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Moving Away from Gmail

rolisz.ro

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Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#211

Post by parkersweb »

TrueDuality wrote: post #99

I've been considering doing a similar thing but I'm in a different situation with Gmail. I hopped on to their business domains when they were initially released (and free) and I'm still grandfathered into their free plan. I use the account as my primary Google account which includes purchased Android apps, and I make pretty heavy use of that Google Drive with several external organizations. I'd like to move just my e…

I’m in the same boat - set up the free service with my own domain for the family a long time ago.

Quite frankly I’d love to ditch it entirely because Google frequently makes crazy stuff inaccessible as a result - I can’t use Android screen time limits for the kids, I can’t sign up for Google music family plan.

Problem is - I have loads of purchases on the accounts and there’s no way at all to convert them to standard Google accounts and no way at all to transfer the purchases. It’s maddening...

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#213

Post by scintill76 »

KitDuncan wrote: post #181
knr2345 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a method for quickly creating new aliases on the fly? My setup is nearly the same. I use two domains such as firstlast.tld and genericwords.tld. Genericwords.tld has umbrella aliases for social, apps, subscriptions, orders, etc. I have rules setup up per umbrella alias to delete after 30 days, or always mark as read, or never mark as read. I originally had service/site specific aliases in mind for easy de…

Just use a catchall and you have to do nothing.

You also get more spam, sent to sales@domain, john@domain, alex@domain...

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#214

Post by 0ld »

DeathArrow wrote: post #209
steelframe wrote: post #175

I used to run my own mail server, and that very nearly cost me a career-changing job at Microsoft. My reply to a hiring manager for a team I really wanted to work on went into Microsoft's bit bucket because (I'm guessing) their spam detectors didn't like my own domain and my own instance of Exim sending out my emails. When a recruiter (thankfully) followed up and scheduled me for on-site interviews, that manager ment…

I use Gmail for personal mail and Yandex mail for my domains. I tried SendGrid but when I tested with Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo, most mails got into spam folder. It's best to test when you set up email, whether you use your own server or use a provider. Most of the times, sending mail from your own server will guarantee your mail gets into spam folder. I can highly recommend Yandex as a mail provider.

> I can highly recommend Yandex as a mail provider.

nice try, comrade. but no

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#215

Post by 0ld »

maheart wrote: post #199
steelframe wrote: post #175

I used to run my own mail server, and that very nearly cost me a career-changing job at Microsoft. My reply to a hiring manager for a team I really wanted to work on went into Microsoft's bit bucket because (I'm guessing) their spam detectors didn't like my own domain and my own instance of Exim sending out my emails. When a recruiter (thankfully) followed up and scheduled me for on-site interviews, that manager ment…

Do you remember what sort of validation you had setup (if any)? e.g. SPF, DKIM, IP from reputable block, etc. I'm curious to what degree this can potentially be mitigated.

spf, dkim and clean ip were enough for my opensmtpd to deliver mail from my domain into gmail and outlook inboxes

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#216

Post by sakisv »

eitland wrote: post #206
luckylion wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does this as well - neither a history of emailing back and forth nor a same-day reply will keep incoming email safe from being classified as spam if it's being sent by an ordinary mail server. Hell, Google even manages to classify emails as spam that are sent from one address on a GSuite account to another address on the same account.

I think it is time we realize that Google in its current form is broken in many ways. This is just one example. Others include: - insisting on captchas,and not just one, even when I'm logged in with my >10 year old, paid for account with two-factor enabled - not being able to detect flag attacks against legitimate accounts (as seen on the front page today) - killing reader, trying to force everyone to use a single id…

Some possible alternatives you could try:

For search engine I'd suggest duckduckgo, it's far from perfect but I don't see any other viable alternative, if anyone knows anything please let us know.

For messaging I would suggest Signal. The problem there is that most people don't know of it and they won't ditch whatsapp to go on something that their friends won't be on.

That's the same problem that a new social network is going to face. I think it's safe to say that if even Google with all their capital couldn't make it work, then it's going to be extremely difficult to find investors to bet on a random guy's idea. Facebook with all the shit it has been and done has almost 2bn users, how are we going to convince even 5% of them to abandon it for something new without anyone they know there?

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#217

Post by delusional »

0ld wrote: post #215
maheart wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember what sort of validation you had setup (if any)? e.g. SPF, DKIM, IP from reputable block, etc. I'm curious to what degree this can potentially be mitigated.

spf, dkim and clean ip were enough for my opensmtpd to deliver mail from my domain into gmail and outlook inboxes

i have similar experiences. clean ip (actually from a hetzner block, but not on any lists), and dkim. I have never dropped an outgoing mail.

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#218

Post by eitland »

sakisv wrote: post #216
eitland wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is time we realize that Google in its current form is broken in many ways. This is just one example. Others include: - insisting on captchas,and not just one, even when I'm logged in with my >10 year old, paid for account with two-factor enabled - not being able to detect flag attacks against legitimate accounts (as seen on the front page today) - killing reader, trying to force everyone to use a single id…

Some possible alternatives you could try: For search engine I'd suggest duckduckgo, it's far from perfect but I don't see any other viable alternative, if anyone knows anything please let us know. For messaging I would suggest Signal. The problem there is that most people don't know of it and they won't ditch whatsapp to go on something that their friends won't be on. That's the same problem that a new social network…

Thanks! I mostly agree.

I already use duckduckgo. It is not as good as Google used to be but a lot less annoying - and Google is not as good as it used to be either, so I consider duckduckgo best now. Also trying with Google after duckduckgo is faster than the other way around.

I already Signal but although more and more people join, nobody uses it for day-to-day texts and family updates.

Everyone I know uses Telegram and even after following all discussions here I'm fine with that.

> That's the same problem that a new social network is going to face. I think it's safe to say that if even Google with all their capital couldn't make it work, then it's going to be extremely difficult to find investors to bet on a random guy's idea.

Partly agree. But I think an Instagram or WhatsApp style bootstrapping of a new social network is still possible and no one has stepped up to take the plave of Google+.

Remember, it was Google that ran it. I suspect it was utterly mismanaged.

A number of things can work very well even if Google can't make it work.

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#219

Post by vrutberg »

I have been on a similar journey to distance myself from Google and my Google account for a little more than a year now. It's taken longer than I thought to get to where I am now, and now I'm skeptical that I'll ever be completely Google free. My steps so far have been:

1. January 2019: Bought a domain name and registered for FastMail.

2. Progressively over the following months: Every time I got an email sent to my Gmail address, I'd either unregister for that service or change it to my new FastMail powered email address.

3. Early summer 2019: Logged out from my Google Account in Firefox, and created a Firefox Container where I am logged into my Google account in case I would need it

4. Deleted Google Maps app from my phone

5. Logged out from my Google account on the Gmail app on my phone

A few tips I can share:

* If you have this email address registered at FastMail: foo@bar.com, emails sent to x@foo.bar.com (where x can be anything) will be forwarded do foo@bar.com. I found this very useful when using it to sign up for various services.

* You can register as many aliases as you want in FastMail. For example I have my personal email address be firstname@domain.com. I also have inbox@domain.com registered as an alias, so if I sign up for some online service I can use service@inbox.domain.com as my email address.

The things that I've found hardest to migrate are:

* iMessage. I've used my Gmail address as the primary iMessage handle, so that's what people have been sending messages to. Not sure what'll happen if I remove it from my Apple ID.

* GitHub. I've used my Gmail address as my email address in Git for years. Removing the Gmail address from my profile in GitHub removes the connection between those commits and my profile. For now I have it as a secondary email address (or whatever it's called on GitHub) for this sake.

* YouTube. I want my viewing history, channel subscriptions, etc. Maybe I should create a new Google Account just for YouTube?

Re: Moving Away from Gmail

#220

Post by DavideNL »

DeathArrow wrote: post #202

I, too, want to switch from using Google services. I find it hard. I have hundreds of website accounts, all registered through Gmail. I don't even know all the websites I have accounts on. Switching all to use another mail address, would be at least very tedious and would take a very long time. Also I have many contacts mailing me on my Gmail address. Making all those people use another address would be hard. I can r…

> Also I have many contacts mailing me on my Gmail address. Making all those people use another address would be hard.

What i did is, i automatically forwarded all incoming Gmail emails to my new new@domain.com address. Then when someone sends me an e-mail to my old Gmail account, i simply reply to it from my new new@domain.com. That way contacts will gradually/eventually update me in their contact lists... it worked really well.

> I have hundreds of website accounts, all registered through Gmail. I don't even know all the websites I have accounts on.

It doesn't matter, just keep using them and register all new accounts with your new e-mail address. You can slowly update your email address in old accounts over time, Gmail will stay accessible anyway.

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