Fastmail: Still Viable, but in danger

[ChinaLamb]

Fastmail is still a viable service in today's market, but that viability is getting more and more precarious. Please see the following blog post... Anti Google sentiment could still drive fastmail user growth.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/20...ail-moving.php

Yet, this blogger clearly states that fastmail could only be a temporary option until he finds something that also has calendaring.

Likewise, Fastmail is reviewed as a great "no frills" service.

http://free-email-services-review.to...il-review.html

Now, I take issue with the concept that fastmail is "no frills" as they offer many features difficult to find elsewhere. Yet, the review points people to another service offering calendaring and other contact sync. options.

I am approaching 10 years with fastmail, but technological needs are creating increasing pressure to look at alternatives.

[Terry]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

Fastmail is still a viable service in today's market, but that viability is getting more and more precarious.

Now, I take issue with the concept that fastmail is "no frills" as they offer many features difficult to find elsewhere. Yet, the review points people to another service offering calendaring and other contact sync. options.

To be honest I think sometimes they have blinkers on as they now seem hell bent in giving us something that we don't really need, like the new Beta U.I. I would have thought after 10 or 12 years we would at least had some sort of calendar and a few smilies...

In the old days F/m was buzzing and you only had to come on here to see what was new and what was being developed....Also we use to work with the f/m team, we tried tested and evaluated new things and some special features were developed with the help of the forum users, now some of f/m team don't even come on to say Hi, so in a way I feel a little bit let down.

If I had my way I would just use the very old U.I but I know one day they will do away with this so I have forced myself to use the current one...
My local ISP as an Ajax email U.I and to be honest I never use them because I'm not an Ajax fan, I'm an old Fastmail U.I fan...

[sundr]

Back in the web 2.0 days when online apps were new and hot I wanted an FM calendar as well but now I don't find it important anymore. I'm not even sure I would use it if they had one. I just want FM to be a great mail provider. They shall get the new interface ready and improve adress sync.

[BritTim]

As I have posted in the past,

• Contacts sync (especially with mobile devices) is a critical urgent requirement. Much as I like FM, I am steering new clients to other options until I see evidence of such support coming.
• I would be interested in a calendaring solution that was integrated in a useful way with incoming and outgoing emails. However, I do not want FM spending time building a standalone calendar app just as a checklist item. This would provide no useful functionality that is not already available in other ways.

I really hope FM comes through on contacts sync.

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by Terry

In the old days F/m was buzzing and you only had to come on here to see what was new and what was being developed....Also we use to work with the f/m team, we tried tested and evaluated new things and some special features were developed with the help of the forum users, now some of f/m team don't even come on to say Hi, so in a way I feel a little bit let down

I share your feelings. For example, last visit of Rob was in January.
Since Opera took over, this went downhill. Seen this before, the bigger the company, the larger the distance to us, users. I had high expectations in the takeover by Opera, but what has it achieved so far? OK, a lot maybe behind the scenes, but beneficial for us users; very, very little.

[drew]

Don't they respond fast on MyOpera forum?
I have not checked but would they not answer questions
from us Fastmail users there? Or do they keep that separation
strictly or are they flexible?

I could take a look but I usually drown in much text so I just say
this as a suggestion to try to see what happens.

I only use mail.myopera.com daily now as my main mail service
for forum and such. Fastmail I use for private emails to friends
not for forums due to me only a Guest with 25MB. Myopera has
GB for free. So huge difference. myopera works fast so like it.

But I am almost never visit the community and forum of Opera
due to my unfortunate accident with failure creating a blog.

So maybe I have a too naive view on Opera. Would be sad if they
failed to keep Fastmail going as they planned.

[the bishop]

Syncing contacts you say?
Fastmail will surely deliver. Let's just wait. skeleton.jpg

[Peekay]

As FastMail states in there FAQ section, “We’re much more concerned with adding more features, than making everything pretty.”

Now that really did make me laugh.

[Mystakill]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

Likewise, Fastmail is reviewed as a great "no frills" service.

http://free-email-services-review.to...il-review.html

Now, I take issue with the concept that fastmail is "no frills" as they offer many features difficult to find elsewhere. Yet, the review points people to another service offering calendaring and other contact sync. options.

My issue with FM isn't that it's "no frills", as we know it's not. My issue is that FM isn't *adding* any frills; in fact, they seem hell-bent on removing most of the existing frills in order to dumb it down to the level of Gmail (but still minus the calendaring, tasks, and syncing, of course).

[splustest]

Originally Posted by Terry

If I had my way I would just use the very old U.I but I know one day they will do away with this so I have forced myself to use the current one...
My local ISP as an Ajax email U.I and to be honest I never use them because I'm not an Ajax fan, I'm an old Fastmail U.I fan...

;

Likewise, sort of, I still refuse to use the new U.I. The old U.I was EXACTLY the reason we went with Fastmail (the other features didn't hurt), but if it wasn't for the old U.I, we never would have chosen Fastmail. If I was looking for an email provider today and had to use the new U.I, I would be looking at other options more seriously.

[SethM]

Originally Posted by splustest

;

Likewise, sort of, I still refuse to use the new U.I. The old U.I was EXACTLY the reason we went with Fastmail (the other features didn't hurt), but if it wasn't for the old U.I, we never would have chosen Fastmail. If I was looking for an email provider today and had to use the new U.I, I would be looking at other options more seriously.

I have customers that still love to use SquirrelMail in spite of its advanced age and distinct lack of web 2.0 that an increasing number of people want (or are forced to want by web developers?). I occasionally get mocked for having it, but hey, it gets used so whatever. I dunno, I'm not a web developer, although I am guilty of adding jQuery into the next major update of my control panel because it's getting too cluttered and confusing.

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by splustest

;

Likewise, sort of, I still refuse to use the new U.I. The old U.I was EXACTLY the reason we went with Fastmail (the other features didn't hurt), but if it wasn't for the old U.I, we never would have chosen Fastmail. If I was looking for an email provider today and had to use the new U.I, I would be looking at other options more seriously.

IMO the new Ajax interface was never meant for us Fastmailers. Opera wanted an e-mail client (+ infrastructure) for their MyOpera community. That's why they bought FastMail. If this had not happened, then the FastMail people certainly had laid priorities differently.
BTW, personally I have nothing against the new AJAX interface.

[splustest]

Originally Posted by SethM

I have customers that still love to use SquirrelMail in spite of its advanced age and distinct lack of web 2.0 that an increasing number of people want (or are forced to want by web developers?). I occasionally get mocked for having it, but hey, it gets used so whatever. I dunno, I'm not a web developer, although I am guilty of adding jQuery into the next major update of my control panel because it's getting too cluttered and confusing.

I'm not familiar with SquirrelMail. And I'm not sure if when I talk about the old U.I what I am really referring to. When I say "old U.I", I mean the old.fastmail.fm or whatever interface. Actually, I was generally happy with "elm" (Unix text email). I could do things I wanted with it to manage large amounts of email. It didn't have graphic capabilities (had to save .jpg files, etc, and view them separately), but its mail manipulation capabilities did what I wanted and quickly with few keystrokes. I actually have email folders saved from probably 20 years ago in unix mbox format saved on CDs somewhere.

Noway (never say never I suppose, but) I will ever have a Gmail account. Don't trust them and don't wear tinfoil hats so just best to avoid them to be safe... Always hate it when I see "Connecting to *Google*anything when I visit a web page. One of these days I'll work on setting up a proxy to intercept that garbage. (And will never have a Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, or any other such type account. Hate it when even my cellphone "tells" me it could "do me a favor" if I turn on GPS capability. Bad enough they can still grossly track me via cell towers. Privacy as we knew it really doesn't exist anymore.)

[SethM]

Originally Posted by splustest

I'm not familiar with SquirrelMail. And I'm not sure if when I talk about the old U.I what I am really referring to. When I say "old U.I", I mean the old.fastmail.fm or whatever interface. Actually, I was generally happy with "elm" (Unix text email). I could do things I wanted with it to manage large amounts of email. It didn't have graphic capabilities (had to save .jpg files, etc, and view them separately), but its mail manipulation capabilities did what I wanted and quickly with few keystrokes. I actually have email folders saved from probably 20 years ago in unix mbox format saved on CDs somewhere.

SquirrelMail is just an old school HTML-only webmail client that basically looks like 1999-2000 HTML. It's just my reference to something old that still works and gets the job done without frills. During my first ISP job as tech support I always had a terminal window with "pine" open and I was happy with it. Most everyone else used Outlook and I had to use it as well for the support@ box since the company sanctioned access for that was a shared access POP3 "never delete from server" thing.

[splustest]

Originally Posted by SethM

SquirrelMail is just an old school HTML-only webmail client that basically looks like 1999-2000 HTML. It's just my reference to something old that still works and gets the job done without frills. During my first ISP job as tech support I always had a terminal window with "pine" open and I was happy with it. Most everyone else used Outlook and I had to use it as well for the support@ box since the company sanctioned access for that was a shared access POP3 "never delete from server" thing.

Yup. People told me I should upgrade from elm to pine... Considered it but was laid off 3-4 years later before I could convince myself to change (not related to "that", but maybe my attitude?????) LOL? I'll stop using the internet if I have to use Outlook - really - I'll write my own application how ever long it takes to communicate via the web with my family without using Outlook, phones still work. I even remember "party lines" and the days when ATT (no matter how expensive they were) actually provided support and fixed things quickly. Of course with software and firmware, things are probably not as simple as a "broken wire" now.

In the end, even though my career has been high technology, it just feels as though technology has been usurped by advertising, sales, marketing, whatever - all those things that interfere with the actual productivity/advancement/improvement of our limited time on this ball of rock.