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Ask HN: Secure Paid Alternatives to Google Mail, Calendar and Drive

6 points by chunkyslink 13y ago

After all the snooping revelations I'm looking to move my company email, calendar and drive (Google Docs) away from Google. I'm happy to pay anything up to $100 a year per user. What is out there?

claudius 13y ago
Hosting it yourself at your company is probably the most secure way, depending on the value of your time, possibly also the most expensive. Use a small VPS somewhere to act as a smarthost for email if you are on a ‘residential’ internet connection that isn’t liked by other email servers.
shankar1221989 13y ago
Zoho can be a good substitute and might fit your needs.
- edgecrafter 13y ago
  Zoho not an option, needs to be a non USA based Company in order to avoid FISA warrants and gag orders! NSA effektively scoped any EU Company out as a cloud customer.
ra 13y ago
I've not tried it, but Aussie startup Zeromail sounds good, if slightly over your budget: http://zeromail.com/ http://zeromail.com/
quietthrow 13y ago
Ever since Google, Facebook and likes became main stream (massive centralized service providers) I have never been fully comfortable with using their services. I guess the recent NSA stories have may just tipped me into embracing distributed computing as the answer to these centralized services. More and more I have been thinking that in the next 10-15 years, just like back when they made computing personalized and in turn distributed, the next wave of the same will be happen with mobile. Think about it as MPC (mobile personal/pocket computer). I also think that most of the time users are better off hosting thier own services. I imagine a 'OS' if you will that has a in built service in a light weight facing, e.g. inbuilt mail server, inbuilt photo sharing service, in built website hosting service. if you are on the grid your services are accessible and function as needed. if you are off the grid some services may not work or may be in standy mode. either ways your data is in your control. May be this is a separate post....

6 points by chunkyslink 13y ago

After all the snooping revelations I'm looking to move my company email, calendar and drive (Google Docs) away from Google. I'm happy to pay anything up to $100 a year per user. What is out there?

claudius 13y ago

Hosting it yourself at your company is probably the most secure way, depending on the value of your time, possibly also the most expensive. Use a small VPS somewhere to act as a smarthost for email if you are on a ‘residential’ internet connection that isn’t liked by other email servers.

shankar1221989 13y ago

Zoho can be a good substitute and might fit your needs.

edgecrafter 13y ago
Zoho not an option, needs to be a non USA based Company in order to avoid FISA warrants and gag orders! NSA effektively scoped any EU Company out as a cloud customer.

ra 13y ago

I've not tried it, but Aussie startup Zeromail sounds good, if slightly over your budget: http://zeromail.com/ http://zeromail.com/

quietthrow 13y ago

Ever since Google, Facebook and likes became main stream (massive centralized service providers) I have never been fully comfortable with using their services. I guess the recent NSA stories have may just tipped me into embracing distributed computing as the answer to these centralized services. More and more I have been thinking that in the next 10-15 years, just like back when they made computing personalized and in turn distributed, the next wave of the same will be happen with mobile. Think about it as MPC (mobile personal/pocket computer). I also think that most of the time users are better off hosting thier own services. I imagine a 'OS' if you will that has a in built service in a light weight facing, e.g. inbuilt mail server, inbuilt photo sharing service, in built website hosting service. if you are on the grid your services are accessible and function as needed. if you are off the grid some services may not work or may be in standy mode. either ways your data is in your control. May be this is a separate post....