
Ask HN: Gmail alternatives? - Maro
Where do you go? Any experiences?
======
jdietrich
Run your own mailserver. If you don't trust Google with your data, there's
nobody else I would trust. There are plenty of open-source webmail apps if
that matters to you.

~~~
rufugee
Did it for years. Loved it. The only problem? Hosting providers and colos
often reuse IPs that have been blacklisted because of spammers, so one day you
realize some folks just haven't been getting your mail. I use a leased server
and would switch back from GMail to Zimbra in a heartbeat if I thought I could
reliably insure my email would not get blacklisted. There are services out
there you can pay for that offer smtp gateways, but they often charge on a per
domain basis, and I need to send/receive email for 50+ domains. Pretty
expensive.

If anyone has any suggestions to get around this sort of limitation, I'm all
ears and will be back on Zimbra before the weekend is out ;-)

~~~
keyist
I haven't experienced getting added back to a blacklist off a significant
webmail host after being taken off one. Once your IP is in the clear, it'd
take some abuse to be put back (anecdotal). These 3 steps usually get me
unblocked if starting with a bad IP:

1\. Set up reverse DNS for your IP address

2\. Publish an SPF record

3\. Check the Spamhaus lists <http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=1.2.3.4> and
request removal if your IP address is on them.

As an addendum to grandparent: extremely comprehensive guide to postfix +
dovecot here: <http://workaround.org/ispmail>

~~~
eli
Spamhaus is one list. There are hundreds. (See <http://www.dnsbl.info/dnsbl-
list.php> for starters) Some are nearly impossible to get off of.

------
alaithea
I pay a small amount yearly for an account at FastMail
(<http://www.fastmail.fm>) They have a very solid IMAP service, and a robust
(though not Gmail-fancy) web interface. In the five years or so that I have
had an account with them, I think I could total up about a half hour of
downtime that I can recall, so they are very stable. I recommend them highly.
(I'm not affiliated with them, just a satisfied customer.)

~~~
DenisM
I'm using fastmail for 5 years now. It's good, but not that great. My two
problems are:

1\. Spam false positives. I get order confirmations or mail list subscriptions
sent to spam folder occasionally.

2\. Search is really bad. by default it only searches subjects, and I think
only in the current folder.

Thinking about moving to gmail, provided those guys sort out privacy issues.

~~~
robmueller
(FYI, I'm one of the owners/developers of FastMail)

1\. Just add addresses to your address book to whitelist. Also make sure you
use Report Spam/Report non-spam on enough emails (200 of each) to activate
your personal bayes db (see the Options -> Spam/Virus Protection near the
bottom to see how many of each you've already learned)

2\. At the moment, you do have to explicitly add body: to a term to do a body
search. The first time might be slow as it indexes your email, after that it
should be faster.

[http://wiki.fastmail.fm/index.php?title=NewInterface#Enhance...](http://wiki.fastmail.fm/index.php?title=NewInterface#Enhanced_Search_Syntax)

~~~
DenisM
I'm making orders from all kinds of online stores, there is no way I will add
them all to the address book. Especially so because I don't know their address
before they send me something, and I don't care about it after their first
order confirmation/tracking number email.

------
mcantor
It might be instructive if you included why you are trying to avoid Gmail in
your OP, so we can avoid suggesting other apps that might have the same
issues. For example, do you dislike it because of privacy concerns? Or because
it's a web app? Etc.

~~~
Maro
I think the Gmail UI is excellent and I love it, but I'm starting to have
privacy concerns.

~~~
oomkiller
Google Apps Premium, unless you're Iranian/Chinese. Then use Hushmail etc

~~~
intranation
Is Google Apps premium guaranteed to actually protect you from the
aforementioned privacy concerns? It's still on Google's servers.

~~~
jrockway
The government can subpoena your own server in your own house just as easily
as they can subpoena Google's servers.

So who are you hiding from? If it's the government, then you must use strong
cryptography no matter where you host your email, and you must ensure that
everyone you communicate with is as paranoid as you. (I would encrypt all my
email, but nobody else I talk too will. So it doesn't work.) If it's
advertisers you want to avoid, just run your own server and stop worrying so
much. People have been doing it for years.

(Although, I run my own mailserver and am inundated with spam. Thousands of
messages a day. So you aren't really avoiding advertisements, you are just
avoiding advertisements for stuff you might actually want :)

~~~
kogir
Yes, but if it's in your house, you at least know it happened and can try and
fight it. If google hands over your data you may never know. I think in many
cases they'd likely be barred from telling you even if they wanted to.

Note: IANAL

~~~
drusenko
On the other hand, Google has a lot of resources and lawyers to fight off the
government if they come knocking, and they've been known to fight to the max
in the past.

You? Not so much. If the FBI shows up at your door, you're toast.

~~~
jrockway
Like this guy? <http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/SJG/>

(Hint: the opposite. The government had to pay him damages for seizing his
computers.)

~~~
johSho7w
I was skeptical but I'm really swayed by a victory that occured six years
prior to the PATRIOT act.

------
vimalg2
I've run this argument through my head several times. Here's what you should
like about Gmail:

1) Google infrastructure is probably more secure than any server you could set
up quickly. 2) Google handles all those pesky issue with IP blacklists, Spam,
etc that you'll be forced to deal with on a DIY server. Granted, there are
solutions for each of these; Its your valuable time, in the end.

On the other hand, for a DIY mail-server: you truly don't gain much besides
having an accessible dump of your mailbox(in the event that all the gmail-
specific datacenters get nuked in a single day?)

ISPs can and probably wil sniff your plain text email traffic now/in near
future due to external police state pressures.

I live in India, and sadly I envision this place turning into a police state
by sheer incompetence on the part of the administration who pass half-baked
net-nanny laws.

The only solution to email privacy: Hard-to-reverse Encryption of the text
(typically GPG). Most of the crowd here know this well. But making email
encryption transparent and easy-to-use would be a killer product for those
customers that value privacy. FireGPG is trying , but Gmail code changes keep
breaking stuff sometimes.(<http://blog.getfiregpg.org/2009/11/05/gmail-issues-
fixed/>)

Redundancy/Backup is another issue altogether. You should probably keep backup
IMAP dumps in a geographically distant location if you fear Gmail will just
cease to exist one day(without any warning).

------
dotBen
Assuming you are ultimately comparing 'shared/managed' email hosting vs self-
managed/self-hosted then Spam (well, filtering spam) is the biggest issue you
have to resolve.

Try turning off spam checking on any email address that's been around the net
a few years.

The upside of GMail (and other shared-services) is that you are benefiting
from their collective wisdom of incoming spam landscape - they see the bigger
picture from everyone's accounts in aggregate... which is why their spam
filters are so much more effective than bayesian filtering -- which is the
only tool you have if you 'go it alone' on email

With an email address that dates back to 1994 and listed all over Usenet
before we knew it would be indexed by DejaNews/Google, I need the spam
protection and so I'll always go shared-hosted (Gmail for now).

~~~
dpifke
_...which is why their spam filters are so much more effective than bayesian
filtering -- which is the only tool you have if you 'go it alone' on email_

This is not true at all. Of the top of my head, I can think of three different
distributed message hashing services (Razor, Pyzor, and DCC) that function
similar to a shared Bayesian filter, not to mention all the various IP and URI
blacklists that collect and share data about bad actors. I've actually done
mail server installs where I've turned _off_ the local bayes filters to
improve results because they were getting confused by low volumes.

SpamAssassin comes with just about every Linux distribution and is used by
major ISPs, so you're not "going it alone," you're leveraging what a huge
percentage of the internet population is already using.

It's not without effort (maybe 15-30 minutes/week of tweaking when something
slips through), but my personal email setup gives me as good or better results
than my infrequently-used Gmail account.

------
lmkg
<http://www.lavabit.com/>

They (claim to) use some sort of encryption scheme such that they do not have
access to the data on their own servers. I don't know enough about crypto to
verify, but if your concern for moving away from Google is privacy and/or
security, it's probably worth at least a cursory glance.

~~~
tectonic
Here's the description. Can anyone tell us if this seems secure?
<http://lavabit.com/secure.html>

~~~
invisible
It doesn't seem very secure that they give out their security measures. I
mean, "To increase the randomness of our hash outputs...combines the password
with the account name," so now I know they use an account name so what is the
point in that tiny part? Many little parts of this just give away stuff that
should be secret in my opinion. That doesn't necessarily make it insecure,
just a dumb idea if something ever did go wrong. Overall the process sounds
good if you just want to store data on their server and not have it be
readable if someone happens to come across a "dead" HDD that lavabit threw
away.

Oh, on a similar note: how do they decrypt these messages after you have
verified your user/password during sign in if it requires the plaintext
password to decrypt each message? By storing the password in a plaintext
session database?

------
falsestprophet
Zoho Mail offers most of the Gmail feature set (including support for custom
domains) with an adequate user interface.

~~~
CoryMathews
How is spam on zoho mail?

~~~
sridharvembu
(Disclosure: I am the CEO of Zoho).

We use Zoho Mail for our own 1000 employees. My company email address has been
around and active for 13 years. I get 450 spam messages a day. Zoho Mail
typically misses catching 1 or 2 a day; far more important to me, I can trust
is not to have false positives (genuine mail going into spam).

We invite you to try it out.

On our business model: Zoho.com is free for individuals, without advertising.
For businesses & domain based email, first 10 users are free, again without
advertising. We charge $50/user/year (note: per YEAR) from the 11th user.

We do not believe in the advertising model for Zoho. Our business model is
subscription based, with a generous free edition. We find this model to be
financially viable.

------
vaksel
You can just get Google Apps...since they release features for that 6-7 months
after regular gmail gets them, you'll have plenty of warning if they release
something like Buzz.

\+ I doubt they'd be stupid enough to bring buzz to their business users.

~~~
simonk
They already announced they are two months away from releasing buzz for Google
Apps.

Edit: [http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-buzz-
com...](http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-buzz-coming-soon-
for-businesses.html)

------
rapind
Interesting that the motivation seems to be privacy concerns. I could care
less about privacy but I'm getting tired of gmail's underperformance (your
results may vary). Gmail speed has become Intolerably slow over the past 6
months. I love everything else about it though and wish there was a paid
alternative with the same Interface. And no it isn't premium. I had that and
it was no better. I think I'm on a bad cluster or something and google support
has been horrendous.

I love 90% of googles products so don't assume this is flame / bashing.

------
nfnaaron
Here's a comparison of web mail providers:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_webmail_providers>

From that list I use fastmail.fm for outgoing (smtp). (Reasons of historical
accident.) $5/year, no ads, satisfied so far.

Another alternative is to go the shared host route. Plus: you'll get a shell
account without having to/being able to administer a virtual box (and mail
server), it's just an account.

I've used pair.com for about 10 years to host my domain. Imap/pop access, or
webmail. (Their webmail actually isn't that great, but it works.) Enthusiastic
recommendation for pair.

Go register somewhere reputable (pairnic.com is good), then go host your
domain somewhere (I like pair.com). Pairnic and pair are the same company, and
conveniently integrated, but you can use either separately or not at all if
you like. I get so many allowed email accounts with a minimal plan on pair.com
that I don't bother remembering it anymore.

------
voltolibro
Dear Fastmail,

I hate Gmail and desperately want to find another email/webmail service. I
want to switch to something that feels more secure, something that does email
well without any of the extra junk they have been adding to my Gmail account.
I don't seem to be alone.

I consulted several friends with more "tech cred" than me, and they pointed me
to a few Gmail alternatives, with Fastmail at the top of the list.

I went to your website and after browsing for about a minute, I wanted to
scratch Fastmail off my list. Your website came across as clunky, cold, and
BLAH. It seemed like the website was designed about five years ago, and it
didn't really instill confidence that your service would be a user-friendly
experience or something that I could transition to without a huge amount of
effort.

I decided to check out another Gmail alternative on my list called
"Roundcube". The Roundcube site was simple but elegantly designed. More
importantly, it didn't feel like it was trying to put me to sleep. The site
laid out its features via simple navigation structure, basic colors, a nice
screenshot, and a non-cluttered layout. I wanted to hug it. It gave the vibe
that they offered an email service that would make the transition away from
Gmail extremely painless and straightforward.

I relayed my thoughts to a techie friend, and he reiterated that your service
is far superior to Roundcube. I trust my friend, and I will probably sign up
for an account with you.

But seriously... There are so many people out there right now who desperately
want to break free of their Gmail shackles. The moment is ridiculously ripe
for another service to step into that vacuum and offer a refuge to all of
these people.

Your email service might be truly awesome, but your website is total
cryptonite for people who are ready to make the switch.

Welcome us with open arms, and we will come in droves!!

Sincerely yours,

Volto Libro

------
sucuri2
If you are looking for open source and to host yourself, roundcube is pretty
good and has a powerful interface

------
superjared
The two features I want are conversations and easy archival.

------
datums
I've been using <http://www.zenbe.com/mail> for the past 3 months. Shareflow
looks interesting.

~~~
mrmxyzptlk
I would recommend this too except zenbe personal is shutting down soon...
<http://blog.zenbe.com/personal-shutdown/>

------
intranation
Just wanted to give a shoutout to Tuffmail: <http://www.tuffmail.com/> . Their
spam protection is excellent, and very configurable. They also have the
fastest IMAP servers I've had the pleasure of using.

Their web interface isn't anything special, but at least it's proper IMAP so
you can use whichever desktop client you like.

------
blender
Rackspace email hosting is $1/10 GB mailbox/mo for IMAP/POP

Cheers

~~~
davidedicillo
I was used to use Rackspace Cloud email, but the server was blacklisted on
Network Solution so all my clients using NS weren't able to receive any of my
emails... FAIL

------
vaporstun
Related question, does anyone know of a mail webapp that allows you to have a
unified inbox with multiple IMAP accounts? In other words, something like
Thunderbird or Outlook Express but web-ified.

I started doing a custom fork of RoundCube to do just this a few months back
but never finished it...does anyone know of anything off-the-shelf that will
do this?

~~~
grandalf
Gmail supports this.. you just create each one as a google account, have them
forward to the one you like best, and then set it up to let you send mail as
each of the other accounts...

I have about 50 google accounts and use my regular gmail this way...

~~~
vaporstun
Yeah, I currently do that as well, but in the spirit of this thread, I'm
looking for a non-Gmail way of doing this...

------
cnouri
I work at Rackspace and we see choosing our email solutions as alternatives...
<http://twitter.com/solevangelist/statuses/9028774642>

------
tybris
If find Google Apps for your Domain to be a good Gmail alternative ;-).

------
sahaj
i've looked but haven't found anything nearly as good as gmail. the most
useful feature to me, that other services do not offer, is push (sync) email,
contacts, and calendar.

------
Mark_B
I have an account on GMX.com as a backup account.

So far so good - minimal spam (well none so far) has reached my inbox and they
are always adding in features like Facebook integration.

------
andrewcooke
no-one has mentioned runbox - <http://www.runbox.com/>

that's who i was thinking of switching to (i want to be able to use google
"anonymously", and it's tricky when also logged in to gmail). i scanned
through the mail providers listed on wikipedia and that seemed the best.
hosted in norway, iirc. surprised no-one else has mentioned it here, though.

~~~
queensnake
Try scroogle for that; you can make it your default search engine in both
Mozilla ... and Chrome!

------
AdamN
Just use the PGP plugin for Gmail on Firefox. Then it doesn't matter who has
access to your email so long as they don't have the private key.

------
dan_the_welder
My tiny hosting company Varialhosting offers POP and Imap. I did a quick
search and there are tons of providers that offer Imap.

~~~
dan_the_welder
Not my _personal_ company, the one I use... which is tiny.

They have treated me well, I have not noticed any downtime, but I am not very
sensitive to that.

They also allow virtual domains, so I have three websites, two very low
traffic, for the price of one.

------
haasted
Anyone have experience with atMail? (<http://atmail.org/>)

~~~
pWneD
My ISP uses AtMail. It's decent, almost never get spam but the interface is a
bit weird, I suppose you could get used to it though.

------
ubulgaria
<http://fastmail.fm> is my poison of choice.

------
jonathanmarcus
Zimbra may be a good option, particularly now that its not controlled by Yahoo
anymore.

------
Kilimanjaro
This is the right time for Mozilla to offer mymail@firefox.com

Millions will flock to them. Instant win.

------
agravier
GMX is not too bad

------
scorciapino
I'm currently using sup (<http://sup.rubyforge.org/>), which has labels and
threads like Gmail, but is Free as in Freedom, runs on ncurses and,
ironically, has a much better search mechanism, which was the main reason I
switched from Gmail. There is also notmuch (<http://notmuchmail.org/>), which
is still alpha, but aims to be faster and more scriptable than Sup.

~~~
cschep
Cool! I don't know how long it would have taken me to find Sup, but it looks
awesome. I love hacker news.

