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I tried switching to Fastmail (from Gmail) 7-ish yrs ago, and I ended up switching back to Gmail specifically because the spam filtering was far worse with Fast

by joemi 5y ago

I tried switching to Fastmail (from Gmail) 7-ish yrs ago, and I ended up switching back to Gmail specifically because the spam filtering was far worse with Fastmail. Is it Fastmail's spam filtering actually better now, or does it just seem that way when you start a new account because you're not getting much spam in general?

anamexis 5y ago
I switched to Fastmail (with my own domain) about a year ago, and haven't had any issues with spam so far.
ocdtrekkie 5y ago
So, I moved to Fastmail in 2016, and I'd say I've never had to get a legitimate email out of my spam folder, and I've never seen obvious spam hit my inbox. I do occasionally get the "my husband left me five mil overseas" type garbage, it's always spam-binned correctly. (Meanwhile, my Gmail account I retain in case someone tries to reach out to it, regularly has emoji-subject-filled spam and other garbage Gmail fails to classify, and also has a deluge of garbage spam coming in... at this point, Gmail is 98% spam for me?) One important point here, and I don't know how long you used Fastmail when you tried it, is that Fastmail uses a personalized spam filter. It probably took me six to eight months to receive enough spam on Fastmail to actually train it. (In the interim, they use a non-personalized filter, which as I said, still worked!) Gmail doesn't seem to be able to make personal spam decisions: When I was regularly using Gmail, some types of regular messages would spam-bin no matter how many times I marked them not spam or classified them as a particular category of mail.
ydant 5y ago
Another anecdote - I switched earlier this year (prompted because of the ending of my grandfathered Gapps account, but my experiences are largely with the "standard" Gmail account vs. Fastmail). Spam filtering on Fastmail has been the same/better than Gmail was - including possibly fewer false-positives on the Fastmail side. Gmail was getting worse about those, both with mailing lists and individuals' emails. Like many on HN, I'm diversifying my data/access risk across more providers. Too many wake-up calls recently about Google locking people out. There are still some services Google is compellingly better enough that I still use them (Android, Maps, YouTube, Google Sheets), but Email was too precious to tie up with them. I also wanted to finally kick myself into stoping using the `gmail.com` address at all anymore (maybe 20% of my emails before the migration).

by joemi 5y ago

anamexis 5y ago

I switched to Fastmail (with my own domain) about a year ago, and haven't had any issues with spam so far.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

So, I moved to Fastmail in 2016, and I'd say I've never had to get a legitimate email out of my spam folder, and I've never seen obvious spam hit my inbox. I do occasionally get the "my husband left me five mil overseas" type garbage, it's always spam-binned correctly. (Meanwhile, my Gmail account I retain in case someone tries to reach out to it, regularly has emoji-subject-filled spam and other garbage Gmail fails to classify, and also has a deluge of garbage spam coming in... at this point, Gmail is 98% spam for me?) One important point here, and I don't know how long you used Fastmail when you tried it, is that Fastmail uses a personalized spam filter. It probably took me six to eight months to receive enough spam on Fastmail to actually train it. (In the interim, they use a non-personalized filter, which as I said, still worked!) Gmail doesn't seem to be able to make personal spam decisions: When I was regularly using Gmail, some types of regular messages would spam-bin no matter how many times I marked them not spam or classified them as a particular category of mail.

ydant 5y ago

Another anecdote - I switched earlier this year (prompted because of the ending of my grandfathered Gapps account, but my experiences are largely with the "standard" Gmail account vs. Fastmail). Spam filtering on Fastmail has been the same/better than Gmail was - including possibly fewer false-positives on the Fastmail side. Gmail was getting worse about those, both with mailing lists and individuals' emails. Like many on HN, I'm diversifying my data/access risk across more providers. Too many wake-up calls recently about Google locking people out. There are still some services Google is compellingly better enough that I still use them (Android, Maps, YouTube, Google Sheets), but Email was too precious to tie up with them. I also wanted to finally kick myself into stoping using the `gmail.com` address at all anymore (maybe 20% of my emails before the migration).