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FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

blog.fastmail.fm

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Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#71

Post by rplnt »

telephonetemp wrote: post #36
beagle3 wrote: post #21

If anyone at Opera is reading this: Please open source Carakan and Presto - don't let them rot, and us hackers have what to learn with them (and potentially do with them). GPL is fine, and may let you still monetize it. (And ... it's not like it's giving you any advantage - you've switched away from both)

Opera Mini still uses Presto. It is quite popular still, especially where people can't get 3G or better coverage.

And I don't know anyone (from the few people I know that use Opera) who switched to the new Opera (since it sucks).

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#72

Post by sudomal »

benologist wrote: post #7
nly wrote: post #3

This is more interesting for what it means for Opera than for what it means to Fastmail. First they abandon their browser engine, now a top-notch webmail offering. What do Opera even offer these days that you can't get elsewhere? What 'long term vision' is Rob speaking of?

Unless Opera are building themselves their own little Firefox OS kind of thing they're pretty much fucked moving forward. On the desktop their move to webkit successfully destroyed every reason to use Opera and doesn't measure up against rivals, and they've been netscaped out of mobile.

Developing an in-house browser engine is rather expensive. It's a moving target with constant pressure to better rivals. There's a need to patch an infinite number of websites, which don't care that you exist.

I can understand why they switched and focused on value added features.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#73

Post by dombili »

autonomy77 wrote: post #63

Not impressed with Fastmail - I tried their free offer, wasn't impressed, and didn't sign up for the paid service. I've since had over 100 (yup) emails telling me of my "OVERDUE PAYMENT" (the caps are theirs), and they ignore correspondence requesting that they stop. Marketing via harrassment - interesting tactic, and incredibly bad form, IMHO.

> I've since had over 100 (yup) emails telling me of my "OVERDUE PAYMENT" (the caps are theirs),

Oh god, yes. This was annoying as hell. I actually liked their service but at the end of the month I didn't think I was using email enough to justify paying 40 bucks a year, so I decided to keep using the one I got for free when I got a domain. But even if I was going to buy, I wouldn't have just because of this harrassment. Here's a screenshot from my inbox: http://i.imgur.com/meNhlAr.png (there are some more that couldn't fit into the screenshot)

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#74

Post by drill_sarge »

I wonder what "strategic changes" they did at Opera? So far they have shut down all their interesting projects (like Opera Unite), their browser has been highly customizable (the UI, not even needing addons) which was abandoned completely in Opera 15. Now they have some half-assed Chrome clone for Desktop, Coast browser which is also nowhere near final, Opera Mobile (not mini) is getting more and more generic like all other mobile browsers...

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#75

Post by Osmium »

dombili wrote: post #73
autonomy77 wrote: post #63

Not impressed with Fastmail - I tried their free offer, wasn't impressed, and didn't sign up for the paid service. I've since had over 100 (yup) emails telling me of my "OVERDUE PAYMENT" (the caps are theirs), and they ignore correspondence requesting that they stop. Marketing via harrassment - interesting tactic, and incredibly bad form, IMHO.

> I've since had over 100 (yup) emails telling me of my "OVERDUE PAYMENT" (the caps are theirs), Oh god, yes. This was annoying as hell. I actually liked their service but at the end of the month I didn't think I was using email enough to justify paying 40 bucks a year, so I decided to keep using the one I got for free when I got a domain. But even if I was going to buy, I wouldn't have just because of this harrassme…

That's absolutely crazy. I'm a paying Fastmail customer, and that really puts me off. I'm "trialing" them for 6 months at the moment with a personal domain before I decide whether I want to permanently switch to them, and so far had been very impressed... but that makes me think twice. I hope they're paying attention to this!

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#76

Post by [deleted] »

frenger wrote: post #38
chrischen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stance you should take on privacy in the cloud is that the USA just did a bad job hiding the fact that you had none.

Sick of this nihilist attitude. > the USA just did a bad job hiding the fact that you had none. Er, no - the USA are the main ones wholesale intercepting everyone's shit - I'm not a US citizen and I don't like it in principle. I did have a pretty good expectation of privacy until they started doing that, because no-one else has the resources to do a similar whole-take surveillance effort. Anyway, I signed up for Fast…

[deleted]

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#77

Post by da_n »

presty wrote: post #50
da_n wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently looking into setting up a VPS in Iceland or Germany and running my own mail server from it, moving away from Fastmail. It saddens me as I both dislike managing my own mail server and really like Fastmail, but having my email routed through the US is no longer feasible.

what hosting provider are you looking into, for iceland?

So far I've looked into 1984hosting.com and orangewebsite.com, both pricey compared to what I'm used to but I guess that is the price of better privacy. There is a cheaper one called icelandvps.com but they are owned by a UK parent company so I am little unclear about what that means for Iceland law, privacy etc. It may be cheaper to go to a German host, I am not yet decided.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#78

Post by agilebyte »

sergiosgc wrote: post #60
e12e wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you prefer it be hosted? I suppose an argument might be made in favour of Germany -- but I'd be surprised if they don't have a similar infrastructure in place for wire-tapping as we know know is in place in the US. UK and France is out. Russia is an open spyocracy of sorts. Iceland?

Portugal just opened the largest EU datacenter. Connectivity infrastructure is really good in the country (heh, international debt had to go somewhere...). The government couldn't care less about snooping, although they are US-friendly to a fault. However, court approval is required for snooping and courts are slow moving and processes are open: Service providers may inform the customer about the snooping order and m…

Re your last point, is it not better if machines are in a colder climate?

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#79

Post by da_n »

sygma wrote: post #49
e12e wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you prefer it be hosted? I suppose an argument might be made in favour of Germany -- but I'd be surprised if they don't have a similar infrastructure in place for wire-tapping as we know know is in place in the US. UK and France is out. Russia is an open spyocracy of sorts. Iceland?

They are already hosting in Iceland (but also, New York) [0]. I guess the next step would be to allow the customer to choose. [0]: https://twitter.com/FastMailFM/status/382100278415081473

I think they could really get an edge over other email providers if they went all out as a pro-privacy/non-US email alternative. They would need to exit the US though to take such a claim seriously, which is unlikely.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#80

Post by autonomy77 »

dombili wrote: post #73
autonomy77 wrote: post #63

Not impressed with Fastmail - I tried their free offer, wasn't impressed, and didn't sign up for the paid service. I've since had over 100 (yup) emails telling me of my "OVERDUE PAYMENT" (the caps are theirs), and they ignore correspondence requesting that they stop. Marketing via harrassment - interesting tactic, and incredibly bad form, IMHO.

> I've since had over 100 (yup) emails telling me of my "OVERDUE PAYMENT" (the caps are theirs), Oh god, yes. This was annoying as hell. I actually liked their service but at the end of the month I didn't think I was using email enough to justify paying 40 bucks a year, so I decided to keep using the one I got for free when I got a domain. But even if I was going to buy, I wouldn't have just because of this harrassme…

While it's a relief that I'm not alone in this, it raises a concern that this policy of bludegoning people to sign up via email DOES appear to be a company policy. Plus, they refuse to even acknowledge emails on the subject.

I cannot recommend them less. Shabby treatment of potential customers.

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