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Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

kkinder.com

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Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#241

Post by vidarh »

naa42 wrote: post #233
majelix wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have mentioned, it's not really the technical aspects of SMTP that make hosting your own email difficult. It's the entire deliverability ecosystem that's developed (ostensibly to protect from spam), such as most residential providers blocking outgoing port 25, or most mailservers filtering incoming mail from dynamic IPs.

I used iRedMail to setup department mail server and it just worked. I had no problems with configuration: IMAP, SSL, SMTP - everything works out of the box. Spam protection is also adequate, at least for a relatively low-volume usage.

You're not addressing what majelix mentions. How about DKIM? SPF? Do you know if/when you end up on any block-lists? What about deferrals from the major providers?

It is by no means impossible that everything "just works" for you, but depending on your e-mail patterns, and what ISP you uses, and whether or not there's any spammers or spammer-look-alikes on the same netblocks as you, the level of hassle in ensuring your outbound e-mails actually gets delivered to your recipients inboxes rather than spam-filtered can be immense.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#242

Post by vidarh »

tomkarlo wrote: post #228
wslh wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you make a recommendation? I want something in the middle of a cheap hosting like Dreamhost and Google/Yahoo/Rackspace. It was difficult to find it. Dreamhost was great because I can create a lot of e-mail accounts for my company but in the last year there were a lot of outage that complicated my business. On the other spectrum Google/Yahoo/Rackspace could be great but they are expensive when there is a linear re…

Honestly, I use Google Apps for Domains myself, behind a domain I own (so I can leave down the road if I want.) I don't think folks moving off Gmail to leave Google want to do that but it's worked well for me. It's been long enough that I can't remember what I used before that for my email.

Same here. I'm more concerned with reducing data lock-in.

Leaving Gmail might be uncomfortable, but as long as I can backup my e-mail via IMAP and can move my address at a moments notice, it'd just be a nuisance.

I don't see the point in avoiding Google for the sake of it. But I do see the point in making sure the the effort involved in switching a dependency away from them is reasonably contained.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#243

Post by Semaphor »

pwelch wrote: post #66

I was actually considering owncloud but there seems to be a lot of negative experiences. Anyone know if its getting better/actively developed?

As other said it's actively developed. The disadvantage is that the UI/UX so far is not exactly great for now. I tried it for 2 months but I stopped using it as Google is far easier to use. I'll probably give it another try in a year or so.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#244

Post by mcintyre1994 »

eatfish wrote: post #146
jrochkind1 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what is this about? Is Google changing _something_ about CAlDAV? Now I'm worried, even though you are assuring us I shouldn't be, heh. What's changing exactly?

Google are blacklisting Microsoft. But they can't say that so they're whitelisting everyone else.

Patently false. Microsoft are whitelisted according to Google.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#245

Post by mcintyre1994 »

eatfish wrote: post #146
jrochkind1 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what is this about? Is Google changing _something_ about CAlDAV? Now I'm worried, even though you are assuring us I shouldn't be, heh. What's changing exactly?

Google are blacklisting Microsoft. But they can't say that so they're whitelisting everyone else.

Patently false. Microsoft are whitelisted according to Google.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#247

Post by vidarh »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #61
eggbrain wrote: post #27

I've been using GMail since its inception, so I figured I'd try the authors first suggestion, FastMail to see how the competition was fairing. The article mentions that FastMail operates both "free and paid tiers of service", so I figured I'd make a free account and poke around. But I've clicked and searched for five minutes now and found nothing except paid plans with a free trial. Am I missing something? Also, the…

I use FastMail. For one FastMail offers email for your domain, which Gmail no longer does. FastMail has archiving, great search, and a superior interface. The Gmail interface is pretty bad IMO. It's cluttered with a lot of stuff that have nothing to do with email like: 1) A black navigation bar across the top that doesn't help with email. 2) 300px wide box across the top right dedicated to a social network no one use…

The "Minimalist" chrome extension helps with a lot of these (though not with the horrible new compose window)

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#248

Post by tobeportable »

ekianjo wrote: post #190
acabal wrote: post #59

I've been working on removing myself from the Google silo for the past few months. It's tough, and the alternatives just aren't as good or convenient as what Google offers, but I think it's an important thing to do at least on principle. I found Owncloud to be difficult to install and very buggy. For self-hosted CalDAV/CardDAV, I chose Baikal ( http://http://baikal-server.com/ ) instead of Radicale. It seemed easier…

For folder synchronization Bittorrent Sync is a pretty good alternative to Dropbox. Of course, you don't get the web interface and all, but you get the same functionality for folders, for free, with your own server.

this and seafile are the only contenders as real alternative

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#249

Post by morsch »

kenkinder wrote: post #35
thezilch wrote: post #20

You have to be biting your tongue awfully hard to shoot off "Google is, in other words, the new AOL." He admits all of the services are not complete alternatives, save for maybe RSS readers. In other words, either 99% of users can't manage to use these non-alternatives for reasons like calendar and contacts not syncing, or they already don't use the product like RSS, or they definitely won't be able to run their own…

As the OP, let me respond. I'm not suggesting that Google is evil. What I am saying is, these products don't work for me and the reason they don't work is that they aren't interoperable with my own desktop software, or the rest of the Internet. I actually do use desktop calendaring software which will stop working this summer. I communicate with people via XMPP who are not on Talk. I used to use Listen and Reader. I'…

Thanks for the post. What're you doing about Listen? I've been happily using it even after they've discontinued it. But I assume it'll stop working for good once Reader is shut down. I've seen other Podcast apps on my friends' phones who weren't "grandfathered" into Listen, and I'm not impressed.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#250

Post by white_devil »

rogerchucker wrote: post #160
Steko wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I've been working on removing myself from the Google silo ... Replacing Dropbox doesn't seem practical right now." I must have missed something, did Google acquire Dropbox? Dropbox makes their money from the Dropbox product which is exactly why you should use a company like them instead of a borg offering. I prefer Sugarsync but there are no shortage of options.

I prefer these services free and have no problem being tracked for more personalized ads. I don't wanna pay with my wallet - I am OK with paying with my information.

> I am OK with paying with my information.

To be more accurate, you're paying with your privacy. Of course, "information" does sound more pleasant.

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