fastmail or whatever. Gmail remains usable and has grown to support its userbase....and still holds its own from the revolutionary place it launched at in 2004...
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