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A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

dbpmail.net

11–20 of 218 posts

Re: A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

#11

I'm not sure why you can't do those things on FastMail. (disclaimer: I work for FastMail) Sure we have folders rather than tags, which means you can't add multiple of them to the same message. Probably the biggest lack is that you can't manage IMAP flags via the web interface. Otherwise, our search is now very powerful (since about March this year) and allows you to build filters that show messages from multiple fold…

I love FastMail. Thank you for your work!

Re: A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

#12

Setting up a server in any hosting environment at this point comes with the assumption that its contents can be read at any time by the operators and whoever they let in without you ever knowing about it. That's still a lot better than Gmail. Setting up your own mail server is not a terrible woe-inducing undertaking if you have a working recipe to follow and are comfortable with the Unix command line (e.g. http://www…

> Setting up a server in any hosting environment at this point comes with the assumption that its contents can be read at any time by the operators and whoever they let in without you ever knowing about it.

How exactly is that any different than it was 6 months ago?

Re: A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

#13
While I don't necessarily trust an external company with all my emails, I also don't trust myself to maintain the myriad daemons involved in this setup without doing something subtly wrong that results in my server not sending/receiving all the mail it should -- or, worse, being used for spam.

What would be useful is a pre-assembled virtual machine image or other form of appliance that allows you to deploy and test a mail server within about an hour or so, without having to duct-tape any of this together yourself.

Re: A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

#15
Many of us did similar in the 90s. I might go this route again but would use Postfix and Dovecot. I'd do this for my wife and kids as well - but if I get hit by a bus, email eventually not working is not something I should burden my wife with.

Re: A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

#16
It's definintely time for an open source alternative to GMail... but I think everyone knows this isn't it.

These tools like exim, horde, dovecot, etc. have been around and worked for decades but wouldn't it be great to have fresh solutions that weren't so ancient and archaic?

Re: A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

#17

Just a general fyi, there are $10 credits for Digital Ocean if you decide to sign up. The one I used this month was OMGSSD10, but it may only work for this month.

I've got (and am very happy with) a DO VM, but in the context of securing mail - I'm not sure using a US based server (or a server owned by a US based company). (And, though I'm in Australia and have an English passport, I'm not sure UK or Australian servers are any better…)

Re: A Hacker's Replacement for Gmail

#20
post #14

Out of curiosity, what was the reason for not picking a more traditional Dovecot + Postfix setup?

Debian decided to use exim4 by default, so I figured that it would be better supported / documented. Which for the most part was true. There is no reason why postfix+dovecot couldn't work equally well - I was familiar with none, so I chose what seemed like the past of least resistance.
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