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

[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

[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

[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

[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?

[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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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

[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

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.