[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Thinking about Leaving Gmail
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Ask HN: Thinking about Leaving Gmail
I uninstalled google maps because they deliberately push login so
they can legally share location data across properties. (I was
there when Eric Schmidt described that strategy so I know it's
true) If I really care about privacy I probably need to get rid of
gmail. Has anyone gone there? How are the alternatives treating
you?
Author : more_corn
Score : 36 points
Date : 2022-10-27 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
| wildylion wrote:
| I just run Mailcow on my own domain. Works great.
| ezekg wrote:
| I also switched to Proton for business and personal and I'd never
| go back. I just wish they had a native desktop app.
| HHalvi wrote:
| I have almost moved on from Gmail (Gmail + Gsuite). I have been
| using Hey for almost 2 years now and I prefer it over
| Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook/Protonmail.
|
| And I am in the process of moving my Custom Domains to Fastmail,
| the only thing that irks me is their mobile app refusing to open
| without an active internet connection.
| prirun wrote:
| I switched to FastMail last Feb and am very happy. For personal
| email, I use the cheapest plan with 2GB storage and set the Trash
| folder to delete mail after 365 days. So far I'm only using about
| 13% of the 2GB quota, even including Trash. For business email I
| use the next level up to enable a custom domain.
|
| I set Gmail to forward everything to the new Fastmail email
| address and set a vacation message explaining that I've changed
| email addresses. Very painless.
|
| In some HN discussions people said Fastmail's spam filtering is
| not as good as Gmail. That may be true - I dunno - but for me it
| has been a non-issue.
|
| The thing I really like is it is soooo much faster than Gmail.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Buy a domain and use Fastmail. Don't delete gmail, just stop
| using it. Check it every year or so for a good laugh at all the
| spam.
| fsflover wrote:
| https://www.fsf.org/resources/webmail-systems
| puyoxyz wrote:
| I've been using ProtonMail with a custom domain and I love it !!
|
| The web app is the best desktop email interface I've used and the
| iOS app is the best mobile email interface I've used
| buffalobuffalo wrote:
| mail.zoho.com. Super cheap with a custom domain.
|
| I then just imap it into gmail. My main concern isn't privacy.
| It's gmail suspending me for some stupid reason and leaving me
| locked out of my life.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Getting off of Gmail might help a little, but I feel like it
| wouldn't help much. If most other people are using Gmail, they
| will have your email that way.
| ale42 wrote:
| The more people get off of Gmail, the lesser the probability
| that Google will see a given mail (even if currently it is
| pretty high given the abundance of people using Gmail)
| ale42 wrote:
| I'm running a mail server at home (on a small low-power server).
| Getting it right for incoming mails was easy (I have the chance
| that my ISP doesn't block anything, so I can have port 25 open),
| for outgoing mails it's another story... but after setting up
| DKIM, SPF and DMARC (yes all of them were needed, especially for
| hotmail), deliverability is very good.
|
| As a backup, I created an address at Infomaniak, a Swiss hosting
| company, they give free e-mail (without ads -- their business
| model is rather selling other services like e-mail on custom
| domains, hosting, cloud services, etc.) with 20 GB storage (see
| https://www.infomaniak.com/en/free-email). At the time I did it,
| they were requiring a Swiss mobile number (to limit the number of
| accounts people can get), not sure if now they accept numbers
| from other countries or not. In any case, it works great, both
| with webmail and standard SMTP/IMAP.
| jmconfuzeus wrote:
| I've been running my own mail server for a while now and nothing
| bad happened so far.
|
| Spam detection with rspamd is surprisingly good.
|
| If you like tinkering you might consider it as well.
|
| I used this guide to do it: https://workaround.org/ispmail
|
| But instead of mysql I use sqlite which is easier to work with.
|
| I also built a small app to help me manage the database more
| easily: https://github.com/confuzeus/mailiness
| tqwhite wrote:
| I have run https://mailinabox.email (Ubuntu, Digital Ocean) for
| six or seven years. It is astonishingly simple to install and
| operate. I have never found an email feature (webmail,
| calendar) or security requirement (DNSSec, etc) that is not
| already built in. I go months, maybe even a year without doing
| anything to it.
|
| It also is a DNS server. That is a surprisingly nice thing to
| have. It provides an API that makes a nice integration with
| LetsEncrypt for non-website certificates.
|
| It's a 100% good thing if you are a technical type and do not
| want a corporation governing your email.
| aborsy wrote:
| I like protonmail. It's come a long way. Plans are much better
| now, and you get end to end encryption on the same platform.
| MandieD wrote:
| I'll add my voice to the Fastmail love. I've connected a couple
| of domains to my Standard $50/year (plus VAT) account, and as
| long as you follow all of their directions on adding SPF and DKIM
| settings to your domain, it works like a champ.
|
| Setting up on-the-fly aliasing for my domains was also just a
| matter of following their directions, and I love the looks I get
| when I fill in [businessname]@[mydomain.com]. A middle-aged lady
| engaging in email nerdery really subverts expectations - I tell
| them if they're really hesitant to accept that address with their
| business's name in it that it's an organizational tool for me
| (true) with a bonus of free hacking detection for them (possibly
| true).
|
| I do not say that the main reason is that I do not trust them to
| never ever misuse or lose control of my data.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I use Yandex and live.com.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I had Gmail for 15 years and switched to Hey in 2020. Email isn't
| something I have to manage anymore, and the design is really
| nice. It's not hacker-friendly as it has no API and isn't
| accessible via an email standard (IMAP, etc.), and it's
| $100/year, so isn't for everyone.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Does it have any sort of calendar features, or custom domain
| support yet? Those were the immediate dealbreakers for me
| 1123581321 wrote:
| It has custom domains (and can send as a Gmail account) but
| no calendar service yet.
| ss108 wrote:
| For personal use? I use ProtonMail, but it's not free.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| What do you mean? ProtonMail is free. The paid plan is for
| increasing storage limits.
| ss108 wrote:
| Oh really--I wonder why I'm paying for it then, I must have
| come up against the free tier storage limit at some point.
| function_seven wrote:
| I switched to Fastmail a few years ago. Took about a day to go
| through all of my accounts and update the email addresses. I was
| really, _really_ glad that I had Bitwarden to use as a list of
| every online account I 've ever created.
|
| I've been happy with it ever since. In every conceivable way my
| experience with Fastmail is better than Gmail. I pay $50 a year
| for it.
|
| The only Google product I interact with these days is Youtube.
| There simply is no alternative to that, unfortunately. (I'm a
| consumer, not a creator, so no: that alternative video site
| you're about to recommend to me will not work.)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Many HNers use Fastmail. I'm one of them.
|
| I think Fastmail is 100% great, but there are always some mailing
| lists and other recipients who might treat you as a third or
| fourth class citizen for sending mail from your own domain, even
| if you do all the deliverability stuff right.
|
| Some people think Fastmail is a little pricey, particularly for a
| large inbox, but you get what you pay for.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| What do y'all think of Fastmail vs Protonmail?
|
| Of note from a quick comparison... Fastmail is faster and more
| responsive. Which means a lot! Proton has second-order lag
| whenever I click a new message, folder etc. Noticbly less
| responsive than gmail and fastmail.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Fastmail. Impeccable in every way. I am on the 3 year pre-paid
| plan.
| lucakiebel wrote:
| Switched from proton to fastmail in 2019, mostly because I
| wanted to use apple mail. The encryption and swiss hosting of
| proton is definitely a plus, but when most of the email I send
| goes to gmail, that doesn't really matter.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Sweet. Bought a year.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| My understanding is:
|
| - Fastmail: Better service in every area except privacy, as
| ProtonMail is encrypted and Fastmail will turn over your data
| if a court orders them to. Though Fastmail does value your
| privacy and there's nothing shady about them
|
| - ProtonMail: Unmatched privacy and security, but at the cost
| of many integrations and conveniences
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| I switched to ProtonMail and it's amazing. The interface is
| pretty sleek and the messages between ProtonMail users are
| encrypted as well.
|
| The only thing I don't like is their slightly buggy Android app
| but hey, at least it's FOSS.
|
| The free tier is pretty generous, forces me to manage my emails
| better instead of letting it turn into a spam bin. I'd definitely
| recommend ProtonMail.
| happyjack wrote:
| I'm on mailbox.org . Been using them for 5+ years. I like it a
| lot! I use it for everything besides "cloud storage" (use Mega
| instead). Great for email, XMPP, etc.
|
| Set up the DKIM with your DNS and you'll be fine with your own
| domain. Aliasing is great, too. There webmail / portal is okay (I
| use desktop / iOS instead). Help pages are really good.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I moved a handful of my domains MX records to Fastmail so that
| family members had a super simple UI and good UX experience. It
| isn't free but in some regards neither is Gmail. Either way it is
| very affordable. The one concern I have seen mentioned is that
| their headquarters is in AU and they have some very dystopian
| government policies but I have no idea if that has ever impacted
| anyone. Fastmail handle DKIM signing of your emails. I've not had
| any delivery issues with them as of yet after several years. If
| using your own domains it is easy to set up a canary alias for
| each vendor to limit cross-marketing and cross-market tracking.
| They also allow creating aliases on several of their domains but
| finding the alias you want may be harder.
| funnymony wrote:
| Get your own domain name for the email. This will greatly reduce
| the pain of switching email services. Which will allow you to try
| several of those.
| Ishmaeli wrote:
| What are you using in place of Google Maps?
|
| I migrated from Gmail to mailbox.org about a year ago, but Google
| Maps is the one Google app I can't seem to replace.
| okamiueru wrote:
| Organic Maps (based on OpenStreetMap data) seems to work OK.
| It's of course a compromise as road work doesn't get picked up
| as quickly, and there us no live traffic congestion feed. It's
| also available on f-droid, and is default map application on
| CalyxOS.
|
| What, if anything, do you use for syncing with Google calendar?
| Companies tend to use it, and I find it all too easy to miss
| meetings.
| ale42 wrote:
| Not sure if the question was for the OP or for everyone... in
| the latter case: Organic Maps (for of maps.me without
| ads/trackers, see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27543012). It works great,
| allows you to download maps. Maps are from OpenStreetMaps, so
| generally good in most places, with some exceptions (e.g. last
| year it wanted us to drive the wrong way into a road that was
| not marked as one-way in the map), and much better than google
| maps in some remote places (e.g. tracks in the desert in
| northwestern Argentina).
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(page generated 2022-10-27 23:02 UTC)