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Email Comments, Questions and Miscellaneous Share your opinion of the email service you're using. Post general email questions and discussions that don't fit elsewhere.

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Old 31 Mar 2019, 02:35 AM   #31
WheelDeal
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
So you won't do business with companies that have American investors?
Not necessarily--indeed, I'm American! Still, there's nothing wrong with the judicious exercise of caution; I've learned the hard way that reality is often not as it seems.

Quote:
Originally Posted by InquiringMind View Post
WheelDeal here is an excerpt from Fastmail...
Oh, yes, I know Fastmail has a good reputation. I'll consider them when it becomes clearer how they've weathered the current furor over Australia's new encryption laws.
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Old 31 Mar 2019, 09:21 AM   #32
TenFour
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WheelDeal, not sure exactly what would make you trust a particular email provider. I think the best you can do is go with a big enough one that you know things will get reported long before they impact you personally. There are lots of very small outfits that in some cases are run by just a handful of people. No matter what they claim, no one knows what goes on behind the scenes. On the other hand, you are guaranteed that something like Fastmail, Gmail, or Outlook is being probed, prodded, and tested every day. IMHO the biggest danger for most of us is not government snooping but instead plain old hackery looking to steal our information in order to log into our bank accounts, etc. The other big danger is that a service will have major bugs or outages due to inadequate infrastructure. Which again argues for going with a large, well-tested provider.
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Old 31 Mar 2019, 11:02 AM   #33
WheelDeal
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TenFour - Yes, I agree.

Is Kolab considered a "larger" operation? What about Runbox?

Last edited by WheelDeal : 31 Mar 2019 at 12:04 PM.
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Old 31 Mar 2019, 04:45 PM   #34
InquiringMind
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Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
... I think the best you can do is go with a big enough one that you know things will get reported long before they impact you personally. There are lots of very small outfits that in some cases are run by just a handful of people. No matter what they claim, no one knows what goes on behind the scenes. On the other hand, you are guaranteed that something like Fastmail, Gmail, or Outlook is being probed, prodded, and tested every day. IMHO the biggest danger for most of us is not government snooping but instead plain old hackery looking to steal our information in order to log into our bank accounts, etc. The other big danger is that a service will have major bugs or outages due to inadequate infrastructure. Which again argues for going with a large, well-tested provider.
Keep in mind that there are more than 7 billion people on this planet and while not all of them have email, many have more than one and nearly every business and org has many as well. Even the most sophisticated snoop programs would have great difficulty monitoring everything like Mr. Finch's Machine. So they screen for key words and phrases. Encrypted services are more "suspect" by the programs that search for terror keywords and phrases, than simply using PGP on your computer and your recipient's. Also, if you are not using OTF encryption on your hard disk like employees of Hospitals and Medical Insurance companies, your computer is a much bigger hack target than your email service with their support staff and multiple servers and connections.

Here is the bottom line. If you are concerned about someone reading your email, you and your contacts should learn how to use GPG, OTF disk encryption, and use any email service that is reliable. Trusting anyone other than yourself to provide your security is a gamble and is also more likely to make you the focus of the very attention you might not want.

I agree with TenFour. Identity theft by hackers or having your emails held ransom is a much bigger threat for the average person. But I do agree with you WheelDeal that I do not like the idea of a service skimming through my emails to sell my info. So that is why I avoid services who have a prior history of doing that. I have never had that problem with the ones I have written about.

I hope that you can find a good solution for yourself, even if it means buying a domain and setting up your own mail server.

HTH
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Old 31 Mar 2019, 09:13 PM   #35
TenFour
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I do not like the idea of a service skimming through my emails to sell my info.
The problem is that even if a service claims they don't do that you have no way of knowing, or even worse someone could be reading your emails at the company! What do you think about going to the business versions of the biggies: G Suite and Office 365? They claim there is no scanning for advertising purposes, have more robust security, have real customer service, and provide many other great services. For about the same price as many small providers Microsoft's Business Essentials ($50 per year) provides a 50GB inbox, 1TB of OneDrive storage, online versions of the office programs, and lots of other perks. You can use one or more domains with it.
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Old 1 Apr 2019, 03:51 AM   #36
InquiringMind
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The problem is that even if a service claims they don't do that you have no way of knowing, or even worse someone could be reading your emails at the company! What do you think about going to the business versions of the biggies: G Suite and Office 365? They claim there is no scanning for advertising purposes, have more robust security, have real customer service, and provide many other great services. For about the same price as many small providers Microsoft's Business Essentials ($50 per year) provides a 50GB inbox, 1TB of OneDrive storage, online versions of the office programs, and lots of other perks. You can use one or more domains with it.
A very good point and an excellent idea.

1. The price for the service would have to be within your budget. These services tend to be pricey even for a small business configuration.

2. You would have to read the user agreement before and every time they update it to make sure that they are not slipping in some fine print that negates all of the bold face type about not snooping.

Everyone will state that they must respond to valid legal process. Sometimes that can be an unintended wrecking ball.

Years ago, one of the athletic shoe companies was involved in some class action suit initiated by some greedy selfish people. In these things the principles and the attorney get the lions' share and everyone else gets a gift certificate. But since this was a Federal Civil suit, the dimwits published a list of all of the potential awardees (whether they responded or not) in the court documents which were published in a Federal publication which went out everywhere including to prisons with sex offenders. Some of these folks reading in the prison law library decided in their twisted minds that women who wear sneakers must all be young, pretty, shapely, and just eager to meet convicts. Some of the inmates started sending unsollicited letters to the women in the Federal publication which contained their addresses. Isn't this just what the folks who originated the idea of "Public Record" wanted? Uh, no! But this is one of the many bad consequences of public record which is a part of the legal process which may be part of a civil disclosure that you want no part of.

Something to consider.
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Old 2 Apr 2019, 01:47 AM   #37
TenFour
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Has anyone tried The X Y Z? Looks like a Canadian version of Fastmail in some ways.
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Old 2 Apr 2019, 04:31 AM   #38
InquiringMind
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Has anyone tried The X Y Z? Looks like a Canadian version of Fastmail in some ways.
You have a good eye for this.
The prices seem good. They have multiple data centers. Been in business for a while (based on their website info).

They offer to call you back if you need them to for tech support. Fastmail does not do callbacks or take incoming calls.

Looks promising.
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Old 2 Apr 2019, 04:35 AM   #39
janusz
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
Has anyone tried The X Y Z? .
Stupid forum settings, cannot use the proper name
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Old 2 Apr 2019, 01:11 PM   #40
EricG
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Stupid forum settings, cannot use the proper name
Can't link to ******?
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Old 2 Apr 2019, 09:12 PM   #41
TenFour
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Try this: https://bit.ly/2uEAN3N. Or you can type in the word "the" and the ending "xyz" with no spaces and that's the URL. Here's a link to a page where they compare themselves to other paid email services, including Fastmail https://bit.ly/2JYWdDw

Last edited by TenFour : 2 Apr 2019 at 09:19 PM.
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Old 4 Apr 2019, 06:13 AM   #42
chickadee
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I, too, would like "user" feedback on The XYZ email service. Hasn't anyone on this forum tried it?

Bill (n5bb), if you have time, would you please visit the Web site of this email service and give us your (very) educated opinion. Thanks in advance.
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Old 4 Apr 2019, 03:57 PM   #43
edu
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Originally Posted by chickadee View Post
I, too, would like "user" feedback on The XYZ email service. Hasn't anyone on this forum tried it?

Bill (n5bb), if you have time, would you please visit the Web site of this email service and give us your (very) educated opinion. Thanks in advance.
Can't they afford to pay a certificate?. They use in webmail Let's Encrypt...
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Old 4 Apr 2019, 09:01 PM   #44
TenFour
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Can't they afford to pay a certificate?. They use in webmail Let's Encrypt...
You mean unlike this forum that doesn't use a security certificate? So you use their webmail apparently?
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Old 5 Apr 2019, 06:04 AM   #45
edu
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You mean unlike this forum that doesn't use a security certificate? So you use their webmail apparently?
It's obvious what I mean. A great company and they use a free SSL certificate?. It's not something I see every day.
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