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Fastmail. Paying $30/yr for my email hosting. Pros: I don't have to worry about my emails being scanned to create a profile of me. I got my <firstname>@fastm

Fastmail. Paying $30/yr for my email hosting. Pros: I don't have to worry about my emails being scanned to create a profile of me. I got my <firstname>@fastmail.com which I could not with Gmail. As a paid customer I get support for if/when something is wrong. Has solid Web UI that is minimal and fast. Email client for ios works great. Cons: Not the cool new thing. Setting it up for shared calendar with others was a bit unintuitive. Every now and then someone sends me a Google Doc, and I need to think about how to open it without a Google account. Spam filter is not as good as Google's. A phishing email gets to the inbox every now and then. But, I report them.

minikites 9y ago
I've been using Fastmail since 2008 and it's been great ever since. I've submitted a few support requests in my time using the service and they were handled promptly and politely.
LeoPanthera 9y ago
Not getting <firstname>@ shouldn't really be a problem. Everyone should buy their own domain name for email. It's cheap, easy to setup (and natively supported by Fastmail), and it means that you're not locked into one mail provider ever again. Don't be <firstname>@fastmail, be <firstname>@<lastname>.me - or whatever you prefer.
- mcbruiser3 9y ago
  what about someone social engineering the registrar [1] or hacking the TLD nameservers [2] and getting control of all your accounts using that email? [1] https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-24eb09e026dd https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-... [2] https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-all-io-domains-with-a-targeted-registration/ https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-all...
- inezk 9y ago
  so like 6 billion domains?
  - LeoPanthera 9y ago
    Huh? There is more than one TLD. .us is available for US people. Every country has a TLD. There's a whole pile of generic TLDs. Finding one for you will not be a problem.
    - joshmn 9y ago
      You have to realize that the general public doesn't always understand that the internet isn't always .com. My email is josh@josh[dot]micronesia. When someone — such as a banker, or "everyday" person — asks for my email address, I overwhelmingly hear, "josh at josh dot m n at... what? gmail dot com? yahoo dot com?"
      - sterex 9y ago
        If it's very hard, you write or message it to them.
      - jetpks 9y ago
        I get this too with my `.systems` tld. It's really not that much of a problem when I'm telling someone my email address out loud. What I have problems with are old html/js forms not accepting it for one reason or another.
        blibble 9y ago
        what do you think the odds are of the company running .systems being around in 10 years? 50%?
        jetpks 9y ago
        It's just not that hard to run a registrar. Even if the current one bites the dust, someone will pick it up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- sterex 9y ago
  I agree. If your provider goes down you need to literally change your email and inform everyone and change it in all your services. If you own the domain, you can just switch providers.
- 0x00000000 9y ago
  I have an uncommon last name - about 3 families in the world with it as far as I can tell. Some asshole has been squatting <mylastname>.com for over 20 years and said he "hadn't considered selling it" then wanted $100,000 for it. The same guy has been squatting hundreds of domains since the 90s, many of them 1 letter off from major websites. What can I do against this scum? I saw that there have been many successful disputes against him so I was thinking of constructing one in a similar vein saying that his use of my unique last name to serve malware and ads is damaging to my reputation but it seems a little weak. Also no other TLD is even an option for an email address because people always assume you made a mistake and just send things to .com anyway in my experience.
  - leipert 9y ago
    You could register a second or third level .name domain, so in your case probably 0x00000000.name or firstname.0x00000000.name ;) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.name
  - true_religion 9y ago
    For 100 thousand you could just buy a tld and be firstname@lastname
  - shoo 9y ago
    why not just register a domain that isn't your last name, and use that?
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
Can't recommend Fastmail enough. I run a variety of services that depend upon email forwarding and it's _significantly_ better and (like it says on the tin) faster than Gmail. This is stuff like having support@my-domain.com addresses that forward onto our Helpdesk, etc, that really need to work reliably.
dorfsmay 9y ago
You don't need gmail to use google doc. Go to https://accounts.google.com https://accounts.google.com "More options", "create an account". You can create one using a different domain and mail server. Google docs is pretty amazing for collaboration and accessibility, just don't put your secrets in there.
wfunction 9y ago
1. Gmail won't be scanning emails anymore, although I'm not sure what difference it makes whether they index it when they already have your data at their fingertips. 2. I guess that's nice, whether worth $30/year though is a different question... you can just as well get your own domain entirely and forward through it. 3. Do you ever need support though? I haven't with Gmail (at least nothing major enough to care about; I do see random bugs every now and then) 4. Gmail UI is pretty amazingly solid too (do you not find it so?), just not that fast (but then again that's why there's a mobile and basic version, and an app, etc.).
- tmnvix 9y ago
  > $360/year I think you mistook $30/year for $30/month.
  - wfunction 9y ago
    Whoops! I did, thanks! Fixing now...
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Support matters a ton if Google suspends your account and deletes your online identity by mistake. I've seen too many stories like it, and somehow people just assume it'll never happen to them. Gmail's UI was the best thing I ever used... Until FastMail.
colmcg 9y ago
A cool feature with Fastmail is how flexable your address is. Say my email is colmcg@fastmail.com, I can also send emails to hackernews@colmcg.fastmail.com instead of colmcg+hackernews@fastmail.com combine that with how easy it is to make alternative addresses, and you can make an email for every site you use.
Spacemolte 9y ago
Also a satisfied fastmail user, nice ui, nice ios client. Wanted to use my own domain, and with gmail, I had to pay pretty much the same as for fastmail, and I was tired of the whole we read your mail etc.
prh8 9y ago
Just another vote for Fastmail. I have it set up with my personal domain, it's been great to have various email aliases. I use git@domain.com for Github/Gitlab/connected services, resume@domain for resume, and linkedin@domain to easily filter out LI's 10k emails. I'm sure others have plenty of other creative uses as well.

minikites 9y ago

I've been using Fastmail since 2008 and it's been great ever since. I've submitted a few support requests in my time using the service and they were handled promptly and politely.

LeoPanthera 9y ago

Not getting <firstname>@ shouldn't really be a problem. Everyone should buy their own domain name for email. It's cheap, easy to setup (and natively supported by Fastmail), and it means that you're not locked into one mail provider ever again. Don't be <firstname>@fastmail, be <firstname>@<lastname>.me - or whatever you prefer.

mcbruiser3 9y ago
what about someone social engineering the registrar [1] or hacking the TLD nameservers [2] and getting control of all your accounts using that email? [1] https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-24eb09e026dd https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-... [2] https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-all-io-domains-with-a-targeted-registration/ https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-all...
inezk 9y ago
so like 6 billion domains?
- LeoPanthera 9y ago
  Huh? There is more than one TLD. .us is available for US people. Every country has a TLD. There's a whole pile of generic TLDs. Finding one for you will not be a problem.
  - joshmn 9y ago
    You have to realize that the general public doesn't always understand that the internet isn't always .com. My email is josh@josh[dot]micronesia. When someone — such as a banker, or "everyday" person — asks for my email address, I overwhelmingly hear, "josh at josh dot m n at... what? gmail dot com? yahoo dot com?"
    - sterex 9y ago
      If it's very hard, you write or message it to them.
    - jetpks 9y ago
      I get this too with my `.systems` tld. It's really not that much of a problem when I'm telling someone my email address out loud. What I have problems with are old html/js forms not accepting it for one reason or another.
      - blibble 9y ago
        what do you think the odds are of the company running .systems being around in 10 years? 50%?
        jetpks 9y ago
        It's just not that hard to run a registrar. Even if the current one bites the dust, someone will pick it up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
sterex 9y ago
I agree. If your provider goes down you need to literally change your email and inform everyone and change it in all your services. If you own the domain, you can just switch providers.
0x00000000 9y ago
I have an uncommon last name - about 3 families in the world with it as far as I can tell. Some asshole has been squatting <mylastname>.com for over 20 years and said he "hadn't considered selling it" then wanted $100,000 for it. The same guy has been squatting hundreds of domains since the 90s, many of them 1 letter off from major websites. What can I do against this scum? I saw that there have been many successful disputes against him so I was thinking of constructing one in a similar vein saying that his use of my unique last name to serve malware and ads is damaging to my reputation but it seems a little weak. Also no other TLD is even an option for an email address because people always assume you made a mistake and just send things to .com anyway in my experience.
- leipert 9y ago
  You could register a second or third level .name domain, so in your case probably 0x00000000.name or firstname.0x00000000.name ;) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.name
- true_religion 9y ago
  For 100 thousand you could just buy a tld and be firstname@lastname
- shoo 9y ago
  why not just register a domain that isn't your last name, and use that?

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

Can't recommend Fastmail enough. I run a variety of services that depend upon email forwarding and it's _significantly_ better and (like it says on the tin) faster than Gmail. This is stuff like having support@my-domain.com addresses that forward onto our Helpdesk, etc, that really need to work reliably.

dorfsmay 9y ago

You don't need gmail to use google doc. Go to https://accounts.google.com https://accounts.google.com "More options", "create an account". You can create one using a different domain and mail server. Google docs is pretty amazing for collaboration and accessibility, just don't put your secrets in there.

wfunction 9y ago

1. Gmail won't be scanning emails anymore, although I'm not sure what difference it makes whether they index it when they already have your data at their fingertips. 2. I guess that's nice, whether worth $30/year though is a different question... you can just as well get your own domain entirely and forward through it. 3. Do you ever need support though? I haven't with Gmail (at least nothing major enough to care about; I do see random bugs every now and then) 4. Gmail UI is pretty amazingly solid too (do you not find it so?), just not that fast (but then again that's why there's a mobile and basic version, and an app, etc.).

tmnvix 9y ago
> $360/year I think you mistook $30/year for $30/month.
- wfunction 9y ago
  Whoops! I did, thanks! Fixing now...
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Support matters a ton if Google suspends your account and deletes your online identity by mistake. I've seen too many stories like it, and somehow people just assume it'll never happen to them. Gmail's UI was the best thing I ever used... Until FastMail.

colmcg 9y ago

A cool feature with Fastmail is how flexable your address is. Say my email is colmcg@fastmail.com, I can also send emails to hackernews@colmcg.fastmail.com instead of colmcg+hackernews@fastmail.com combine that with how easy it is to make alternative addresses, and you can make an email for every site you use.

Spacemolte 9y ago

Also a satisfied fastmail user, nice ui, nice ios client. Wanted to use my own domain, and with gmail, I had to pay pretty much the same as for fastmail, and I was tired of the whole we read your mail etc.

prh8 9y ago

Just another vote for Fastmail. I have it set up with my personal domain, it's been great to have various email aliases. I use git@domain.com for Github/Gitlab/connected services, resume@domain for resume, and linkedin@domain to easily filter out LI's 10k emails. I'm sure others have plenty of other creative uses as well.