Need new ISP and maybe domain

Joe Gwinn wrote: |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| |"With POP3, storage is local and is backed up as well as one provisions| |and operates it, with multiple backup cycles like in the old days. | | | |With IMAP, everything is synced, so a burp anywhere sometimes causes | |total loss, [. . .]" | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

I am interested to hear what emails providers shall have been chosen.

I would be concerned about using POP3. If you attempt to download an email via POP3 but fail, then you suffer a "total loss".

"/POP3

Note that there are several important issues to consider when selecting this option:

(S.

You can get the same sort of behavior with IMAP. Much depends on your MUA and any "local processing" that you apply. (of course, "local" is the set of all MUAs accessing an account).

Relying on email as a storage medium seems like a bad move. Relying on ANYTHING in the cloud (or a server that you don't control), equally so.

I heavily favor the free providers. You can usually set up for POP3/IMAP (even if they claim you need a "paid account"). They usually support some number of "alias" addresses tied to "your" account (handier than resorting to tempmail any time you want a tentative contact with someone or something). They handle all of the spam detection. They have staff to keep their service "available". And, as to your following statement, they provide a disconnect between identity and email address (which has value).

Some provide end-to-end encryption and "european privacy rules".

Google provides MX services to many ISPs, without exposing themselves as such in the domain choice. Important if you are concerned as to who/what is parsing your messages. FWIW.

You can also operate your own server -- on-site or colo'ed. Usually not a realistic option for most folks but gives you freedom from constraints imposed by mail service providers (volume of mail, size of attachments, automatic server-side processing of mail, EULA constraints, etc.)

Note that if your domain gets blacklisted, it can have a personal reflection on *you*!

Ask yourself what you *want* and (separately) *need* from an email service. Unless you're trying to present a corporate face (and it's not hard ot discover how much of a facade that may be!), it seems most folks just want to be able to "get messages" and not want to have to dick with anything other than a monthly payment.

I've had dozens of "primary" email addresses over the past 50 years. The folks who want/need to get in touch with me have never had a problem adapting to an ISP closing up shop or me opting to discard an account. So, a "personalized domain" would be nothing other than vanity.

I tend NOT to search past email messages except for the few "your activation code is..." messages -- easier than finding the permanent record of same. But, I tend to use email as most folks use the telephone. So, the volume of "saved messages" would be prohibitive. It's a bit of a chore to walk through and delete a few hundred messages ("Sent", "Inbox") each week just to keep things tidy.

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: |---------------------------------------------------------------------| |"I heavily favor the free providers. [. . .] | |[. . .] | | | |[. . .] | | | |I've had dozens of "primary" email addresses over the past 50 years."| |---------------------------------------------------------------------|

Are there really so many free providers? (S.

I like GMX.com and Mail.com. There are others but most of my accounts are on these. I keep a few "precious" email addresses but usually give out aliases tied to those. In this way, if I want to "revoke" an address, I don't have to advise a lot of people of the change -- just "drop" the alias from the account and anyone using it loses the ability to contact me (the "precious" addresses anchor the accounts so you don't want to give those out as "dropping" them effectively deletes the entire account -- and all aliases tied to them).

I've historically had small (local) ISPs in the various places that I've lived. These are often bought-out, absorbed, etc. Email is often a casualty of such "consolidations" so I learned not to let an ISP host any email, web, etc. accounts (it also makes moving-by-choice a lot easier)

Ages ago, I hosted my own mail server. But, this was more an exercise than an "efficient choice". It had advantages when you weren't permanently connected to the internet (e.g., UUCP mail)

snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net wrote in news:capitk1mtti4d3itsgabkc3r79r4p1saji@

Here is my experience.

I was grandfathered perhaps a dozen times as my orizinal email provider/ISP sold off everything. I'm currently on a Road Runner account, rr.com. Support has been good through the years. I also worry that they will decide to close up some day. I'm a full SMTP/POP3 user. Nothing stays on the ISP. I have all email for past accounts and it still fits on my local drive. I don't keep spam, but most real communications are here. I backup of course but not very often, You never know when a new home computer is needed. This arrangement allows me to view and send email even when the power is out or the ISP has an issue. My wife uses a gmail account and her phone so often yells, alerts me!?, whenever she has an issue. I just check my system and can tell her what the real issue is and perhaps when she might get service back. That frustrates the always on people so much. We get plenty of unscheduled outages here due to bad diggers, traffic accidents that take out hubs, and of course the rare extended power outage.

I have no idea if RR can work for you. I used to self host several services from home but don't now.

Best of luck to you!

My website and pop email is hosted by

I'll look into these. Thanks,

Joe

A blast from the past. I was on RR for some time, decades ago when it was dial-up. They eventually became strange, so I dropped them. So they're back it seems. I'll look into this.

Thanks,

Joe

Necessary. My Dutch is quite limited.

I don't think GoDaddy is any kind of ISP any more.

I'll look into Antagonist.

Thanks,

Joe

Mail.com and GMX.com have such similar web sites that I wouldn't doubt they are the same company (or closely related).

Both support POP3 and IMAP access -- along with "web mail".

The "pro tip" is to pick an email address and then create aliases that map to that address, "publishing" these while keeping the original "account" address closely held. The aliases (10?) can be freely destroyed and new ones created -- though each new one must be unique within the chosen domain (I think they offer ~100 different domains)

Obviously, a "deleted" address can never be used again...

I have *zero* spam. I dispose of an address when I want to block those I've given it to from contacting me (e.g., using it much like a temporary/disposable email -- like for a business that decides it would like to "keep in touch" with you just because you were foolish enough to provide an email address for them to use in contacting you).

I don't think they allow you to create your own domain. But, there are others that will service a domain of your own creation (Zohomail?)

Most, if not all, web hosting providers also provide email service. If you're already paying for web hosting and/or a domain name, you probably already have "free" email service.

I have about 10 computers which share the same email address. I could see managing 2 or 3 shared accounts, but not 10. I'm currently using IMAP4 and encrypting anything important with GPG4win:

If email security is an issue, I suggest you look into encrypted email. I helped setup encrypted email using Proton Mail

For email, I've been using ionos.com (formerly 1&1.com) for about 30 years for a few domain registrations and a few webmail accounts.

Suggestion: You're asking in an electronic design newsgroup. You might do better asking in a group, mailing list or forum that deals with internet related questions.

Set up a machine as your email relay. Then, connect to *it* for each of your computers. Don't "save" anything on any of your client machines. In that way, everything resides in one place. (You can get a little 10W, headless box for that purpose as it doesn't take much to handle mail).

I do this for usenet as it also allows that "agent" to sort through posts BEFORE I (as a client) see them to sort out the cruft.

These are usually more difficult to use as getting end-to-end encryption requires using a special client. Tutanota also offers a similar service (as do others).

A paranoid client wanted me to send/receive encrypted mail out of (misplaced) fear someone would snoop on his "secrets". I walked away from the job as communication shouldn't be that tedious as to *discourage* it!

Note that the name registration is a separate issue from hosting. You can register a domain name and have someone else host whatever services you want. There, the issue is how well they will protect the domain from the expected threats and trash.

You also don't need to register a domain to have a machine accessible from The Internet. Though many ISP EULAs prohibit activities associated with "running a server". This is usually imposed to limit traffic (which is all they typically provide).

Good idea but it has a problem. At some point, I need to archive all my incoming and outgoing email in one place. That's easy enough from a desktop, which is always connected to the archive server via Ethernet or wi-fi, but not so easy with portable devices such as phones, tablets and laptops. I attempted to do this in the past with bad results. One misconfigured MUA (mail user agent) and the archive is partly or totally lost. Adding an email relay solves part of the problem, but also increases complexity. Adding encryption (gpg4win) creates complications, such as having to approve forwarding encrypted email or re-encrypting it. Such as system can be made to function, but I question whether it will be reliable and usable by mere mortals and paying customers.

I thought we were discussing email, not Usenet. Those are two different nightmares.

Thanks. They're now called Tuta.

Hebrew mysticism had it first:

That was the reason for all the encryption I mentioned. We were working on a product where public disclosure on a web site or Internet forum could have invalidated key patents. Nobody wanted to risk a leak.

Incidentally, the worst potential leak having someone dig through the waste or recycling bin for printed or copied documents. We looked at printer security and decided that it was impossible with the available tools. We bought shredders for those who needed one, but effective use was minimal.

Let the email relay do that as a periodic task -- as *it* already has copies of everything. The problem with multiple mail clients is that each wants to think it is the SOLE client. If, instead, the email relay acts as the "agent", then any client can access any message (inbox or sent).

Of course! The more functionality included, the greater the complexity. But, you can "hide" that complexity from average users with a suitable "agent".

Same set of issues regarding accessing messages and your replies to them. My "USENET agent" hides the details of where (within my little domain) I am reading and posting. *It* looks like the sole client. And, to my "real" clients, looks like the USENET server (ES). So, I can kill off a thread on one client (because that is done in the client) and still access it from another.

Getting people to "do something different" is always a problem. "Why can't I just...?"

This was MY attitude towards the aforementioned project that "wanted" all of this security. Especially when you want to deal with a group that has to "conspire" on the project: "Bob, your email is coming through in plaintext..."

I have a little "mailing list" manager that we use to share information about our projects. A script fetches incoming mail to a public mailbox, authenticates the originator (in case the address is ever leaked or discovered) and then forwards the message to the members of the list.

I originally designed it as an alternative to USENET-style groups as it gives "shared moderation" privileges to everyone on the list (if you disapprove of a post, you can retro-moderate it; the consequences being a consistent offender is eventually removed from the list!)

Of course, not necessary when the folks on the list are all working towards a shared goal.

We've considered a "live chat" application (with or without video) but that forces everyone to have a common time when getting together would be convenient. I long ago got rid of my business phone because people had the annoying habit of wanting to talk to me when I wanted to sleep or run errands! (How rude, eh? :> )

Eschew paper. Bigger screens! Someday, I'll buy a large tablet for the sole purpose of reading documents at full size.

Nowadays, you can markup most documents without altering the originals. And, share those marked-up forms.

More to look into.

Thanks,

Joe

That does seem common.

I'm far smaller scale.

Yeah. Proton Mail may not do POP3.

I had not heard of ionos.

Well, I know the SED bunch, but I'm not an IT expert, so while I don't mind the abuse I'd likely get in those dedicated newsgroups, it's not likely to pay off - too much chaff.

Thanks,

Joe

Interesting, but frightening.

Joe

Check out Teksavvy.

TekSavvy is Canada only and does not provide service in USA.