Post AcABOxYcK6dS2LgSHo by defanor@emacs.ch
 (DIR) More posts by defanor@emacs.ch
 (DIR) Post #AcABOxYcK6dS2LgSHo by defanor@emacs.ch
       2023-11-25T08:24:10Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       I use a public email service (#Yandex) for work mail, so that neither personal (hobby) server issues would affect the work, nor issues with work infrastructure disrupt communication channels needed to fix those. But with my domain name, so that there is no vendor lock-in. That worked fine for a while, but now Yandex decided to charge for using own domains, and disabled SMTP. Warnings were sent to the administrator account, which I have not checked after setting it up more than a decade ago, while the actually checked inbox only received warnings about discontinuation of a service I never used.So I went looking for alternatives. The situation with those keeps worsening: many smaller email services are blocked here, or do not serve users from around here. The few large remaining ones tend to require phone numbers. I know a couple that work without a phone number and are not blocked, though not sure for how long. And no custom domain names there. Though if things will not improve soon, it would be tricky for me to renew the domain name, being disconnected from payment systems.Maybe I will request a company-provided email, or set sending (SMTP) via a work server and keep receiving (IMAP) via Yandex. Could also switch to paid services, though a single email account (at Yandex or elsewhere) costs like a remote VM (aka VPS, VDS, a cloud thingy), at which point the latter would be preferable. But I would normally consider foreign hosting providers, and there is the issue with payments again: proxy payments must be possible, yet reliance on those makes this setup less reliable.Though it looks like some Russian hosting providers have servers in Europe; likely those are accessible to various local entities, and local laws on checking clients' identities and spying on them apply, possible future weird laws will apply as well, but I wonder whether connection blocking applies to those servers. Apparently to some of them it does not, yet, so those may be an okay option.
       
 (DIR) Post #AcABOyV6odQIxl3ASO by louis@emacs.ch
       2023-11-25T11:17:25Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @defanor What are your main priorities? A free services that allows to have a custom domain or a service that is outside Russia and doesn't block access/accepts anonymous payments?
       
 (DIR) Post #AcAXixG5LHQJtQxHXM by defanor@emacs.ch
       2023-11-25T15:27:35Z
       
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       @louis Good question. For work email alone, there is no need for it to be outside: being outside would be useful primarily for a VM, and a VM looks like a better value for a paid service, but then it is a tangled mess of additional preferences and conditions again, not an ordered list of priorities.I have also remembered that the used domain name registrar provides some mail service, though not sure if it has IMAP and SMTP, or why I did not use it. And in the long term a free mail service supporting a custom domain would not be of much use, since paying for the domain is likely to be as tricky as paying for hosting (which is complicated by me not being a fan of the recently common cryptocurrencies), unless I will transfer it to a local company, though not aware of reputable ones. Although long-term planning may be an inappropriate kind of planning for unstable conditions.For now I have set sending via a work mail server, by setting smtpmail (via a mu4e context) to invoke a remote sendmail program over SSH, configuring OpenDKIM to handle that domain name as well, editing the DNS RRs.