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A new look, logo, and website for Fastmail
- hs86 7y agoA few weeks ago they canceled my Paypal payment subscription due to "technical reasons" and now it seems like only credit card payments are available anymore. This is a little scary because credit cards are not that common here in Europe and having such sudden changes it not confidence-building. Luckily, I use my own domain and if Fastmail turns too unreliable, I can just switch to an other provider and point my DNS entries over to them.
- dewey 7y agoWhere are credit cards not that common in Europe? I don’t think I no a single person that doesn’t have one and most banks even give you a free Visa card (prepaid) with your normal bank account in Germany.
- BrandoElFollito 7y agoExactly. The modern aspect of bank cards is much more present on Europe than in the US (chip, contactless,...) I would say however (from personal experience which may be biaised) that cards in Germany are less welcome than in other EU countries (for historical privacy reasons)
- flipchart 7y agoPretty uncommon in the Netherlands. Yes you can get one, but most people here don't have one, possibly due to very few merchants accepting them, and when they do, they pass the CC fees to the consumer
- dewey 7y ago> Nevertheless, around 55% of the Dutch population has at least one credit card, which they mainly use during holidays abroad or when shopping online. Not as high as I expected it to be honest but the article is pretty interesting. Apparently people have them but don't use them because they are not widely accepted in stores and they are very debt averse. Source: https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2018/01/credit-cards-not-yet-popular-among-the-dutch-despite-the-advantages/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2018/01/credit-cards-not-y...
- calvinmorrison 7y agoNot quite, Fastmail does support PayPal. Fastmail no longer supports PayPal subscriptions. You can still manually make payments via the PayPal option, but if you want the convienence of automatic billing a credit card is required. source: I work at Fastmail.
- samwhiteUK 7y ago"The circle of trust" Please.
- imtyler 7y agoThis is, of course, why they’ve qualified the association as being a personal one. “For us,” the circle represents… Implying that this interpretation may/should be true for others comes across to me as self-serving, though. You can attach whatever meaning you wish to a circle, but unless you make an actual effort to convey that meaning, then a circle remains... a circle. And they haven’t made any effort to do so here. IMO, They’re just serving up a big cup of hyperbole for anyone willing to take a sip. Par for the usual corporate course, I guess.
- everybodyknows 7y agoIndeed -- I'm a less-happy user now. The landing page of blog wastes the reader's time with big substance-free cartoons, a variable-column layout, and absence of any item date indicators. You'll need another click on the "Archives" button to get to a useful listing. And how about this gob of drivel in the announcement: > ... makes it easier to talk about why it's important to feel good about email. Meanwhile, documentation of essential features has gone stale: >Keep in mind that U2F is not enabled in Firefox by default. >Good if you want the best security and you're only using Chrome. https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/2fa.html?u=04c140b1 https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/2fa.html?u=04c140b1 U2F 'security.webauth.u2f' is enabled by default, at least for the 67.0.4 Linux build, current on Ubuntu 16.04.
- kabwj 7y agoInstead of spending money on a redesign you don’t need, make your service cheaper. Now that’s something I’d celebrate.
- mttjj 7y agoCan you explain why you feel the service is overpriced? Do you feel the service is overpriced or would you rather pay the same price and get more features? If so, what features would you want? Pricing can be a legitimate discussion but your original comment was rightfully downvoted for sounding like whining and not providing much substance.
- kabwj 7y agoI think it’s too expensive given its marginal cost, and I think it’s because they have no competition. (No, end-to-end encrypted services like Tutanota are not competition because I can’t use IMAP.)
- danskeren 7y agoHow about Migadu? They even have a free plan if you can live with a promo signature.
- mfer 7y agoFastmail doesn't have enough competition. They have mail, contacts, calendaring, and lots of focus on UI/UX. That last part costs but it makes a huge difference. I've used GMail, Outlook (including web), Yahoo, Fastmail, desktop clients, and more. I found myself using Fastmail more efficiently than the others. I was faster at email. That UX/UI isn't a commodity. I wish it was.
- 1123581321 7y agoAssuming FastMail’s revenue is $10MM and the rebranding marketing work cost $250k, and lasts three years, you could see a 4c/mo savings on an individual account. You’re probably better off hoping they can use their brand to achieve greater economies of scale to keep more substantial costs down.
- dmix 7y agoConsidering the amount of changes this article is extremely light on details. Does "new website" mean marketing website or a redesigned web based mail app? I'm assuming this is just marketing/branding changes given it's written by a marketing person.
- tjr 7y agoAfter seeing this article, I reloaded my open Fastmail browser tab. I see a new logo in the upper left corner and a new favicon on the browser tab. Looks the same to me otherwise.
- wofo 7y agoThe webapp is still the same, at least for me
- dombili 7y agoIf the screenshots on the landing page are any indication, the overall design, both on the desktop and mobile, looks to be the same but with a new logo. I can't check it myself because I closed my account with them a couple of weeks ago, so maybe a current user can confirm.
- unicornfinder 7y agoOut of curiosity, what lead you to close your account? I only switched to them fairly recently and I've genuinely been very, very pleased with their service.
- nickik 7y agoWill the app finally work with 2FA authentication? This really is annyoing if its impossible to use the mobile app.
- Tgsgsh 7y agoIsn't Fastmail a Australian company? You forgot to mention about new backdoors.
- digitalni 7y agoYes it is. Backdoors are guaranteed.
- garren 7y agoWhoa. I hadn't heard anything about Fastmail's backdoor concerns [0]. Thanks for bringing it up! [0] https://reclaimthenet.org/fastmail-australian-encryption-law/ https://reclaimthenet.org/fastmail-australian-encryption-law...
- hellcow 7y agoYikes. I hadn't heard of this either. Reconsidering my email host right now, and that's a shame because I really liked Fastmail.
- digitalni 7y agoThis is the only reason why I did not go with fastmail. I am still looking for an alternative to gmail though...
- 29083011397778 7y agoI've been using posteo.de. I haven't heard anything negative about them, they're not terribly expensive, they support IMAP (unlike protonmail), and support is excellent (had issues syncing contacts to a BBOS10 device they solved immediately)
- Deimorz 7y agoMaking your decision based on that doesn't make sense, because it doesn't affect FastMail at all. They're not an end-to-end encrypted service. They can already access all of your data without a backdoor (and need to be able to, to provide features like search). More info in this blog post, specifically under "The AABill doesn’t change your privacy or data security with FastMail": https://fastmail.blog/2018/12/21/advocating-for-privacy-aabill-australia/ https://fastmail.blog/2018/12/21/advocating-for-privacy-aabi...
- _Codemonkeyism 7y ago"You can rely on Fastmail for service and support, and trust that your personal information is protected." Not if I get into a dragnet by Australian security services. Wanted to get away from Gmail. Evaluated Fastmail, Protonmail, Mailbox.org and Posteo. Posteo went out because it doesn't do custom domains on principle, Protonmail went out because search is an issue with encrypted mails at rest. I'm not using Email for something that is illegal (journalism, opposition, ...) in my country, so encryption at rest has only minor impact on my decision. Fastmail looked nice with features but keeping my mail in the EU weighted more. Now that I no longer run a large website, I like the GDPR ;-) In the end migrated to Mailbox.org on my own domain, went smoothly and I'm quite happy now. Minor gripe: I wish Mailbox.org would understand IMAP is an API like every other API and provide unique API keys for applications (like GMail does).
- rmbryan 7y agoHere is our discussion of fastmail vs. protonmail from 3 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19372882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19372882
- mfer 7y agoIt would be great if Protonmail had calendar and contacts even close to Fastmail. Email alone is often not enough.
- enriquto 7y agoFirst time that I read about this scary Australian backdoor stuff. As a (very happy) client of Fastmail, I regret to have to look for other options. Are Australian legislators really that clueless? There seems to be a very strong incentive against making business with Australian companies.
- lfam 7y agoDo you think it's different in other countries? Everywhere, the email service will have to give your emails to the police when they come knocking...
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> Everywhere, the email service will have to give your emails to the police when they come knocking The Australian law is broader and contains fewer checks than anything comparable in the developed world. It lets law enforcement compel, with no oversight and in secret, any Australian "to re-engineer software and hardware under their control, so that it can be used to spy on their users" [1]. (Australia has no bill of rights [2].) The American analog is an intelligence agency getting a national security letter [3] stamped by a FISA court [4]. The order can compel disclosure of information on hand, but cannot compel a product to be re-engineered [5]. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/new-fight-online-privacy-and-security-australia-falls-what-happens-next https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/new-fight-online-priva... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/opinion/australia-encryption-surveillance-bill.html?module=inline https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/opinion/australia-encrypt... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pavlov 7y ago
- dewey 7y agoI know there's always the discussion when a new design comes around and everyone complains but I actually thought the old one looked way better and unique. The new one feels like a generic startup landing page.
- wjdp 7y agoLong time fastmail user. First exposure to this was an unfamiliar icon on my homescreen, was a bit confused/concerned. I'm sure I'll get used to it but echo your thoughts, it does feel very generic and while dated FastMail's brand was very recognisable.
- philips 7y agoI have been looking at a number of the providers in SaaS consumer email including Proton, Tutanota, Soverin, Fastmail, etc. It is striking how both Soverin and now Fastmail have a breezy abstract style with colorful illustrations. While the other providers feel like VPS hosting landing pages or enterprise sales pages. I wonder if the consumer focused brand of Fastmail and Soverin is aspirational or where their customer base actually is.