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Only Mozilla can make me pay for Google services like Email/Calendar etc. I think I subconsciously trust the brand more than most internet companies out there.
by typon 6y ago
Only Mozilla can make me pay for Google services like Email/Calendar etc. I think I subconsciously trust the brand more than most internet companies out there.
- beervirus 6y agoIndeed. I feel about Mozilla the way I felt about Google a decade or two ago.
- shafyy 6y agoAnd the Basecamp guys with Hey :-)
- lilyball 6y agoHow about FastMail? They have a stellar email service. They also offer contacts and calendars, though I don't personally use those (I use iCloud for that).
- neuronic 6y agoYep, migrated from Gmail and very happily so :)
- mderazon 6y agoI want to migrate from Gmail but I have my Gmail address tied up to so many things. How do you make the move ?
- 867-5309 6y agoa bit like a physical address - forward the mail on for x months and then cut off completely
- dsissitka 6y agoThat's what I did and it worked well for me for the most part. I ended up keeping Gmail around for the occasional service that doesn't work well with Fastmail. Off the top of my head I've had issues with: - Frontier - Green Man Gaming - Paperspace - Rainway - SquareTrade
- benhurmarcel 6y agoI went through all accounts in my password manager and changed it. Not so bad. It doesn't need to be done quickly.
- wyclif 6y agoI would make this Step #1 to the 5 or 6-step processes outlined above. Gets most of the important migration out of the way with a little work the first day.
- CalRobert 6y agoGet your own domain, use it for all your email, and in five or so years gmail will be nothing but spam, basically.
- gcbw3 6y agowhich ironically, is the 5yrs it take for gmail/yahoo to not threat your domain outgoing email as spam.
- CalRobert 6y agoI've never had a problem with gmail recipients since setting up DKIM, SPF, etc. There is an incompetent rinkydink shop running IT for the Irish government ( Topsec - https://www.topsec.com/ https://www.topsec.com/ )that blocks ANY email from namecheap DNS which is really annoying, though.
- wjdp 6y agoFastMail can pull from gmail. My account pulls from all emails I use minus work and can send on those addresses so. It also supports having a different signature depending on which address I'm sending from. See https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/migratetofastmail.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/migratetofastmail.html No connection to them, just a happy customer!
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoI set up my own domain, and forwarded emails from it to my Gmail account. Over a year and a half, every time I logged into something, I updated the email address to my own. Eventually, when I jumped to FastMail, I repointed my domain name to it, and most of my new emails started coming over automatically, since the email address is now something I control. I monitored Gmail for a while regularly to catch straggler services. (I chose not to forward to avoid complacency with stuff going to Gmail before reaching my FastMail account.)
- dmit 6y agoHere are the steps I've been following: 1) Sign up for Fastmail. 2) Sync all mail from GMail account to Fastmail (via the Fastmail web UI; you grant FM access to your GMail data through OAuth - once sync is complete you can revoke this access). 3) Set up an auto-forward rule in GMail for all incoming mail to go to your Fastmail address. 4) Set up a rule in Fastmail to put all incoming mail sent to your GMail address into a separate folder (or labeled with a special label if you're signed up for Fastmail's label beta). Any time you get email in that folder, that's a task for you to either unsubscribe or update the corresponding account to your new email address. I'm currently in month #10 of migration. Most commonly used accounts were updated during the first couple of weeks. But be careful that the tail of services that are still configured to use your old email address tends to be long, and in my experience those are some of the more important emails that you don't want to miss. The ones that are only sent once every couple years. Also, it really helps if you've been using GMail with a personal domain name (e.g. through Google Apps). In this case migrating is a matter of pointing the MX DNS records to Fastmail's servers. Bonus points: Fastmail allows wildcard recipients, so if you prefer to have unique addresses for each service you sign up for, you don't even need to set up a separate xyz@example.com alias. Just register with <whatever>@example.com and you'll get all email delivered to that address in your inbox, and you'll be able to specify it as the sender's address if you decide to reply to some of those mails. Having a separate email address for each web service also makes looking up who leaked what on haveibeenpwned.com more fun.
- mynegation 6y agoAnd most importantly: 0) Get your own domain and set up MX record to fastmail servers This way if you ever migrate again, you will not need to do it all over again. One word of advice - keep your registrar login and emails associated with the domains _not_ on your domain, otherwise it is going to present a problem should you ever need to fix anything related to domains.
- ximeng 6y agoThen you are pushing the problem to someone else to manage the domains right? How do you set this up?
- archenary 6y agoI did this recently. It's pretty straightforward. First, do a one-time import from Gmail. Fastmail has an import tool that does this over OAuth. Took me ~45 minutes to import ~50,000 emails. Next, setup IMAP and SMTP on Fastmail for your Gmail account. This way, you can continue to receive and reply to emails sent to Gmail, using Fastmail as the client. When replying to an email, Fastmail defaults to the right sender (identity) based on whom the email is sent to (abc@fastmail.com or abc@gmail.com). An alternative is to setup email forwarding in Gmail, so you get a copy of emails sent to your old address. If you don't have a custom domain, I highly recommend getting one and use that going forward. There might come a day when you want to migrate off Fastmail. With a custom domain, you just need to update the MX records.
- neuronic 6y agoLate but essentially what the others said. Additionally I would point out that I migrated my accounts whenever I used them and noticed I logged in - so really piecewise. On top, I had some burts of motivation to step through my password manager vault occasionally and update accounts I don't log in to too much.
- michaelbuckbee 6y agoVery happy Fastmail user. Not so happy that so many different services don't interoperate with it. Things like Calendly or many standalone Calendar apps. Seems like it is Apple, Google, Outlook or nothing.
- deadbunny 6y agoMaybe I'm missing something but doesn't Fastmail use open standards? For example I access my Fastmail calendar on my phone and desktop using caldav. Isn't it down to the app to support those standards?
- cbsks 6y agoFastmail does support the CalDAV standard, but calendly does not: https://help.calendly.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/245299227-Connect-to-CalDAV-calendars https://help.calendly.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/245299227... That’s entirely calendly’s fault.
- michaelbuckbee 6y agoI _completely_ agree with you - but it leaves me in the same spot either way as I've yet to find a Calendly competitor that will work with CalDAV. An open spec is great, but it has to be adopted to be used.
- deadbunny 6y agoPerhaps you could raise a feature request with Calendly?
- mistahchris 6y agoI'm also a very happy fastmail user. I don't use the calendar or contacts feature either. But I use the webapp a lot on mobile and it's quite good. I don't even need to download the native app for my phone.
- godzillabrennus 6y agoI’ve used Fastmail for years now on a work account. It’s best feature is that it’s not Google. First, no phone support. Hardly acceptable when even Google has this. Second, no collaboration suite like Drive/Docs. Third, no addons I’m accustomed to having in my daily driver email suite. Things I miss include schedule to send later, default reply all, and no priority inbox. Im stuck using Google for email and maps. I hate google and want to get off them entirely but Gsuite with 1Tb of disk space for my single user personal domain is so powerful and so cheap it’s impossible for me to switch without giving up too much. Google maps I think has some real competition at least. I’m hopeful Apple Maps gets continued improvements so it can get the job done well enough I can drop Google maps this year.
- stilisstuk 6y agoI feel a bit different: Email is a standard. You are talking about an app. Send later is the job of the application,not the standard. Same with reply all. Intelligent priority inbox is _hard_ but i. Principle the same. When you use gmail you conflate the standard with the app.
- lilyball 6y agoI largely agree with this, except that "Send Later" really does want some form of server support so it will happen even if you quit the app (especially on mobile). That said, there are third-party apps that do this, such as Spark (though they require storing your credentials on their servers). Priority inbox is also something that can be done client-side. FWIW FastMail does actually have internal flags for "$ismailinglist" and "$isnotification" that you can access via advanced search, but they don't have any intelligent customization of these flags, no way to tell FastMail "hey this email was categorized wrong". You can write a Sieve script that adds/removes the flags yourself but that only works for stuff you can detect in a sieve script, i.e. no ML. Still, it's better than nothing when using the web app.
- folmar 6y agoThe Google way, aka masquerading flags as special folders seems to work good for non-aware clients. IMAP actually has client-defined flags, but support on the clients is sketchy and not uniform
- PhilippGille 6y agoWasn't there a privacy problem because of the Australian encryption law [1] and the company being based in Australia? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18636076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18636076
- ObsoleteNerd 6y agoIt’s just as private as Gmail, which is the comparison in question. If you want secure, you wouldn’t be using email in the first place.
- ShorsHammer 6y agoGmail is under US jurisdiction though which provides far more protections depending on circumstance. I wouldn't consider them equivalent. Australian laws are some of the most intrusive on the planet and are shared amongst the 5/14 eyes without a warrant.
- chrismorgan 6y agoThat legislation would affect things for a service like ProtonMail, but although it’s ill-conceived doesn’t affect Fastmail: https://fastmail.blog/2018/12/21/advocating-for-privacy-aabill-australia/ https://fastmail.blog/2018/12/21/advocating-for-privacy-aabi...
- wpietri 6y agoHaving recently moved my personal domains to FastMail, I'm a big fan. It's solid, reliable, and reasonably priced. I would have happily paid for Mozilla/Thunderbird mail hosting had that been available.
- archenary 6y agoHappy Fastmail user here. I love it for the snappy web client. It's only after I switched that I realized how slow Gmail felt.
- sigmonsays 6y agoI'd like to echo similar feedback. After I dropped gmail and went to fastmail i noticed it to be MUCH faster. gmail is my primary personal account. I really appreciated taking control of e-mail again. i'm happily paying for e-mail and tend to think putting money down ensures I keep myself honest and maintain a workflow. Now I only save e-mails that are important to me, instead of archiving everything.
- stormdennis 6y agoOne of the nicest things about Gmail is to send myself an email with info or an attachment that I can't think of anywhere logical to put it so I'll find it again. Their search makes it the best filing system, a no-file filing system.
- dikaio 6y agoBeen using Fastmail for years. Not one glitch, love em’
- intopieces 6y agoFastmail's domain feature is the killer app for me. I have my @firstandlast.com secured for $7/year or something, and I can make anything@firstandlast.com and if someone starts spamming me I can just block it.
- neilparikh 6y agoOne thing I'd recommend is making throwaway email addresses using one the domains they own (I think have around a 100). That way, if a spammer gets its, they won't know your domain, and try spamming other username at the domain.
- bad_user 6y agoI don't think that's a good recommendation. Spammers are going to find your domain name and spam it at obvious usernames anyway (eg contact@). Besides what use-case do people have for throwaway addresses? In my experience in most cases the addresses you use aren't throwaway at all. Fastmail does subdomain aliasing and I've been using that for years with my own domain without issues. Every subscription I have has its own email address. I don't need someone else's domains for that.
- neilparikh 6y agoI guess "throwaway" is the wrong word. In my case, I created a few emails under Fastmail's domains and then used them to sign up for things like reddit, newsletters etc, where I don't need to tie it to my identity. I don't think it's a given that spammers will find your domain, if you only provide your email to real people, and give generated emails to online services.
- bad_user 6y agoIf you're going to host anything on that domain, then it will be collected in domain lists. I got rid of my contact@ email address because of that. Email addresses that I use now look like this: reddit@subdomain.domain.com If this leaks, I can track the source and I can bounce messages for this address. While what you're saying is possible, a spammer needs to target you personally and that's not cost effective. It's not easy for them to try every possible English name at that address, because then they quickly get blacklisted. Spammers collect addresses via scripts that crawl the web or via data leaks. It's more cost effective for them to get addresses that have been validated. All the spam I get are on these aliased addresses, biggest problem being the one I publish on my website, which I change periodically. --- I like using my own domain even for aliased addresses because I can change service providers on a whim. I love Fastmail, but if they ever piss me off, I can change to Google Suite or whatever over night, the only thing required is some flexibility in setting up aliases.
- sacul 6y agoI really love Fastmail, but shared contacts have never seemed to work with the default Mac contacts app. According to Fastmail support as of a few years ago, the default Mac contacts app cant handle multiple address books (shared and personal) from the same account. Not Fastmail’s fault, but has anyone else had this trouble?
- g8oz 6y agoHas anyone tried Rackspace email hosting? Looks to be the same price as Fastmail. https://www.rackspace.com/email-hosting/webmail https://www.rackspace.com/email-hosting/webmail
- krrrh 6y agoI’ve been a happy Fastmail user for years, but in a recent thread Announcing Hey, it was alleged that fastmail will recycle your email address after you stop paying them, and that it’s a common attack to try to register old fastmail addresses and try to use them to access services. This contrasts with Hey which will forward your old hey.com address to another address after you stop paying, and not make it available to future customers.
- sgc 6y agoIt's probably worth using your own domain even when using third party email providers, so you are in control of your email address.
- stormdennis 6y agoThat's a good point. I don't suppose there a way of leaving Gmail and bringing your @gmail.com address with you, is there. That was one of the changes that was forced on phone companies years ago to make it easier to move provider.
- sgc 6y agoNo, and there is no way to do that since domains are controlled by mx records, not email addresses.
- kybernetikos 6y agoNo, but Google will happily run your gmail address forwarding to your real address. I've been on fastmail for many years now, but I still get the occasional gmail addressed email in my fastmail inbox. I also use a lot of the other fastmail features, like mail aliases, DNS, and file storage and web site serving. I'm very happy to pay the money.
- thesausageking 6y agoBuy your own domain for your email and set it up with Fastmail. You should trust anyone, even if they say they'll always forward.
- gargron 6y agoPaying customer of Fastmail for 6 years. It's great.
- atroche 6y agoI love FastMail. Never looked back.
- monocularvision 6y agoI mention this whenever FastMail comes up: it is way too expensive to equip my family of 6. Give me a sanely priced family plan and I am in.
- vinay_ys 6y agoWhat in Mozilla's track record makes you trust that they can run a trustworthy service? I'm a big fan of Mozilla for Firefox and rust. But they we have to be objective. They have yet to earn my trust for running a safe and secure service to which I can trust my data.