3 ms·

I see lot of people get around this by purchasing their own domain and using a service like Fastmail. In theory you can switch all of the pieces (domain regist

I see lot of people get around this by purchasing their own domain and using a service like Fastmail. In theory you can switch all of the pieces (domain registration, DNS, and email provider) at will as there are many alternatives available for each piece. I'd like to go this route as well. I've got a domain and Fastmail checks all the boxes for me, but inertia is a powerful thing.

lolinder 4y ago
What helped me finally make the jump was realizing that switching email addresses isn't like moving house: when you make a new email address, you don't lose access to the old one. This means that it's not an all or nothing, you can gradually switch accounts over as you desire. Each baby step you take brings you one step closer to complete independence from Google, and even partial independence is better than nothing. What I ended up doing was registering for my new email and only using that for new accounts. Then I switched over my key accounts (GitHub, domain registrar, hosting, and the like). From there it's been more than a year of just switching accounts over as I notice that they're still on the wrong address. It's not urgent yet, so I can take my time and do it gradually. By now most of the important ones have been migrated, what's left is mostly a few forums that I've not used in years.
dylan604 4y ago
If you use your own domain, yes, you can switch service providers and get email service back up within whatever time frame that takes you. However, if you have a large IMAP mailbox and you are locked out out if, you will not get that historical data if you are suddenly locked out. So the periodic archive download might be a reasonable suggestion.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  So the periodic archive download might be a reasonable suggestion. This is exactly what I do for the handful of domains I pointed to fastmail. I use Thunderbird to keep everything local and use 7zip to make snapshots of the local files and copy them to other local servers and USB drives. If AU started imposing some weird laws on Fastmail I could quickly migrate elsewhere.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thiht 4y ago
Working in domain names industry. Don't forget you never own a domain name, be careful which registry is behind the extension you use. My recommendations would be: - don't use a ccTLD (2 characters TLDs) unless it's your country's TLD, or a country you can trust. ccTLDs don't follow the ICANN rules but the rules of the country. As a rule of thumb, keep in mind that the poorest the country is, the less their infrastructure is reliable. If you rent an exotic .so, don't be surprised if it doesn't resolve one day. There's also a risk that you lose eligibility to your domain overnight. Usually ccTLD registries tend to loosen the requirements (.fr used to be only available to French people for example, not the case anymore), but the opposite is possible. UK residents also lost eligibility to .eu after the Brexit. I'd also avoid geoTLDs (.asia, .berlin, .paris, .cat, ...) because of the eligibility rules. - (new)gTLDs are not all reliable either. Stick to the core gTLDs if possible: .com, .net (Verisign, even with their price increase they're probably the most reliable entity), .info (Afilias), .org (PIR, the shady selling deal they had with Ethos Capital has been rejected). There are reliable newgTLDs if you trust the entity behind it: .app/.dev (Google...) for example. I also like [Radix] and [Donuts] as entities. - don't forget to enable autorenew and to keep an up to date payment mean on your registrar. If you want to retrieve a domain name you lost it will either be costly if you're in the redemption period, or extremely costly if its "drop caught" (from "drop catching", not sure if "drop caught" is a thing) and resold on an aftermarket platform. [Radix]: https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Radix-FZC https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Radix-FZC [Donuts]: https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Donuts-Inc https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Donuts-Inc

lolinder 4y ago

What helped me finally make the jump was realizing that switching email addresses isn't like moving house: when you make a new email address, you don't lose access to the old one. This means that it's not an all or nothing, you can gradually switch accounts over as you desire. Each baby step you take brings you one step closer to complete independence from Google, and even partial independence is better than nothing. What I ended up doing was registering for my new email and only using that for new accounts. Then I switched over my key accounts (GitHub, domain registrar, hosting, and the like). From there it's been more than a year of just switching accounts over as I notice that they're still on the wrong address. It's not urgent yet, so I can take my time and do it gradually. By now most of the important ones have been migrated, what's left is mostly a few forums that I've not used in years.

dylan604 4y ago

If you use your own domain, yes, you can switch service providers and get email service back up within whatever time frame that takes you. However, if you have a large IMAP mailbox and you are locked out out if, you will not get that historical data if you are suddenly locked out. So the periodic archive download might be a reasonable suggestion.

LinuxBender 4y ago
So the periodic archive download might be a reasonable suggestion. This is exactly what I do for the handful of domains I pointed to fastmail. I use Thunderbird to keep everything local and use 7zip to make snapshots of the local files and copy them to other local servers and USB drives. If AU started imposing some weird laws on Fastmail I could quickly migrate elsewhere.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

thiht 4y ago

Working in domain names industry. Don't forget you never own a domain name, be careful which registry is behind the extension you use. My recommendations would be: - don't use a ccTLD (2 characters TLDs) unless it's your country's TLD, or a country you can trust. ccTLDs don't follow the ICANN rules but the rules of the country. As a rule of thumb, keep in mind that the poorest the country is, the less their infrastructure is reliable. If you rent an exotic .so, don't be surprised if it doesn't resolve one day. There's also a risk that you lose eligibility to your domain overnight. Usually ccTLD registries tend to loosen the requirements (.fr used to be only available to French people for example, not the case anymore), but the opposite is possible. UK residents also lost eligibility to .eu after the Brexit. I'd also avoid geoTLDs (.asia, .berlin, .paris, .cat, ...) because of the eligibility rules. - (new)gTLDs are not all reliable either. Stick to the core gTLDs if possible: .com, .net (Verisign, even with their price increase they're probably the most reliable entity), .info (Afilias), .org (PIR, the shady selling deal they had with Ethos Capital has been rejected). There are reliable newgTLDs if you trust the entity behind it: .app/.dev (Google...) for example. I also like [Radix] and [Donuts] as entities. - don't forget to enable autorenew and to keep an up to date payment mean on your registrar. If you want to retrieve a domain name you lost it will either be costly if you're in the redemption period, or extremely costly if its "drop caught" (from "drop catching", not sure if "drop caught" is a thing) and resold on an aftermarket platform. [Radix]: https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Radix-FZC https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Radix-FZC [Donuts]: https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Donuts-Inc https://ntldstats.com/registry/group/Donuts-Inc