6 ms·

The main issue is Google will only drive a small minority of it's customers/'products being sold' away. If you have a problem with Google's current approach, yo

by ancarda 13y ago

The main issue is Google will only drive a small minority of it's customers/'products being sold' away. If you have a problem with Google's current approach, you may want to consider leaving, not to "stick it to the man" but to not have to deal with their services anymore. I recently deleted everything on my account (G+ & YT included) and it feels great to be free from the constant harassment. I only have Gmail active now. I'm still looking for a new mail provider but once I have one, my relationship with Google is over as far as I'm concerned. It really depends on how much you need to use Google's services.

selectodude 13y ago
I feel somewhat dirty saying this, but I'm a fan of Office 365. Exchange support, fantastic customer service, and I feel like if I'm paying money, I'm actually the customer. NSA's got all my shit anyway, at this point. If I can find an equivalent product that doesn't have the .gov down their throats, I'll jump ship tomorrow. But for now...
- antonius 13y ago
  "I feel somewhat dirty saying this" Why? O365 is a solid alternative to GMail. Nothing to be ashamed about.
  - selectodude 13y ago
    My anti-Microsoft bias is showing.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  I just got an idea: The hard part about setting up your own email server is, by far, ensuring deliverability. New/dynamic addresses tend to not be trusted by other mail servers, so that is really the most "dangerous"/time consuming part. So, why not do the following?: * Set up your home server to accept email. If it goes down for a few hours, hey, pretty much every mail server will retry for a few days, so you're pretty much guaranteed to get all messages. * Set up your home mail server to use something like Mailgun or Mandrill to actually send messages. I'm using Mailgun and they have a fantastic interface, giving me a checklist of things I need to do to be able to send emails with pretty much guaranteed deliverability (DomainKeys, SPF, etc). This would both allow you to receive mail on any domain you wanted, keep your email safe from the NSA/whoever (you can make your home server TLS-only) and ensure that you can send email from any domain you own with great deliverability. Plus, it's free (unless you hit Mailgun's 10k mails/month limit, which is pretty unlikely). This could pretty much be a Docker image, so setting it up would just be a "docker run some/image". I have various domains, and right now using Gmail is a pain in the ass because I can't change my primary domain. I have to keep my Google identity tied to my 10-year-old email address even though I never use it any more. I'd lose spam filtering and search, but eh, there are good spam filters around.
  - anaphor 13y ago
    I think I might hit 10k emails a month if I subscribe for a few more mailing lists, though I guess I could stand to unsub from a few. Otherwise I think that's a pretty decent solution.
    - ancarda 13y ago
      The limit is for outgoing mail so unless your sending 10,000 emails a month to mailing lists, I don't think you'll have a problem.
      - anaphor 13y ago
        Ah ok, my bad, I misread that.
  - saurik 13y ago
    I do this (but will argue doing it under some free limit misses the point: man up and pay for your use...); in my case I'm using either AuthSMTP or CritSend for my personal manually-sent outgoing mail (I don't remember which; I have accounts with both).
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      Of course you should pay for this, but, at $0.5 for the first thousand emails after 10k, you'd have to try very hard to pay even a buck. I use them for all my products, though, and pay them gladly.
  - ancarda 13y ago
    I've never considered that. That's actually a really good idea, especially as reliability will be higher. My connection rarely drops and I have a static IPv6 too so DNS may be far easier to configure. Edit: An idea to ease transition would be to setup the vacation responder in gmail to remind your contacts about your new address.
    - 13y ago
fakeanon 13y ago
For some people it is harder. I deleted my personal Google accounts a while ago. Our school e-mail is Gmail. When we visit Youtube after logging in for Gmail, you have an account, just not a channel. A little box telling you about the updated comment section keeps popping up. There is not a great danger to what they are currently doing, but it is annoying.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  Your school or company knowing exactly what you're doing on youtube is more than just annoying. It can be extremely harmful.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    It depends on the school or company though of course.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Use incognito mode for YouTube.
  - sp332 13y ago
    You still have to log in to comment on or even "like" a video. It's also harder to find the videos you want without being able to see your subscriptions.
- resoluteteeth 13y ago
  I got sick of being logged in when I was searching or using youtube, so two weeks ago I started running my gmail account in a separate profile in Chromium (using the "app" command line option to hide the URL bar that it uses when you use the "Create Application Shortcuts" menu option, but set to use a new profile directory). It's slightly annoying and I may migrate off of gmail in the future, but for now it prevents this problem.
idupree 13y ago
I use FastMail. They seem competent. (This is a high compliment.)
- couchand 13y ago
  The interface is simple and clean, their mobile site is lightweight and they seem committed to continued improvements. I'd highly recommend switching to FastMail.
  - johnpowell 13y ago
    I just did today. I closed my google account in its entirety. I got my mom a fastmail account too. I'm just not sure she will end up using it. She is 70 and pretty savvy for her age and even she sent me a email from her fastmail account that simply said "fuck google". She has been bitching about the Google+ nagging for a few weeks and seems pretty eager to get off the google teat.
AsmMAn 13y ago
What about mail.com as your new mail service?
- ancarda 13y ago
  It doesn't seem like I can use my own domain. That's actually extremely important as I don't want to end up in the same scenario I'm in (can't just pack up and move). It seems my options are: * Host myself and deal with possibly losing mail, high spam, rejected mail or downtime. * Pay for a service to handle this for me (either partially like Mailgun or fully like FastMail). If I want more uptime, I could lease a VPS. Either way, I have to pay up somewhere (money or loss of data). If I'm paying, I'd rather back a company that cares about privacy, like FastMail.
AsmMAn 13y ago
What about mail.com as your new mail service?

by ancarda 13y ago

selectodude 13y ago

I feel somewhat dirty saying this, but I'm a fan of Office 365. Exchange support, fantastic customer service, and I feel like if I'm paying money, I'm actually the customer. NSA's got all my shit anyway, at this point. If I can find an equivalent product that doesn't have the .gov down their throats, I'll jump ship tomorrow. But for now...

antonius 13y ago
"I feel somewhat dirty saying this" Why? O365 is a solid alternative to GMail. Nothing to be ashamed about.
- selectodude 13y ago
  My anti-Microsoft bias is showing.
StavrosK 13y ago
I just got an idea: The hard part about setting up your own email server is, by far, ensuring deliverability. New/dynamic addresses tend to not be trusted by other mail servers, so that is really the most "dangerous"/time consuming part. So, why not do the following?: * Set up your home server to accept email. If it goes down for a few hours, hey, pretty much every mail server will retry for a few days, so you're pretty much guaranteed to get all messages. * Set up your home mail server to use something like Mailgun or Mandrill to actually send messages. I'm using Mailgun and they have a fantastic interface, giving me a checklist of things I need to do to be able to send emails with pretty much guaranteed deliverability (DomainKeys, SPF, etc). This would both allow you to receive mail on any domain you wanted, keep your email safe from the NSA/whoever (you can make your home server TLS-only) and ensure that you can send email from any domain you own with great deliverability. Plus, it's free (unless you hit Mailgun's 10k mails/month limit, which is pretty unlikely). This could pretty much be a Docker image, so setting it up would just be a "docker run some/image". I have various domains, and right now using Gmail is a pain in the ass because I can't change my primary domain. I have to keep my Google identity tied to my 10-year-old email address even though I never use it any more. I'd lose spam filtering and search, but eh, there are good spam filters around.
- anaphor 13y ago
  I think I might hit 10k emails a month if I subscribe for a few more mailing lists, though I guess I could stand to unsub from a few. Otherwise I think that's a pretty decent solution.
  - ancarda 13y ago
    The limit is for outgoing mail so unless your sending 10,000 emails a month to mailing lists, I don't think you'll have a problem.
    - anaphor 13y ago
      Ah ok, my bad, I misread that.
- saurik 13y ago
  I do this (but will argue doing it under some free limit misses the point: man up and pay for your use...); in my case I'm using either AuthSMTP or CritSend for my personal manually-sent outgoing mail (I don't remember which; I have accounts with both).
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Of course you should pay for this, but, at $0.5 for the first thousand emails after 10k, you'd have to try very hard to pay even a buck. I use them for all my products, though, and pay them gladly.
- ancarda 13y ago
  I've never considered that. That's actually a really good idea, especially as reliability will be higher. My connection rarely drops and I have a static IPv6 too so DNS may be far easier to configure. Edit: An idea to ease transition would be to setup the vacation responder in gmail to remind your contacts about your new address.
  - 13y ago

fakeanon 13y ago

For some people it is harder. I deleted my personal Google accounts a while ago. Our school e-mail is Gmail. When we visit Youtube after logging in for Gmail, you have an account, just not a channel. A little box telling you about the updated comment section keeps popping up. There is not a great danger to what they are currently doing, but it is annoying.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago
Your school or company knowing exactly what you're doing on youtube is more than just annoying. It can be extremely harmful.
- yuhong 13y ago
  It depends on the school or company though of course.
ams6110 13y ago
Use incognito mode for YouTube.
- sp332 13y ago
  You still have to log in to comment on or even "like" a video. It's also harder to find the videos you want without being able to see your subscriptions.
resoluteteeth 13y ago
I got sick of being logged in when I was searching or using youtube, so two weeks ago I started running my gmail account in a separate profile in Chromium (using the "app" command line option to hide the URL bar that it uses when you use the "Create Application Shortcuts" menu option, but set to use a new profile directory). It's slightly annoying and I may migrate off of gmail in the future, but for now it prevents this problem.

idupree 13y ago

I use FastMail. They seem competent. (This is a high compliment.)

couchand 13y ago
The interface is simple and clean, their mobile site is lightweight and they seem committed to continued improvements. I'd highly recommend switching to FastMail.
- johnpowell 13y ago
  I just did today. I closed my google account in its entirety. I got my mom a fastmail account too. I'm just not sure she will end up using it. She is 70 and pretty savvy for her age and even she sent me a email from her fastmail account that simply said "fuck google". She has been bitching about the Google+ nagging for a few weeks and seems pretty eager to get off the google teat.

AsmMAn 13y ago

What about mail.com as your new mail service?

ancarda 13y ago
It doesn't seem like I can use my own domain. That's actually extremely important as I don't want to end up in the same scenario I'm in (can't just pack up and move). It seems my options are: * Host myself and deal with possibly losing mail, high spam, rejected mail or downtime. * Pay for a service to handle this for me (either partially like Mailgun or fully like FastMail). If I want more uptime, I could lease a VPS. Either way, I have to pay up somewhere (money or loss of data). If I'm paying, I'd rather back a company that cares about privacy, like FastMail.

AsmMAn 13y ago

What about mail.com as your new mail service?