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FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

blog.fastmail.com

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Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#101

Post by lena »

bad_user wrote: post #98
sasas wrote: post #57

Please be aware FastMail is subject to Australian law. [1] The government is scrambling to pass laws for mass surveillance [2] and controversial data retention laws. [3] [1] https://www.fastmail.com/help/legal/privacy.html [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/australian-government-... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/16/privac...

I find such warnings to be distasteful. Especially given that most people are using Gmail, or Outlook / Office365, or Yahoo! Mail, all of them coming from companies that can be and have been coerced by the NSA, without the people finding out about it until those leaks. In fact, as a European citizen, I would be more comfortable with an Australian company, than with a US-based one, simply because the governmental agen…

I appreciated the heads-ups about this in this thread. I have been a Fastmail customer for years, and didn't realize they were subject to Australian law. It's very relevant to me, and even though the laws haven't passed yet, major privacy organizations seem concerned enough. It's not easy to change e-mail providers, most people pay a year or more in advance, so it's good to be aware of these important issues. It also could give the company a chance to reassure customers, but I must say that "If the laws change such that we need to say anything different in our privacy policy, then we will definitely make a public statement about those changes" is not the reassurance I was looking for. I have come to expect good tech companies to vehementely oppose laws like this, actively fight against them, organize protests or at least publicly support the opposition (as in the anti SOPA/PIPA efforts in the US), etc. Not just say "We will update our privacy policy if necessary".

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#102

Post by bloke_zero »

unicornporn wrote: post #86

FastMail looks tempting. But, excusez-moi, it seems quite expensive for what (you seem to) get. I have an email archive that's around 20GB on server. That would cost me $120 a year. Right now I'm paying for a Dreamhost account. For around $100 a year I get "unlimited" storage, IMAP access, Roundcube access and support for domains. And this is only besides all the shared hosting features has never let me down so far.…

Speaking as a recent convert to Fastmail from Gmail and Dreamhosts roundcube offering I have to say Fastmail is a hell of a lot better experience, it's quick, uncomplicated, and slick with great keyboard shortcuts. Roundcube on Dreamhost is fine for what it is but couldn't be compared with Gmail in terms of usability, Fastmail can. Don't get me wrong I'm not sure its as good as Gmail (spam protection for example is not as good), but you're getting a vastly better webmail experience than Roundcube.

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#103

Post by bad_user »

pluma wrote: post #99
e12e wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, with any reasonable smtp server, the defaults these days are pretty good -- so email abuse/open relay isn't the problem it once was. The hurdle (if any) these days is making sure email you send isn't flagged as spam, and to a lesser extent to avoid receiving spam (I say lesser, but then I've been running greylisting from day one, which is a minor nuisance, in and off itself). That said, using a good service…

Sure, but it can still be quite daunting if you're not much of a sysadmin. I'm a web developer primarily and though I feel confident setting up a basic web server and SSH, I'm not even entirely sure what software I need or should use (when there are multiple alternatives) to set up a fully working e-mail server. Add to that messing with cryptic configuration files while reading about the dangers of doing it wrong and…

> As far as beginner friendliness goes, it's a bit like desktop Linux was ten years ago

No, it's much worse.

10 years ago you could get a desktop Linux up and running, the experience wasn't that much different from today and even if you screwed up, you could always reinstall it from scratch, but with email screw-ups may mean getting your domain blacklisted and good luck fixing it afterwards.

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#104

Post by ForFreedom »

robn_fastmail wrote: post #97
ForFreedom wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Does your app have a passcode to open? 2. Can I move mails from spam to inbox and from inbox to Spam?

> 1. Does your app have a passcode to open? No. We'll look into it. > 2. Can I move mails from spam to inbox and from inbox to Spam? Yes, tap the message while open and use the "report spam" or "not spam" button (the shield icon).

How fast can you include a passcode?

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#105

Post by robn_fastmail »

Osmium wrote: post #100
robn_fastmail wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and it won't happen unless Apple open up their IMAP push channel. Now that our app is released we're unlikely to pursue this further.

There are free and open source implementations of Exchange ActiveSync that would allow native push support on iOS. Any particular reason you haven't pursued this?

Protocol and implementation complexity, the need for patent licensing and our desire to use standard protocol wherever possible.

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#106

Post by robn_fastmail »

ForFreedom wrote: post #104
robn_fastmail wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Does your app have a passcode to open? No. We'll look into it. > 2. Can I move mails from spam to inbox and from inbox to Spam? Yes, tap the message while open and use the "report spam" or "not spam" button (the shield icon).

How fast can you include a passcode?

It won't be this year. We hadn't even considered this feature before so it needs to be investigated and then if we want to do it, designed, implemented and tested. That doesn't have to take a lot of time, but we have other priorities first.

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#107

Post by e12e »

pluma wrote: post #99
e12e wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, with any reasonable smtp server, the defaults these days are pretty good -- so email abuse/open relay isn't the problem it once was. The hurdle (if any) these days is making sure email you send isn't flagged as spam, and to a lesser extent to avoid receiving spam (I say lesser, but then I've been running greylisting from day one, which is a minor nuisance, in and off itself). That said, using a good service…

Sure, but it can still be quite daunting if you're not much of a sysadmin. I'm a web developer primarily and though I feel confident setting up a basic web server and SSH, I'm not even entirely sure what software I need or should use (when there are multiple alternatives) to set up a fully working e-mail server. Add to that messing with cryptic configuration files while reading about the dangers of doing it wrong and…

There is a bit of a documentation vacuum. We (Linux users, admins and developers) could learn a lot from freebsd and openbsd here. Something like https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/task-mail-server gets you on your way (maybe too far, actually -- you probably don't want/need all that for an initial setup) -- but certificate requests, and certificates is still too hard.

https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ssl-cert helps, but afaik, nothing automagically does the right thing, yet (install certifate under /etc/ssl and the private key under /etc/ssl/private and symlink under /etc/exim/cert.{key|der or whatever} and ditto for other daemons that share the same cert/key.

And then there is tuning to disable plain text for most of those services.

So, yeah, it's still too complex.

I really don't understand everyone that are panicked about getting your domain blacklisted -- yes, if you send spam you'll be blacklisted. Yes, if you set up an open relay, that's bad. But you really have to work pretty hard to set up an open relay these days.

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#108

Post by Fastidious »

bad_user wrote: post #98
sasas wrote: post #57

Please be aware FastMail is subject to Australian law. [1] The government is scrambling to pass laws for mass surveillance [2] and controversial data retention laws. [3] [1] https://www.fastmail.com/help/legal/privacy.html [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/australian-government-... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/16/privac...

I find such warnings to be distasteful. Especially given that most people are using Gmail, or Outlook / Office365, or Yahoo! Mail, all of them coming from companies that can be and have been coerced by the NSA, without the people finding out about it until those leaks. In fact, as a European citizen, I would be more comfortable with an Australian company, than with a US-based one, simply because the governmental agen…

I see nothing distasteful about it. He is not saying people should not use FastMail. He simply noted something many people might not note.

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#109

Post by eevilspock »

brongondwana wrote: post #18
swartkrans wrote: post #15

I have been using fastmail for a month now after switching from gmail. I quite like it, but the two drawbacks are that it's just a little bit more likely to let spam in than gmail, even with aggressive spam options enabled, and with fastmail I'm missing out on the growing gmail ecosystem (Streak, Dropbox mailbox app, others). It's fine though, I really am happy to be paying for an email service instead of depending o…

We're talking to Dropbox about mailbox app - hopefully it will support us soon, as with everything it's a matter of engineering resources. We're also talking to many companies about a better API for everyone - the draft spec is at http://jmap.io/ - it's based on the API that our app already uses.

Mailbox App gets access to and copies your Gmail server-side. In addition Dropbox has Condileeza Rice on its board. So for people switching to Fastmail out of privacy concerns, don't bother. It would be better if we users would ditch Dropbox and Mailbox App (which I love, so not easy for me to say) in the same spirit we want to ditch Gmail.

Re: FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

#110

Post by bad_user »

robn_fastmail wrote: post #42
bruce_one wrote: post #34

Have you got/had any thoughts about making the Android app available through avenues other than the Play store? (eg Aptoide or similar, or even just a link to the apk) I have Fastmail and support for Android apps; but no Play store access... (And if it was a concious decision not to, any particular reason? :-) )

The main feature of the Android app is push notifications, which requires Google Play Services. A version of the app without push notifications is pretty much identical to just using the regular web app in Chrome Android, so there didn't seem to be a lot of point doing distribution via other means (with the extra maintenance overhead that brings). If there's enough demand for something else then we'll be happy to rev…

That's odd. I remember the K9 email client working on a phone with CyanogenMod and without Google Play or the other Google services and I was getting notifications on new emails.

Maybe my memory is failing me. But what are Android apps that are published on Amazon's Appstore or on F-Droid doing for push notifications? Also, what about offline access? Is the Android app functional in offline mode?

I don't know how many people are using Androids without Google Play on it, but those of us that do use Android without Google Play would appreciate a version installable from somewhere else. If you've got the resources that is, no pressure :-)

And as a suggestion, given that this is just a packaged web interface, it would be awesome to see it published for Firefox Mobile / Firefox OS. They apparently do expose an API for push notifications for example - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Simple_Push...

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