4 ms·

Every time a comment like this comes up I say the same thing: Your email address is very very valuable and everything in the digital world is tied to it one way

Every time a comment like this comes up I say the same thing: Your email address is very very valuable and everything in the digital world is tied to it one way or the other. Own the domain so you can port it to another provider. Keep a copy of your emails somewhere - a mail app on your laptop? If you use drive, sync it fully to a laptop. It's not just Google, any service - paid or free, can and will shutdown your account. It's something you have to assume will happen to you - not just some random stranger on the internet. I don't know about you but I definitely don't want to deal with losing all my digital documents, pictures and most important all my accounts by losing my email address. No one should be complacent about this.

EduardoBautista 8y ago
You know, I currently use my own domain for email. Maybe I am paranoid, but I worry about that when I die, my domain will expire, and then someone will register that domain and set up email accounts with it. They would be able to access so many services that I would have left open after my death. I still don't know how to handle this apart from leaving a fund to someone I trust to have my domain renewed for a few more decades after my death.
- dstaley 8y ago
  You don't even need to die for this to be an issue. Your registrar could just screw up and sell your domain to someone else. Or your registrar could have a security breach resulting in your domain being transferred. There's a myriad of ways the "own your domain" solution could fail, so it's really about which risks you're willing to take.
  - EduardoBautista 8y ago
    Yes, I have thought about this as well. One of the reasons I am in the process of moving all of my domains to Gandi is because they appear to be the only reputable domain registrar that supports U2F. I take security extremely seriously when it comes to my domains.
    - mneubrand 8y ago
      Namecheap now finally supports TOTP and U2F is on their roadmap. I was close to dropping them before this recent development but it seems like they finally take this seriously
    - JChase2 8y ago
      I always recommend namecheap when I can. Even though I technically work for a competitor lol. They're working on U2F: https://www.namecheap.com/blog/true-totp-2fa-and-u2f-are-coming/ https://www.namecheap.com/blog/true-totp-2fa-and-u2f-are-com...
    - techsupporter 8y ago
      > One of the reasons I am in the process of moving all of my domains to Gandi is because they appear to be the only reputable domain registrar that supports U2F. I use Gandi and am quite pleased with their security settings. Not only is my account secured with an absurdly long password, I have U2F enabled and I have enabled the IP restriction list so that authentication only succeeds when coming from one of them. They even fixed my only quibble. In the past, if I logged in with valid credentials but from an unlisted IP, the error message would say "you're coming from an IP that's not permitted." Now the message for all types of failures--bad password, wrong IP, incorrect TOTP code--is the same so an attacker can't confirm valid credentials.
- steelframe 8y ago
  > I worry about that when I die, my domain will expire, and then someone will register that domain and set up email accounts with it. The good news is that you will be dead, and so you won't be worrying about anything at all.
  - sbov 8y ago
    Your spouse might though, considering they could rack up charges on shared debit and credit cards.
cortesoft 8y ago
What if someone hijacks your domain?
komali2 8y ago
I bought my domain through domains.google.com though, lol Though, my nameservers are on bluehost. My biggest issue is figuring out other aspects of google-tied-ness. For example, everyone has my @gmail email right now. Websites, newsletters, contacts, everybody. Untying that will take a while. Also, I use Inbox for organizing my mail, and I like that a lot. I need to figure out a way to get similar functionality while using a me@example.com domain... either forwarding or something... but then how do I send mail FROM me@example.com? Mail stuff is so obscure to me, I'd love to sit down and learn it sometime but there's always something "more pressing" for a work project or whatever for me to learn. EDIT: So, I decided to give it another go. Seems impossible through Inbox, but through gmail I found a thing under settings to "add another email address I own" that lets me input manually the SMTP information that bluehost shows for my email. Might be working, who knows. I'm stuck waiting for google's "verify" email to turn up in my bluehost web inbox.
- etimberg 8y ago
  I just started the process of moving from gmail to an email on a custom domain through https://www.migadu.com/en/index.html https://www.migadu.com/en/index.html. The setup process was pretty painfree and they provide very detailed setup instructions. I haven't set my gmail to forward to the new email yet. I've spent the last month or so unsubscribing from a lot of email newsletters. Once I get the mail volume down even further, I'll setup gmail to autoforward and then give out my new email to those who need it. I haven't yet found a Google Calendar substitute but that's lower priority right now.
  - jnieminen 8y ago
    iCloud calendar or hosting your own think on nextcloud?

EduardoBautista 8y ago

You know, I currently use my own domain for email. Maybe I am paranoid, but I worry about that when I die, my domain will expire, and then someone will register that domain and set up email accounts with it. They would be able to access so many services that I would have left open after my death. I still don't know how to handle this apart from leaving a fund to someone I trust to have my domain renewed for a few more decades after my death.

dstaley 8y ago
You don't even need to die for this to be an issue. Your registrar could just screw up and sell your domain to someone else. Or your registrar could have a security breach resulting in your domain being transferred. There's a myriad of ways the "own your domain" solution could fail, so it's really about which risks you're willing to take.
- EduardoBautista 8y ago
  Yes, I have thought about this as well. One of the reasons I am in the process of moving all of my domains to Gandi is because they appear to be the only reputable domain registrar that supports U2F. I take security extremely seriously when it comes to my domains.
  - mneubrand 8y ago
    Namecheap now finally supports TOTP and U2F is on their roadmap. I was close to dropping them before this recent development but it seems like they finally take this seriously
  - JChase2 8y ago
    I always recommend namecheap when I can. Even though I technically work for a competitor lol. They're working on U2F: https://www.namecheap.com/blog/true-totp-2fa-and-u2f-are-coming/ https://www.namecheap.com/blog/true-totp-2fa-and-u2f-are-com...
  - techsupporter 8y ago
    > One of the reasons I am in the process of moving all of my domains to Gandi is because they appear to be the only reputable domain registrar that supports U2F. I use Gandi and am quite pleased with their security settings. Not only is my account secured with an absurdly long password, I have U2F enabled and I have enabled the IP restriction list so that authentication only succeeds when coming from one of them. They even fixed my only quibble. In the past, if I logged in with valid credentials but from an unlisted IP, the error message would say "you're coming from an IP that's not permitted." Now the message for all types of failures--bad password, wrong IP, incorrect TOTP code--is the same so an attacker can't confirm valid credentials.
steelframe 8y ago
> I worry about that when I die, my domain will expire, and then someone will register that domain and set up email accounts with it. The good news is that you will be dead, and so you won't be worrying about anything at all.
- sbov 8y ago
  Your spouse might though, considering they could rack up charges on shared debit and credit cards.

cortesoft 8y ago

What if someone hijacks your domain?

komali2 8y ago

I bought my domain through domains.google.com though, lol Though, my nameservers are on bluehost. My biggest issue is figuring out other aspects of google-tied-ness. For example, everyone has my @gmail email right now. Websites, newsletters, contacts, everybody. Untying that will take a while. Also, I use Inbox for organizing my mail, and I like that a lot. I need to figure out a way to get similar functionality while using a me@example.com domain... either forwarding or something... but then how do I send mail FROM me@example.com? Mail stuff is so obscure to me, I'd love to sit down and learn it sometime but there's always something "more pressing" for a work project or whatever for me to learn. EDIT: So, I decided to give it another go. Seems impossible through Inbox, but through gmail I found a thing under settings to "add another email address I own" that lets me input manually the SMTP information that bluehost shows for my email. Might be working, who knows. I'm stuck waiting for google's "verify" email to turn up in my bluehost web inbox.

etimberg 8y ago
I just started the process of moving from gmail to an email on a custom domain through https://www.migadu.com/en/index.html https://www.migadu.com/en/index.html. The setup process was pretty painfree and they provide very detailed setup instructions. I haven't set my gmail to forward to the new email yet. I've spent the last month or so unsubscribing from a lot of email newsletters. Once I get the mail volume down even further, I'll setup gmail to autoforward and then give out my new email to those who need it. I haven't yet found a Google Calendar substitute but that's lower priority right now.
- jnieminen 8y ago
  iCloud calendar or hosting your own think on nextcloud?