Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#1

Post by dotme » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 5:40 AM UTC

I was one of the person whose account was accidently reseted by gMail. My account had 10K+ emails over the time period of last five years. I know they will restore it anyways, but still this incident has made me more concerned about having a secure e-mail (I know, no one can beat gmail in ease of use).

What I am looking for is some paid alternative to e-mail. I tried fastmail.fm, and its good enough. I am still not sure about their reliability.

I can afford upto $50 a year, with atleast 1 gb of storage. Reliability is the most important concern.

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#2

Post by yanw » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 5:54 AM UTC

They had 99.99% uptime last year: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/01/destination-dia...

I'm on the paid Google apps and my account is intact (I'm not sure if any apps accounts were among those disrupted) but as far as I can tell if you're looking for a reliable web based email service Gmail is your best bet, you could periodically download emails if you want to feel safer.

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#3

Post by dotme » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:09 AM UTC

yanw wrote: post #2

They had 99.99% uptime last year: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/01/destination-dia... I'm on the paid Google apps and my account is intact (I'm not sure if any apps accounts were among those disrupted) but as far as I can tell if you're looking for a reliable web based email service Gmail is your best bet, you could periodically download emails if you want to feel safer.

Any Personal account option? I don't want to jump on Business Plan !

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#4

Post by yanw » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:21 AM UTC

dotme wrote: post #3

yanw wrote: post #2

They had 99.99% uptime last year: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/01/destination-dia... I'm on the paid Google apps and my account is intact (I'm not sure if any apps accounts were among those disrupted) but as far as I can tell if you're looking for a reliable web based email service Gmail is your best bet, you could periodically download emails if you want to feel safer.

Any Personal account option? I don't want to jump on Business Plan !

It's free for < 50 users.

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#5

Post by sixtofour » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:37 AM UTC

Whatever solution your choose, you should have a regular backup process.

It's not that gmail could lose your emails. It's that email could lose your emails.

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#6

Post by dotme » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 6:45 AM UTC

sixtofour wrote: post #5

Whatever solution your choose, you should have a regular backup process. It's not that gmail could lose your emails. It's that email could lose your emails.

Backing up e-mail is something hard to think about. Atleast, for this thing the service provider should take the responsibility.

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#7

Post by dustyreagan » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 8:21 AM UTC

I doubt a paid email service will be anymore reliable than Gmail. Your best bet is probably to look into a good backup strategy. For example, you could use Outlook or Mail to retrieve all of your Gmail locally while still keeping the original email on Gmail.

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#8

Post by michael_dorfman » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 11:37 AM UTC

Reliability is the most important concern.

You really think there is someone out there with a better reliability record than Google on this front?

Re: Ask HN: Paid Alternatives (for Gmail)?

#9

Post by ggordan » Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

dustyreagan wrote: post #7

I doubt a paid email service will be anymore reliable than Gmail. Your best bet is probably to look into a good backup strategy. For example, you could use Outlook or Mail to retrieve all of your Gmail locally while still keeping the original email on Gmail.

Agreed. Any service can fail regardless whether it's paid or not. So the best way to keep your emails safe is backups.