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Email-only Providers?
Amiralul writes "I feel that having GMail or Yahoo email domains on my business card isn't really a professional touch. Yes, I do have a work-domain email address, but it lacks IMAP and it's rather non-responsive from time to time, so I choose not to depend on it for the time being (the previous mentioned free services are actually more reliable). Besides buying a domain and using Google Apps on it (which isn't actually intended for home users), I was thinking on having a domain of my own and choosing a commercial email provider that should provide just that: email (POP3, SMTP, IMAP, with a decent storage space). I don't need storage for my website, I don't need an ugly web interface (if provided and looks decent, maybe I'll use it, but it's not a must-have). If it's free, it's ok, but it doesn't bother me if it has a decent monthly or annual fee. So, do you Slashdotters know any providers that would satisfy my email-related needs?"
Yahoo! Mail will be able to do that for you as well for $34.95 /year.
Only problem might be if Microsoft ends up acquiring Yahoo!. You'll end up with a webmail looking like MSN Hotmail.
Gmail supports mail for your own domain aswell. See here
It also supports existing domains so you don't have to register new one.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Check out Rackspace. You can get just email from them or email and server space if you want. http://www.rackspace.com/solutions/mail/index.php
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
that was too easy
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
I run my domain through google apps. Works well. You can have as many accounts as you need, 6gb mailbox, etc etc.
http://www.google.com/apps/
Give it a go, it's free!
I'm quite happy with runbox.com.
I jumped ship from Gmail to Fastmail back when Gmail didn't have IMAP, and I've liked it so far. They're a fairly powerful, old-school mail provider -- they give you SMTP, POP, IMAP, and webmail. The webmail is the old-school bit -- no AJAX, but you can edit Sieve scripts and do lots of other fun stuff from the Options screen. I recommend them.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
Google has a service just like that, for free. You only have to supply your own domain, they do the rest.
besides Google Apps
So ignoring the most obvious free solution is a good idea. Google is popular for a reason. Setting up Google Apps takes about 10 minutes, you don't even need to host your domain(you can do it with just access to DNS) and it never goes down. Enabling POP/IMAP takes only a few minutes and you are done. The only reason not to use google apps is if you are paranoid about people looking at your emails. If that is the case then you should be setting up Postfix or Sendmail.
pobox.com's "MailStore" has outbound secure SMTP relay, IMAP and POP3 access, as well as webmail. Plus their excellent anti-spam stuff.
I've never used that, but I've been using their forwarding service since 1999. Originally to my ISP's mail account, and later to a SMTP server on my home LAN. (From which I run my own secure IMAP and webmail service.)
It's not free. I think that's a feature. I don't want to be a "product" sold to advertisers, I want to be a customer.
In addition, the poster wanted a domain name and, at least the ISPs that I know about, do not provide domain name.
I use 3ix.org for $12.00 per year. It has 20 email accounts and web hosting. I've only used it for 3 months so far, but have been happy.
http://www.3ix.org/one_dollar_web_hosting.php
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
I've been using them for about 3 years now - I started out on the pay once plan and I've since upgraded the cheapest yearly plan (mostly for extra aliases). I've NEVER had unexpected down time, and only once has there been any downtime for me (a scheduled server upgrade that they notified me over a week in advance of; I think it was on a Sunday and only for an hour or two - no incoming mail was lost, I just couldn't access my mailbox). The sieve scripts are wonderful for automatically handling e-mail and the spam filtering has worked a charm (no spam has made it into my inbox as long as I've used them; a few false positives - all mailing lists that could very easily have been flagged by others as spam - but those are easily corrected with a single "mark as not spam"). The bandwidth caps kind of scared me at first (since I had no clue how much bandwidth I was actually using for e-mail) but it turns out I've never even come close to using half of what they've allotted me. Overall I've been very pleased with them.
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Eh ? Just use Gmail to consolidate your accounts using IMAP/POP using the Mail Fetcher or via forwarding on your own work account. Add your work email address/any other email addresses to Gmails list so you can use it to send email from this address. You can also use the labels to differentiate accounts.
And that should be it. Gmails interface and benefits for all your accounts at once, and only one account to check.
I do this with my work address : which offers IMAP and forwarding, and my University address which offers only POP and it works like a charm.
Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Simple recommendation for op from my experience, use http://www.hostingdude.com/
I've been with them years. Cheap domain names and ultra-cheap and user-friendly email plans that work with standalone programs or with a web interface.
Have a quick look at this page that gives a quick overview of accounts available: https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/email/personal.asp?prog_id=register_cheap_domain_names_cheap_web_hosting&app_hdr=&ci=12931
Reliable, fast (enough) and with all the features op is looking for.
I notice that their sales page now implies there's no calendar with their standard email packages - yet I have such a package and there is an online calendar app.
Concrete analysis...
I've been with Dreamhost for about a year, and I must concur that their email service has been pretty rock solid. However, their webhosting service is up and down like a yoyo.
You get unlimited domains, unlimited mailboxes, unlimited aliases. You can choose to use their anti-spam service or not (at no extra charge).
However, Dreamhost has made a deal with Google whereas all new customers have their mail hosted by Google. So if all you're looking for as an email service, might as well go straight to Google itself.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
I recently set up my own mail server. It's easier than you think (well it was easier than I though it was going to be) and you can have your own domain permanently and sure that it'll never be yanked out from under you. I wrote a full guide on setting up the mail server using Debian and the outstanding mail server package Archiveopteryx. You can read it here:
http://www.mrnaz.com/?s=publish-blog&entryid=197
I hate printers.
Stay far, far away from GoDaddy for email hosting. GoDaddy's email hosting is set up to bounce any messages that contain a URI for a page hosted with certain competitors. I am not joking.
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I absolutely recommend fastmail. Fastmail is the system that I would have liked to design. They really understand IMAP and they have the only webmail interface that doesn't make my skin crawl. I am extremely picky about email (I professionally set up email systems for small and medium sized businesses, and I've been a happy fastmail customer for about seven years.
Even if you don't pick fastmail, you should get your own domain name that you use for email. Typically your domain registrar will allow you to set up forwarding to whatever addresses you wish. This way, you aren't locked into your ISP or other email hoster if you wish to change. If I stopped liking fastmail tomorrow, I could easily switch to another provider by just changing a few DNS records. I've had ISPs and hosting companies screw up my mail before, and I enjoy the freedom to switch if necessary. Though I don't anticipate switching from fastmail whom I've been with for about seven years.
Let me also state why one shouldn't use your ISP's system. Your ISP doesn't win or lose customers by the quality of their email service. For them, email is nothing but an added expense which they run because they "have to" and because it creates a lock-in opportunity. This also applies Gmail. Who knows what their business model is, but keeping email customers happy probably isn't the core of it.
Free services (yahoo, gmail, hotmail etc.) have the caveats of free services: You get little support; Terms and Conditions change more rapidly than most others; advertisements; crappy IMAP support; and they are used by spammers leading to all mail from those services being more likely to be filtered. Fastmail does offer a "free" (advertising supported) service, but I've never used that.
There are some competitors to fastmail. You should look them up as well. The last time I seriously looked at these (2004) to provide a recommendations for a client, fastmail was still the best bet IMO.
Other than being a happy customer, I have no connection to fastmail.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
I agree 100% regarding Fastmail. I'm a longtime user and love that service. You can pick from a bunch of domain names they offer, or use your own. Other important features Fastmail has: -SSL -IMAP -Can grab mail from your GMail & Hotmail accounts automatically. - Mail and attachments are stored encrypted on their servers The fee per year is the equivalent of one or two magazine subscriptions!
This was an option, but this requires having a PC running all the time. I sometimes have a FTP server for my personal needs, but hosting an email server 24/7 for business is out of the question, at least for the time being.
I have an virtual private server that costs me $7.99 a month. It provides root console access. Tektonic offers servers starting at $15/mo. I've had mine for a very long time, so I'm sort of in the "rent-control" land of server hosting (and at a sister provider of them). I run my own domain, and some very simple spam filtering that keeps my spam level to effectively nil.
SIG: HUP
I like to recommend EnterpriseMail (www.quexion.com). They are full service business email, for companies that do not want to deal with the technical issues themselves. Not really targeted to single email accounts, consumers or /. geeks. They answer the phone on the first ring and are good if you don't mind paying a bit more to get real tech support on demand.
I used to run my own mail server at home, too. It wasn't very hard, it didn't cost much, and it was very fast and responsive, eating spam like a champ with Amavis.
It was all very hands-off and worked just great, until the hard drive crashed.
And then, I realized I had to put it all back together. And, then, I realized that I needed to also put together and use a backup system. And then, I asked myself, "What happens if my house burns down?" And then I thought about carrying backups off-site, or automating backups to a box at someone else's house. I carefully considered all of the extra expense and ongoing maintenance that all this stuff would require.
And then, I said "fuck it," switched my MX entries over to Google, and haven't looked back.
YMMV.
Kid-proof tablet..
I've been using fastmail for about 6 or 7 years. I've only experienced 2 downtimes in all that time, neither for more than a day. They're based in Australia, their hosts are basically supercomputers in New York, and their backup hot site is in Norway, if I recall correctly. Truly international, and truly business oriented. I use their paid service, upgraded within months of starting to use them. I plan on sticking with them a long time. I originally was searching for a service that would provide IMAP rather than POP, and they were one of the few that did. You can also access their web interface. They have a lot of domains already established, and you can have multiple "personalities" or names/domains associated with your account. Check it out with their free version first, to see if you like it. I use it extensively, and still only use 1/10th of my bandwidth allotment.
I've been using them for more than 4 years. I have an enhanced account. Before that I did my own mail server, but that's just too much hassle. They give me all the flexibility without the bother.
BTW, the downtimes were worse than that IIRC, but that was years ago. They since fixed their infrastructure and I haven't had a problem since.
Support is excellent.
X.
No-ip.com.
They have a POP3 service available that can host your Domain's e-mail service for you.
See Here.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Fastmail.fm is the real deal and thoroughly recommended. Do not confuse them with fastmail.com, a completely different, and inferior, service.
To get a feel, take a look at the independent (though Fastmail representative visited) forums at http://www.emaildiscussions.com/forumdisplay.php?&f=27
http://rollernet.us/ is EXACTLY what you want. They're an email provider. $5/month gets you your IMAP box. Plus oodles of email-related features and an uncluttered web management interface.
I've used Fastmail for many years and would not hesitate to recommend them as a reliable, flexible solution. Currently I love their one time pass word feature, great for use while traveling.
For God's sakes, why in the world do geeks still use GoDaddy? I honestly don't understand. Every other month, there's some story about GoDaddy's sleazy tactics like shutting down a domain or stealing a domain, yet geeks still use them. It's not like we're a ma and pa with an interweb page to promote our scrapbooking business. We all know how GoDaddy operates, we all know we're putting our domain at risk when we use them, and yet, for every story that hits the front page of ./, digg, or reddit, I run into some IT professional that recommends them. This isn't like high speed internet where you're limited in choices. There's a ton of other registrars around.
Interesting service, but with all the WiFi nowadays, I would really have liked an option to have SSL. Do they do that as well? It isn't on their pages (and it is probably rather expensive to buy the CPU power / SSL off-loader + certificates for them to handle it.
Yes, they do SSL very well. For the webmail just use the "secure login" button. For everything else, just configure your mailer appropriately. They've done SSL from the beginning (or at least for a long time).
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
The webmail is the old-school bit -- no AJAX, but you can edit Sieve scripts and do lots of other fun stuff from the Options screen. I recommend them.
And apparently the owners read Slashdot. Oh wait, that's me! ;) OK, so that makes me a little biased...
But I should add to your comments above that a new interface full of Javascripty goodness is on the way - it should be in beta in the next couple of weeks. You can see a mockup here: http://mockups.neilj.fastmail.fm/revision30/inbox.html (some things like the images on buttons aren't working in the mockup). There's lots of keyboard shortcuts, like '/' to search, and '.' to bring up an action menu. And of course, being FastMail, it downgrades gracefully - so if you don't have Javascript you can still use every feature.
To find out what other folks are saying, see this thread on the (independently run) FastMail forum: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=1560. It has over 300 comments about the service, written over the last seven years.