tl;dr author switches back to Gmail because it's convenient. I wish the article would simply say that.
From Fastmail back to Gmail
51–59 of 59 posts
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#52A good article but I just made the opposite decision. I recently switched to using GMail as a catch all email that I check about twice a day and use FastMail with my own domain for email from people close to me. It is not as much an issue of privacy as wanting to slow down the information firehose from Google, Twitter, G+, etc. I would like to reduce the surface area of marketing aimed at me.
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yeah, I considered mailbox.org too, but was a bit more expensive for the plan with ActiveSync (for mobile), but major argument was that I've found IMAP sync faster (basically instant) then Exchange push in my testing.
IMAP sync? You mean IMAP push extensions? I only use IMAP and it is seconds between me sending an e-mail to my mailbox address and my devices going "pling".
Maybe a poor expression on my part, I think it's the cause of IMAP IDLE. I tested marking an email as read with putting all three mobile, web and desktop client side by side and change was practically instant in a second. Too bad iOS doesn't support IDLE and goes as low as 15 min only.
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#54I have 4 virtual domains bound to same account. Why isn't it an option? You can filter stuff based on "To:" address to put it in different "Inbox" folders. And storage usage is more optimal since you don't pay for a lot of nearly-empty inboxes.
Exactly, I don't really see the problem in the article. I have a $40/year (15GB) account and apart from my fastmail and my forwarded pobox.com address, I also receive mail for and host DNS records and web pages for 2 other virtual domains. Also, I'm very happy with spam filtering and Fastmail's service quality (they even post on Twitter things like 'mail is slow currently, investigating...').
Not to mention a federation-friendly XMPP server that supports external domains via SRV records. For this and the features you list, I've also been a very happy FastMail user for the past few years and could never return to the walled garden that is Google.
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#55I would switch to Fastmail in a heartbeat if they let me pay for storage (say in 5 gig intervals) and let me mount as many domains and create as many inbox as I want. Other than that, I see no point in paying for email. Sorry. I'm a snob.
I don't see the problem to rent a small server and host open xchange, zimbra or something similiar yourself? Even postfix isn't that hard to configure and will likely run forever. The same goes for the author. I don't get how gmail is even considered as a mail provider for more than a spam oder mandatory account. The list of better and serious mail providers is tremendous. For my family and me, I am hosting a small e…
Because then I have to manage that server. I'm suddenly responsible for security, rebooting if there's an outage, keeping things up-to-date, etc. I've had both a small personal Linux server (for web hosting) and Fastmail (for everything else) for several years, and I've easily spent 2-3 times the cost of my Fastmail account in time spent fiddling with my web server over that time period.
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#56For me the killer feature of fastmail is their Calendar. Having recently used Google Calendar I was astonished how totally unusable it is compared to fastmail's. I'd be glad to hear what calendar do you use, what are considered good nowadays.
What did you find better? Thanks!
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#57For me the killer feature of fastmail is their Calendar. Having recently used Google Calendar I was astonished how totally unusable it is compared to fastmail's. I'd be glad to hear what calendar do you use, what are considered good nowadays.
What did you find better? Thanks!
* less context switches. In fastmail you do everything in popup windows where in Google you sometimes have to go to a separate task window.
* very easy to modify individual occurrences of repeating tasks. Just drag or resize, it'll detach automatically.
* the week view is sliding, ie you can view events from Wednesday to Wednesday.
* much less clutter in UI and interactions overall.
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#58I'd switch back to Gmail if I could somehow change my Google account to incorporate my real e-mail (and pay), as opposed to having a separate Google Apps for Domains account for e-mail that was separate from my real e-mail and is on my old Gmail address. Does anyone know if this is remotely possible?
I simply stopped using my old gmail account. Switching email addresses is a pain, absolutely, but at least leaving gmail is as easy as an MX record change in the future.
Yeah but what about things like App purchases, calendar, Drive, etc?
Re: From Fastmail back to Gmail
#59Regarding space upgrade, what you write is not true:
https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/pricing.html?u=9a68...
"Purchasing extra space.
Rather than upgrade to the next plan, it's possible to just purchase extra mail or file storage. This is charged at:
Lite: 100MB for $5 USD/year
Full: 500MB for $5 USD/year
Enhanced/Premier: 1GB for $5 USD/year"