I used to self-host my domain's email, moved to Google Apps a couple years ago, and can't imagine going back.
The onslaught of open relay probing and inbound spam was unbelievable. At some points, I honestly thought I was under a targeted DDoS attack because there were so insanely many inbound connections for hours at a time. Even though I was always able to get it under control, new email-related fires were constantly popping up. Worse, handling all that traffic put considerable load on my server; capacity which would have been better allocated toward serving web traffic.
In the aftermath, I've also noticed that email I send through Google's SMTP server is less often flagged as spam on the receiving end, whereas I had trouble with mail sent through my self-hosted SMTP (and my own ISP's SMTP) ending up in the junk/spam folders at a lot of destinations. That was one of the more insidious drawbacks because it took me a while to fully realize.
At the scale where Google Apps is free (i.e. few enough users that you don't likely have a full-time sysadmin), it's difficult to understand not taking advantage of it. I value my time too much to waste it on unnecessary server administration.
Well I've been running my personal email server (Postfix on a FreeBSD VPS) for four or five years now, and spam just hasn't been an issue for me. Between the Spamhaus ZEN DNSBL, greylisting, and SpamAssassin, I just don't get any appreciable amount of spam in my inbox. (Less than I used to get in my Gmail account.) And as far as I know, I've never missed a message I was supposed to receive.
I don't have trouble with outbound mail getting rejected, either... you have to make sure you have a "clean" IP address (didn't end up on a blacklist because of some previous server at that address), you need a valid reverse DNS PTR record, and it's a good idea to have an SPF record and do DKIM signing as well.
Now sure, this is more work and more expensive than just using Google Apps. But it does work if you do it right, and it's not "unnecessary administration" if you care at all about the privacy and security of your email, or if you need things like full procmail filtering capabilities that aren't available with Google Apps.
I agree that self hosted email is in many/most cases a recipe for headaches. But the article wasn't suggesting that you should self host - he was merely saying that in the choice between a free service provider that reads and analyzes all your email - and a pay service provider that doesn't snoop - he figures he'd rather pay a couple of bucks a month.
Good point; I missed that he was talking specifically about their managed email service vs. their hosting accounts.
In terms of confidentiality, the Google Apps for Business terms and conditions are more reasonable than the free version. So, if he's open to paying a couple bucks, it seems like he could have just upgraded and saved the hassle of switching.
Looking at the Rackspace offering, I realized that one big item (for me, at least) missing from the comparison is push support for mobile devices. Unless I'm misunderstanding, the Rackspace hosting requires that you purchase the 5x more expensive Exchange hosting in order to get push email support.
> Last year I seriously played with using a local client (on Linux) for at least my mail. It was a baby step to the real leap I wanted to make, which was to get off GMail altogether. But none of the Linux clients were really to my liking; they all had some warts that were just too ugly for me to cutover.
Can anyone recommend any good Linux email clients? I've used Thunderbird, KMail, & Mutt, but none of them has really been to my liking. Thunderbird's got the sluggishness that comes with XUL, and KMail & Mutt don't fully support HTML (yes, I know it's an abomination, but other's use it, so I've gotten over it). So I've continued to use the Gmail web UI, even though I'd really prefer to use a desktop client.
I threw in the towel and went with Evolution on my main rig. I works ok- occasional hiccups, but with calendar integration becoming more important to me I went with it. The Cal syncs to google and my own caldav. T-bird had to come off of the special builds for a 64-bit box, and getting Cal to work was a pain.
Since I keep the email on a separate workspace (and Evolution doesn't have taskbar notification by default-which is a win for me) I only check it periodically throughout the day. The major pain-point is that it will "forget" the logins of my accounts if I leave it open all day. With my workflow I can just close it if I get annoyed.
Thunderbird handles filters better, in my view. Unless I'm missing something, with Evolution I have to add every single person into a "rule" to sort incoming mails into folders. With Tbird I can say "If member of this list-> go here." Very nice and useful to me as I manage a community service organization with over 100 members. I can send everyone on my mailing list into a special folder for that group without having to enter "by hand."
I have a 32 bit netbook that I use Tbird with, however.
I use Google Calendar as well, so Evolution sounds like a nice option. It looks like it's really integrated into GNOME though - does it depend on a lot of GNOME libs?
How is the support for Gmail's "nonstandard" features, like labels and Priority Inbox? I guess what I really want is a desktop mail client that fully supports Gmail's features.
Edit: while reading about Evolution on the ArchWiki, I saw this:
"Unfortunately, Evolution currently (version 2.26) suffers from a serious IMAP issue, as reported in [2]. It appears this issue has existed for at least the past 3 years prior to this version, and it shows no signs of being dealt with soon."
The alternative IMAP setup they describe involves syncing the mail locally, using up several GB of space, which is scarce on my laptop's SSD. The bug report linked to from the wiki shows that it still hasn't been fixed.
Update: Calendar seems broken- wouldn't you know, the day after our discussion. It actually does push to google calendar, it just says it isn't. Hmmph.
I use Gmail for all my mail and in general it works great. If you use Thunderbird or other mail client you can always have a copy of all your emails on your computer.
A more interesting approach will be to use a USB drive for storing your emails, you can simply plug the stick in your Windows, Mac or Linux computer and use your email. This is completely OS agnostic because Thunderbird uses text files for configuration.
Plug computer + web server + email server + https + a webmail gui
Once set up costs close to $0/year. For anything which needs to be uber-private you can use pgp, as usual, with next to no chance of Google or anyone else scanning your plain text.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of ISPs in the States and Canada block inbound port 25 from anywhere, as well as outbound port 25 to anything other than the ISP-provided mail servers (to say nothing of spam blacklists having ISP-numbered pools listed). That means that the majority of users are going to have to go with a hosted solution or roll their own using a server (or VPS) that's in a datacenter somewhere.
By gherlein, on February 6th, 2011 - No comments
I’ve been using Google Apps Mail to host my mail for herlein.com for years. In fact, I was a very early adopter. I’d say I was in the beta, but hey, so was everyone! Seriously though, I was pretty early. It seemed like the thing to do. I had been hosting my own mail forever and had a server die (the real death) and was tired of fighting spam. It was a free, seemingly reliable alternative.
Over the last few years I’ve become increasingly frustrated. As a free solution I had no support, so when my wife’s emails were going missing I had no help in chasing it down. I never did solve it. I had mails forwarded to me that were indeed sent, but alas, they never showed in her inbox. That’s probably when I found that there were two inboxes – the real one accessible from POP/IMAP and the web interface. Last year I seriously played with using a local client (on Linux) for at least my mail. It was a baby step to the real leap I wanted to make, which was to get off GMail altogether. But none of the Linux clients were really to my liking; they all had some warts that were just too ugly for me to cutover. This last week my wife started having problems accessing a web site that happens to be hosted on Google sites. It was a really strange permissions problem, apparently because logging on to get herlein.com email set a certain user permission in the new Google App infrastructure. I spent 15 minutes chasing that before realizing that I really want no part of it.
I’ve been able to ignore the privacy implications of using Google for a long time. However, lately I’ve had a growing sense of unease. After all, NOTHING IS FREE. I was getting email services but was paying in units of privacy… and we don’t yet know the conversion rates for that currency! As I scraped through the new Google App infrastructure I realized that Google’s email is really complicated – it’s not just a simple email interface anymore. They are bolting on a ton of things underneath that we don’t know much about. Hell, they may not know much about them either, to be fair. Does the right hand know what the left is doing over there? Even if they do, am I comfortable with that much more of my data and traffic crossing that system?
You see, Google is an advertising company cloaked as a technology company. I work in advertising and I joke that part of my job is trying to make Minority Report style ads really viable. But Google is DOING THAT NOW, just without the silly retina flashes, and not in ways we can even imagine now. Over the last few years they ‘index’ all my email, measure my click throughs, and with the Google Apps infrastructure can see a lot deeper into my traffic and inner workings (assuming I host docs there, etc). To what gain? Ads. Better and more specific relevant targeted ads. Good for them, they are building a business. I won’t address any moral issues around all this. For now, it’s legal, they got there first and so far they are executing on it. Nice. And supposedly they provide an opt out. But their system is so darn complicated under the hood, will it really work?
Except that I don’t have to play. Or at least, I can choose to not accept services in exchange for aspects of my privacy that I cannot measure (yet). I can move my email to another provider, for starts.
So I did. I turned on a Rackspace email account and pointed my MX records there. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that GoDaddy DNS sets the timeouts to 1 week by default for MX records, so I’m keeping Google set at a lower priority and keeping it active for a week, just to be sure I don’t drop an email (as a side note, I’ll be moving my DNS off GoDaddy soon too – I simply hate their GUI). I don’t really care for the RackSpace web interface for mail, but it’s functional. That’s my backup really anyway, since I do most of my mail on my mobile, or from my desktop. And now that I have cut over to all Mac’s at home I just use the Apple Mail program. It has warts too, but it’s functional, and I love how well spotlight finds stuff on my hard drive. I don’t need Google to search mail! Really! That technology is so commonplace now. That value add is commodity! Rackspace has a special deal for SliceHost customers (I host this blog on SliceHost) so my email will cost me $36 per year. I suspect that my privacy is worth a lot more than $36 per year!
My only remaining question is: why didn’t I do this sooner?
Knowing I am replying to the article that is no longer available...
I'm an unemployed IT guy, who is currently getting unemployment. I couldnt afford the services I use unless Google offers them free. I do have a blackberry, for the very reason I bought it before the layoffs and I can still afford it (need it for interviews and emailing resumes).
I use Gmail. Because of BB integration, my email contacts are updated near real time with GMail. I also have 2 copies of my emails: phone and Gmail. And well, 7GB storage also helps.
I also use Google Calendar. It blends seamlessly with my BB calendar. I can make notations and such and know my data can be accessed by those I allow on the Google App. None of this loosey goosey crap we see from Facebook. And when Google Engineers do violate security and privacy, the company comes out and actually says "Terminated for Violating Privacy and Security". That takes balls.
I also have a Google Voice phone number. I have switched carriers 2 times. A while back, a number port that didnt was no longer a problem. All my client calls go through Google Voice as does all other business calls. Because of the BB app, I can call from the GV number directly, or use my cell phone's number. Voicemails are transcribed and sent via text, and they are all saved on GV.
If I was to calculate how much these services actually cost, I'm probably looking at 40-60$ month for all of them with the appropriate integration. But they're no cost to me. I know they COST for the service, and that is the knowledge that they datamine who I am and all content thereof.
A complete aside: A few weeks ago, I did a mall survey for Coca-Cola sampling 2 tyes of Coke I assume will be out on the market soon. I did about 8 pages of stuff, including demographic and all that. 5 pages were critique questions on the product I tried. For about 2 hours of work, and 2 cases of Coca Cola, I was PAID $120.
In both cases I knew what was asked of me in terms of time and/or data. And I was compensated well for both.
That, of course, has the user set up a remote OpenVPN, with a free tier Amazon AWS. Average costs for bandwidth are around $0.50 per month. A domain name is what, around 9$ or so per year. I can get an ipv6 address/AAAA record and a /48 from he.net for free. And with appropriate know-how, I can set up qmail (and it's apt-able).
And that's as private as AWS is, which I think as long as you arent doing anything to garner attention (think piracy) you'll be fine, all on $1.25/month for a VPN and Email server
It's just a bit of a misnomer since the costs increase greatly after a year due to the costs of an EC2 instance seeing as it's not really a "free tier" as that article implies.
Not really. It's well stated that the costs are ignored, with exception of bandwidth, for a year. After that, "normal" costs are applied.
That's a simple answer, and what I did with Amazon: I went to Wal-Mart and bought a $15 Visa. When the money runs out, no more service. It keeps recurring costs such as these down to a sane level with no chance of going 'nuclear' like some of those AT&T bills did with overseas data.
Neither your comment or the article you linked to mentions that the $1.25/mo VPN+Email is only true for 12 months max.
edit/ I guess your comment can be read to be only discussing the costs of "privacy", but I guess that implies that the only privacy concern with non-self-hosted web mail is data when it's being transmitted. I'm less worried about you stealing my email over wifi and far more concerned about the FBI reading my mail off of Google's servers. In that sense EC2 costs more than $1.25/mo.
---
edit: your reply below.
I don't know why you keep replying and trying to argue with me. Your comment implied that email privacy was cheap because it only cost $1.25. That's not accurate and that's all I was trying to point out. I'm aware of the changeability of DNS records, still not sure what that has to do with me merely pointing out that email privacy isn't 1.25.
AWS EC2 nodes are fairly cheap, and I like them for a lot of things, but there's also a whole range of virtual host providers like http://www.asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/ who provide Linux-based shared hosting with a GUI to set up email, web etc. services.
That'll avoid Google reading your email. On the other hand, if you're worried about the FBI reading your email, you probably need to either run your own mailserver or run PGP. Preferably both. There's an OpenPGP plugin (Enigmail) available for Thunderbird, works well enough.
(usual disclaimer: just a satisfied customer, etc)
If you are smart enough to set up a AWS ubuntu instance, even following directions on a guide meant for OSX, then you can be minimally smart enough to see the FREE TIER only applies for 1 year when you actually sign up.
And a domain name is only a pointer to whatever server you want it to. The name is yours for however long you have it (which you should buy one and keep it for your personal use).
And of course, jump ship when AWS goes to regular pricing, or use my 15$ cc from Walmart to cap it to a sane level.
The onslaught of open relay probing and inbound spam was unbelievable. At some points, I honestly thought I was under a targeted DDoS attack because there were so insanely many inbound connections for hours at a time. Even though I was always able to get it under control, new email-related fires were constantly popping up. Worse, handling all that traffic put considerable load on my server; capacity which would have been better allocated toward serving web traffic.
In the aftermath, I've also noticed that email I send through Google's SMTP server is less often flagged as spam on the receiving end, whereas I had trouble with mail sent through my self-hosted SMTP (and my own ISP's SMTP) ending up in the junk/spam folders at a lot of destinations. That was one of the more insidious drawbacks because it took me a while to fully realize.
At the scale where Google Apps is free (i.e. few enough users that you don't likely have a full-time sysadmin), it's difficult to understand not taking advantage of it. I value my time too much to waste it on unnecessary server administration.