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?"

Comments

Yahoo! Mail

[rallymatte]

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.

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[MrLogic17]

I have my own domain (~$15/yr), with super-cheap hosting ($8/m). Take your pick- for E-Mail you almost can't go wrong.

Setup your domain with a POP account, use GMail to pull & filter the spam.

It works for me. Accessable anywhere (work, home, travel), and you get your own spiffy domain that looks better than a @gmail.com

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[truthsearch]

GoDaddy's email service is horrible. It's ridiculously slow. Besides, you're lucky if you can order it before having seizures caused by their web site.

I've had clients use Fusemail with positive results.

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[Xiaran]

Here to second you about godaddy - slow and unreliable. I have some mail take ~ 6 hours to get thru to me for some reason. We are changing as soon as we get some time in our schedule.

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[JTorres176]

gmail actually has small business options, my girlfriend's domain is directed to gmail, her mail comes through gmail and leaves through her domain. Her website, email, everything is handled for no charge. My main employment also has gmail handle our mailservers, we're on the paid plan for support, however it's very reliable and still pretty cost effective.

http://www.google.com/apps/

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[anotherone]

Stay away from GoDaddy's hosted email, if you care about actually receiving mail that is sent to you

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[electrictroy]

>>>I feel that having GMail or Yahoo email domains on my business card isn't really a professional touch.

I have both a yahoo and google domain for my email, and I don't feel ashamed by it. If my future employer or customer is that "stuck up" about something so trivial, then I don't want to deal with them..... they're more likely to make unreasonable demands or frequent returns. I'd rather just avoid those people.

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[rtb61]

Well I have to be honest with you, having any webmail service provider domain name instantly makes your company look amateurish from a prospective customer point of view, a real fly by night company. Don't be foolish register a domain name, a get your ISP to handle your email routing, most medium sized ISP's do it at very competitive rates and it is well worth the expenditure to create a more professional impression with potential customers.

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[mapsjanhere]

Nothing to do with stuck up. I get about 20 requests for information per week from people "who found our company on the web and want to know more about our xyz technology". If the request comes from a generic mail provider, it gets the generic reply package. If it comes from a @webuybigthings.com address it gets a custom reply, the right attachments and a follow up.
First option, 1 min, second option 10 min. Cost first option, $2, second option $20. Since the split is about 5:1, that's savings of over $100 in my time every week.

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[ckaminski]

I *AM* a one person company, have my own domain, and STILL use my free Gmail account as my primary email account.

It's pretty simple to do actually, it just requires you to already *HAVE* an email provider to send a verification code to.

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[Xiaran]

Does Lockheed Martin not have a VPN and policies about conducting all company activities through company resources? Most of the large companies I have worked for do. Often for security reasons it is a disciplinary offense to discuss business matters via non company means. I have not worked for Lockheed Martin but have worked for (Australian) security and defense and financial service organisations in the UK and Germany.

Even if you were dealing with someone face to face I suspect you would get a lot more response as a potential client by saying you are representing Lockheed Martin than saying you are electrictroy uid = 912290 from slashdot(if fact you see a similar effect on slashdot... people with lower uids are often seen to be more impressive than higher... I once had a very lower uid but lost it due to neglect and really noticed the differene in mod points).

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[try_anything]

I have to disagree with "childish," unless the poster works in IT himself. Most people, even in computing, do work that has nothing to do with managing domains and email servers. When someone hires a consultant to write Java middleware, or write Flash games, or port Fortran code to C++, or help a company move to a distributed build system, they don't give a damn whether he receives mail at his own domain. It has nothing to do with his job.

Setting up and administering your own domain is an IT hobby that people outside of IT (including most professional programmers) have little appreciation for. To them, it's like the difference between sewing your own clothes and buying them in a store. Sounds like a lot of work -- who would bother unless it was a hobby they enjoyed?

Re:Yahoo! Mail

[Schmendr1ck]

Again, having ****@gmail.com helps weed-out those with unreasonable expectations who might be more headache than they are worth.

I have a funny feeling that you'll be getting a lot more "business offers" in the very near future.

My domain

[MyLongNickName]

example.com is where I would go.

Fastmail

[Lazar Dobrescu]

http://www.fastmail.fm/ is still around, for a reasonnable 40$/year, and is a very good option which provides pretty much any feature you might want...

Re:Fastmail

[ThinkingInBinary]

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.

Re:Fastmail

[BarryJacobsen]

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.

Re:Fastmail

[Charles Dodgeson]

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.

Re:Fastmail

[fsterman]

Yeah, Fastmail is insanely cool. They have a very refined (albiet oldskool HTML) interface that works VERY well.

They are incredibly geek friendly, you can pass you own scripting to the spam filters, lots of aliases, manipulating the email from fields, accessing IMAP over non-standard ports, they were among the first to offer mobile access, etc, etc, etc! Everyone I have set up on it is very happy.

And for $20 a year, you get REAL support!

Re:Fastmail

[wireloose]

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.

Re:Fastmail

[Xenna]

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.

Re:Fastmail

[Hatta]

The webmail is the old-school bit -- no AJAX

This, of course, is a feature. Not only do they not use AJAX, but they even provide a non-javascript version which works great with the text browser of your choice.

Re:Fastmail

[Charles Dodgeson]

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).

Re:Fastmail

[howardjeremy]

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.

use gmail?

[Keruo]

Gmail supports mail for your own domain aswell. See here
It also supports existing domains so you don't have to register new one.

Re:use gmail?

[josath]

Yes, either use gmail for your own apps (Google Apps for domains is fine for home use, there's no restrictions), or just forward your work email address to gmail. You can change the From: address in gmail to be your work email address, so the people you talk to wont even know it's being forwarded

Re:use gmail?

[thebryce]

Here's another good write up on using gmail for your personal domain's email

Re:use gmail?

[Free the Cowards]

Yes, but that was stupid.

Re:use gmail?

[illegalcortex]

Yes, but the OP was also under the wrong impression that Google Apps is not intended for home users.

The thing is that it satisfies every single need the OP has. It's free, as reliable as anything else you'll find, supports IMAP and has a decent webmail interface to boot. The only reason not to go with it is if you have some kind of objection to the company.

Re:use gmail?

[Albanach]

You can change the From: address in gmail to be your work email address, so the people you talk to wont even know it's being forwarded

For folk thinking of doing this, please make sure any SPF records for your domain list google as an authorised sender. Otherwise a lot of mail you send will be going to /dev/null

Re:use gmail?

[Otto]

Anyone out there know of (an)other service(s) that satisfy all the OP's needs *and* deliver a, in your opinion, better-than-Gmail/Google Apps webmail interface?

Your question assumes that there is a better interface for webmail than GMail. After searching around, I've never found a better one. GMail just works so well for managing large amounts of email that I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to do it.

Re:use gmail?

[nine-times]

I think the summary is a bit confusing. He says:

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

Now it's not very clear what his real concern there is. Instead of buying a domain, he'll just have a domain? Instead of using Google Apps, he'll just use an e-mail provider that provides e-mail? I'm not sure what he's trying to distinguish from what.

He says he doesn't want to use Google Apps because it's not fitting for "home use" (and I don't know what about it isn't fitting for home use), and yet he doesn't want to use a straight-up Gmail address because it won't look good on a business card. Well is it for home use, or business? And then on top of that, he says he has a business address but doesn't want to use it. I wonder what his real use for this address will be, and whether his company would have a problem with him conducting business through a non-work address.

In short, it's not very clear to me whether the original submitter has valid needs and objections to any of these things, or if he's simply on crack. If you work for a company and your work e-mail isn't meeting your business needs, then ask your IT department, not Slashdot. If your IT department isn't meeting your company's needs, then complain to management. As someone who has run an IT department, I hated it when users tried to go outside our system. Forwarding your work e-mail to Gmail is an unnecessary security risk. If my e-mail servers weren't doing a good enough job, I would have preferred it if my users would let me know about it so I could get the whole thing straightened out.

Re:use gmail?

[darrylo]

You can change the From: address in gmail to be your work email address, so the people you talk to wont even know it's being forwarded

They often do know.

Outlook detects gmail's changed address, and displays the from address as:

user@gmail.com on behalf of Joe User [joeuser@example.com]

So, while you can change your gmail "From:" address, outlook neuters it, and makes you look rather unprofessional. Of course, this only affects people who read mail via outlook. However, if you're trying to change your email address, you're likely sending email for business purposes, and business users are likely to use outlook.

Whee.

Re:use gmail?

[billcopc]

You've just described every single Ask Slashdot, ever. It's always "How I can do something any way but the right way ?" with a side of "How can I do something that makes absolutely no sense"

There are obvious solutions to the OP's problem, he/she just doesn't want to follow common sense. Slashdot is not the place to ask this question, when there are many excellent forums that specialize in hosting.

In 2008, failing to Google should be a felony.

Re:use gmail?

[ryanvm]

Yeah - I'm going to have to second that. I've been using Google Apps for my personal domain for a couple years now and I have had ZERO problems. I certainly have less downtime than when I was running it myself with Postfix and Courier on a cable modem.

Re:use gmail?

[Gewalt]

Use of "fixed that for you" shall be considered proof that the user is a perfect genius.

There, Fixed that for you!

Re:use gmail?

[Free the Cowards]

Wow, that joke is great! Nobody has ever come up with that one before!

Rackspace

[Ironsides]

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

easy one.

[shawn(at)fsu]

that was too easy

Hook your domain up to Google Apps.

[richy freeway]

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!

Runbox

[denominateur]

I'm quite happy with runbox.com.

Still Google Apps

[INeededALogin]

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

[greed]

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.

Seeking Advice?

[phorest]

Just ask Sarah Palin! c/o gov.sarah@yahoo.com

Just use Google Apps

[mcsqueak]

You are making this far to complicated for a simple email issue. Just use Google Apps. They have a free version for people just like you. The reasoning that Google Apps "isn't actually intended for home users" is silly at best. It's EXACTLY for people like you.

It's incredibly easy to set up and will provide you with a "professional" looking email address. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/editions.html Just sign up for the standard version.

Domain

[mcgrew]

What's wrong with buying a domain? I don't have one now, but I've had a few in the past. They're dirt cheap. If all you need is an email address, my old host register4less.com will register and host a domain for fifteen bucks a year and forward your mail.

You can set it up so multiple addresses get forwarded to different places. With mcgrew.info, I'd have my mail go to my ISP email account (at the time insightbb.com) and my daughter's to her yahoo email. steve@mcgrew.info went to mcgrew@insightbb.com and patty@mcgrew.info went to her email account at yahoo (I don't use insight any more and the mcgrew.info site has lapsed; I got bored with it).

You get 5 megs of space for a web site, too. I used them for mcgrew.info, theFragfest.com, rudies.us and a few others. They've all lapsed, but if I decide to open another web site I'll use my old host/registrar, I was very happy with them.

How should I quench my thirst?

[hobbit]

I'm getting really thirsty, and wondering what to do about it. Besides drinking fluids (which are generally used by professional athletes), what do Slashdot readers think I should do about my problem?

Re:How should I quench my thirst?

[Fox_1]

Well based upon my years of consuming and expelling fluids I can tell you with assurance that the best solution "Drinking fluids like athletes" is obviously the wrong one for you. I would advise a direct shunt into a large vein - there are some nice ones in your legs and neck. Through this shunt you can pump a nutrient solution directly into your body, bypassing that clumsy mouthpart. With a little lube and a tube we can also address that "Where should I go to the bathroom problem of yours?".

Real men host their own e-mail

[Areyoukiddingme]

What is all this pansy-ass nonsense about GMail and Hushmail and blahblah.com?? This is Slashdot you cretins! Install Linux on a Pentium II and host your domain and e-mail yourself with exim with greylisting enabled.

I do.

With better uptime, better spam filtering, and more storage space than the 'professional' hosting company that handles my office e-mail account.

GMail.... services.... pfft. I'm ashamed of you people...

But Gmail can consolidate...

[protobion]

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.

been doing this for clients for years

[H310iSe]

Here's what you need -

Set up your DNS with mydomain.com (you can use them as a registrar if you wish, I highly recommend them, but they offer free DNS even if you don't register the domain with them!) and use their mail forwarding service (mydomain is somewhat rare in offering this as part of their free DNS) instead of setting up a MX record.

Create a gmail account and set up an alias for the domain including reply-as.

Done! Totally free, pretty easy, and very reliable.

Sorry I don't have time to do a walk thru of each step I imagine others here can fill in the details...

Re:Dreamhost.com

[Sandman1971]

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.

Re:Dreamhost.com

[Ford Prefect]

Over the 5+ years I have been a customer with them, they have been exceptionally reliable.

What about their, um, minor billing issues earlier this year?

They have loads of features, yes - but reliability often hasn't been high on the agenda, assuming it's been on the agenda at all. Random outages lasting much of the day, the aforementioned billing issues, you name it. Cheap, cheerful and easy to do stuff with, but don't use it for anything remotely serious.

Plus, my IMAP email stuff is about eleventy billion times faster and more reliable since I moved to a virtual server somewhere else entirely.

Re:HOTMAIL

[MrNaz]

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

Re:gmail

[INeededALogin]

Probably not fair to label the parent Flamebait. It is an honest observation and actually a good topic of discussion.

As a person who use to be into the DIY solutions... It just isn't worth it anymore. From 97-2006 I hosted my own domain, had an irc server for a few years, mail all through the years... you know... geek stuff. I was proud of every bit of it.

Unfortunately, I grew past that stage and went onto bigger and better things and didn't need to be bothered by the latest sendmail, apache, webmail exploit. Google Apps gives me the ability to offload that to Google and not have to worry about it any longer(although they don't offer an IRC Server yet).

As far as slashdot... I think the popularity of the site has changed the demography of its users. Slashdot users are not the small, proud group of nerds they once were.

Now, I whored out gmail for two reasons. 1. It works. 2. Some of us want to devote our time to other things.

Godaddy Mail's Benefits are Subtle!

[Anonymous Coward]

Godaddy is the most wonderful mail server. You see, their spam filter blocks all my customers' e-mails. So, I don't have to do any work. The only problem is it leaves me with a lot of free time during the hours of 9-5. Fortunately for me, Godaddy's spam filter also let's all those viagra and penis-extension and stock tips come through to my inbox so I can fill those empty hours responding to the offers. So, Godaddy is working out well for me.

Re:HOTMAIL

[adolf]

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.

Re:HOTMAIL

[d3ac0n]

No-ip.com.

They have a POP3 service available that can host your Domain's e-mail service for you.

See Here.

Re:HOTMAIL

[MrNaz]

True, but I find that Debian + Postfix + Archiveopteryx is a solid enough platform that maintenance is infrequent and easy. If you can dedicate one machine to it and don't do anything else on that machine to break your mail setup, it's even more solid. None of the packages i listed above are anything less than rock solid.

Also, setting up my own mail server means I can have as many addresses as I want, such as a dedicated one for mailing lists which I can subscribe to as many as I want without fear of running out of space, and then use IMAP to provide perfect sync between as many PCs as I want.

No commercial company can offer even close to the flexibility you get running your own, so in my books, it's worth it.