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email is such a critical part of my digital life that is stability and convenience are the critical factors which can overweight some shortcomings in features a
by vzaliva 7y ago
email is such a critical part of my digital life that is stability and convenience are the critical factors which can overweight some shortcomings in features and UI.
So the additional arguments for staying with Gmail are:
1. Stability. Google as a company is not going anywhere. Can you say the same about smaller companies?
2. Backend infrastructure. Google has some serious backend managed very professionally. I am pretty comfortable with my email data being safe with them.
3. Security. My guess is that the Google security team has more people than the whole development team of Purelymail or even Fastmail. They know how to resist attacks from state actors, massive DDOS, etc.
4. Spam filters. Having 1 billion active users Gmail has a unique ability to detect spam. Smaller providers, no matter how good are their antispam algorithms are, just do not have access to such amount of data.
That said, I share some of your concerns about Gmail and thinking about moving to ProtonMail.
- nullc 7y agoConsidering the importance of email that you mention: What is your plan if google suddenly bans your account? Google might not go anywhere but your access to it might. And when their automation directs them to ban an account, there is essentially no recourse-- they won't even respond to you.
- vzaliva 7y agoany provider can ban your account. my recourse is to switch my domain. I do not use @gmail.com address - I use my own domain with google mail.
- remram 7y agoI considered doing that, but decided against it because domain names are rented and not permanently yours. If I ever stop paying, make a mistake, or pass away, anyone can grab it and password-recover their way in all my accounts... I'm not sure if it's a good trade-off...
- ValentineC 7y ago> If I ever stop paying, make a mistake, or pass away, anyone can grab it and password-recover their way in all my accounts... I'm not sure if it's a good trade-off... If you have the cash available to do so, the best practice is to renew your domain for 10 years, and then add an extra year every year. I'm surprised there aren't nonprofits that an individual can entrust a lump sum payment to, to keep our domains renewed for tens or hundreds of years.
- nullc 7y ago> I do not use @gmail.com address - I use my own domain with google mail. That is key, and really good advice. People with that setup are massively better off.
- vzaliva 7y agothis discussion inspired me to write down my thoughts on email setup: https://medium.com/@krokodil42/a-quick-guide-to-your-personal-email-address-2020-edition-98c06dc0e389 https://medium.com/@krokodil42/a-quick-guide-to-your-persona...
- tgvaughan 7y agoSure, but people who are using free Gmail accounts (not you, of course) have limited recourse if they are locked out. If you're paying for something directly at least you can expect to be treated like a customer. For me there are two distinct worries and corresponding solutions. I pay 50 bucks to fastmail every year for the peace of mind that I won't lose access to my data. I pay an 8 dollar registration fee every year for the peace of mind that I'll never have to change my address.