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Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

blog.fastmail.fm

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Re: Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

#21

Post by lena »

There is a large thread about this on emaildiscussions.com: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=59311&p...

I am displeased that the FAQ doesn't mention any relevant privacy concerns, even though for many people the fact that FM was a small company with a good track record and privacy policy was an important reason to choose the service.

I also recognize the dismay of this comment:

- 'FastMail's practical approach to user privacy has always been to be extremely protective of customer privacy'. ...or we may just sell your all of your data to a third party, giving you zero days notice or an option to cancel without refund.

I really wished they would have at least given us some time to figure out what we want to do.

Re: Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

#22

Post by RK »

I've used Fastmail since 2001. Free or relatively cheap and IMAP was a winning combination.

I admit that once Gmail started offering IMAP support I started migrating over to Gmail, but I still use my fastmail accounts for other purposes.

Re: Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

#23

Post by paulsilver »

robmueller wrote: post #12

I'm one of the main developers and was one of the (now previous) owners of Fastmail. Fastmail has always been a small company, there are just 3-4 main developers (myself, Bron, Richard and recently in the last year, Kurian), and a couple of support staff scattered around world. For that small size, I think we've managed to build a pretty great product with lots of niche and power features, loyal users, and apart from…

I too hope you've done well out of the deal. I've been a paying Fastmail customer for ~7 years and am very happy with it. The 2006 downtime and a few other hiccups around the same time were annoying, but since then things have felt rock solid.

I find the spam filter better than the one in Gmail, so thanks to whoever's done the hard work with that.

And thank you for keeping the old web interface around, I prefer it over the newer one. There's nothing particularly wrong with the newer one, I'm just very used to the way the old one works and find it fast enough without AJAX enhancements. That you kept the old interface going is one of the reasons I stayed with Fastmail, if you'd forced a switch to the new one I'd have probably gone to Gmail.

Re: Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

#24

Post by famrey »

PontusVull wrote: post #5
dragonquest wrote: post #2

I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not. On the optimistic side, it could mean a more resourceful entity with plenty of goodies coming in like more File Hosting space. On the other hand, I've been using the paid Fastmail service for over 4 years now and one thing they did head and shoulders above the bigger players was their service and support. Plus they were always pretty geeky, making sure the expert user…

I pretty much agree with you. While I can understand their decision to sell to Opera, at the same time, I feel that Opera will probably ruin Fastmail by trying to turn it into just another Hotmail/Yahoo Mail/Gmail competitor. Then again, who knows? Maybe this will end up being awesome.

If you read Opera's statements, they are not going to change the service. It's going to keep running as it always has. They are just going to use the technology to build other stuff or something.

Re: Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

#25

Post by famrey »

dragonquest wrote: post #10
endtime wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've used Opera, but it's by far the geekiest/most customizable browser, IMO. Total remapping of all shortcuts, ability to reconstruct the interface however you like from primitive controls, built in support for content (ad) blocking and mouse gestures, user script (Greasemonkey, sorta) support also built in, etc. I've never used Fastmail, but as you describe it, they couldn't have picked a better b…

I do use Opera as my primary browser since I've gotten used to it from the 5.x timeframe. And I do agree that they could not have chosen a better browser to sell to. However, I'm wondering if it should have been sold at all, specifically to a company that makes browsers. Why not to a hosting company like Rackspace's acquisition of Mailtrust and perhaps more importantly, why sell at all if it was a pretty profitable e…

The founder hasn't been involved with the service for years. The people who actually ran the service are still running it, and will keep doing that as Opera employees.

Also: Opera doesn't just make browsers. Opera also makes all sorts of services for both users and b2b customers. The browser just ties it all together.

Re: Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

#26

Post by famrey »

sandis wrote: post #8

Sometimes I, a long time Opera user, just don't understand them. From outside it looks like they have hard time keeping focus.

No, Opera has a very clear focus. They are not only a browser company, but also provides browser related services. They make money off of those things. With this they can offer better email/messaging services to their business customers.

Re: Opera acquires e-mail service Fastmail.fm

#27

Post by famrey »

lena wrote: post #21

There is a large thread about this on emaildiscussions.com: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=59311&p... I am displeased that the FAQ doesn't mention any relevant privacy concerns, even though for many people the fact that FM was a small company with a good track record and privacy policy was an important reason to choose the service. I also recognize the dismay of this comment: - 'FastMail's practical…

There was no way to give people time to figure it out. The acquisition needed to remain a secret until actually carried out, and once it was carried out, this was the only way to inform people.

Also, Opera Software has an excellent privacy track record, and is located in Norway, which has some of the world's strictest privacy laws.

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