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I used to run my own mail server for decades. I gave up when it became nearly impossible for my domain not to end up on some list or some reputation. The big

I used to run my own mail server for decades. I gave up when it became nearly impossible for my domain not to end up on some list or some reputation. The big cloud email providers make it a lot of work to run your own. A friend of mine tried setting up a mail server a couple of months ago at Digital Ocean on a VPS and a couple of others and his mail bounced back all over the place. I ended up with an account at one of the big ones, and then using fetch mail to store all email locally. Only the very latest reside on the cloud server for a max of 10 minutes. All outgoing mail is through my account the cloud provider. Does Helm here provide a façade for the mail server that handles all the security setup and reputation management? Or does each user with Helm have to try to get their email working on their own? (A huge pain)

elzbardico 5y ago
I found a compromise by hosting my email with a company that makes their money out of selling email hosting and stuff instead of advertising. Not being American companies is a bonus to me, as much as I loathe facebook and google, the government is always a far more sinister threat.
- Lendal 5y ago
  That depends on which government. Ever tried sending a FOIA request to Facebook or Google? Within a few miles of my home I can walk into a number of government offices of my local representatives and I can at the very least air my grievances. Sometimes they even can do something about it. Optionally but less effectively I can use a phone or email. There is no Google or Facebook office anywhere around here. Even if there were, I would have no right to enter their offices or ask to speak to the person in charge. They're under no obligation to hear my grievances. You can see almost everything the government is up to. You can't see anything Facebook and Google are up to. They're a black box. The law is on their side to keep it that way, forever. They can change their policies at any time with no notice and no public debate or comment. And that makes them a less "sinister threat" than a democratically elected, constitutional government with representation distributed all the way down to the neighborhood level? Fascinating.
ryandrake 5y ago
Opposite example: I've hosted my own E-mail (+other services) on a $5 Linode VPS for over a decade. Initially had some deliverability problems. Read each and every failure carefully and followed the directions, and solved them all. Once, all of a sudden my IP ended up on one of the blacklists, resulting in severe deliverability problems, and I simply requested a new IP. Smooth sailing for years. My biggest E-mail headache is every six months or so, spamassassin goes out of its mind and has to be re-started. And certbot (letsencrypt) fails for some cryptic reason every time SSL renewal is up and needs to be babysat. $5/month. That's what this product needs to beat.

elzbardico 5y ago

I found a compromise by hosting my email with a company that makes their money out of selling email hosting and stuff instead of advertising. Not being American companies is a bonus to me, as much as I loathe facebook and google, the government is always a far more sinister threat.

Lendal 5y ago
That depends on which government. Ever tried sending a FOIA request to Facebook or Google? Within a few miles of my home I can walk into a number of government offices of my local representatives and I can at the very least air my grievances. Sometimes they even can do something about it. Optionally but less effectively I can use a phone or email. There is no Google or Facebook office anywhere around here. Even if there were, I would have no right to enter their offices or ask to speak to the person in charge. They're under no obligation to hear my grievances. You can see almost everything the government is up to. You can't see anything Facebook and Google are up to. They're a black box. The law is on their side to keep it that way, forever. They can change their policies at any time with no notice and no public debate or comment. And that makes them a less "sinister threat" than a democratically elected, constitutional government with representation distributed all the way down to the neighborhood level? Fascinating.

ryandrake 5y ago

Opposite example: I've hosted my own E-mail (+other services) on a $5 Linode VPS for over a decade. Initially had some deliverability problems. Read each and every failure carefully and followed the directions, and solved them all. Once, all of a sudden my IP ended up on one of the blacklists, resulting in severe deliverability problems, and I simply requested a new IP. Smooth sailing for years. My biggest E-mail headache is every six months or so, spamassassin goes out of its mind and has to be re-started. And certbot (letsencrypt) fails for some cryptic reason every time SSL renewal is up and needs to be babysat. $5/month. That's what this product needs to beat.