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.
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 ;-)
I think the bigger question is if there are any open source webmail apps that can support Gmail-like usage.
Setting up your own mailserver is easy. But getting a gmail-like experience is pretty hard. For example, I tried Roundcube a while back with my full Gmail mail dump. It tried to keep up, but there was just no way it was going to handle 2gb of mail going back years.
I'd love to see something that either ran off of a standard imap server or that was a mail-delivery agent (MDA) that had a gmail-like web interface, complete with full text search.
There's nothing especially secret or noteworthy in my inbox, so I don't really mind if the admin of the server it's stored on can read it. Go ahead, knock yourself out. What I do mind is Google coming up with new features, connect email with social networking, and in the process expose incidental information to my peers; eg. Maro knows X, X said Y on Twitter, how does that reflect on Maro?
so, here's my issues with hosting your own mail. it's probably the most difficult common internet service in the world to maintain. there are a litany of sysadmin tasks you must take care of before you even begin with the really tricky problems. the main reason is that e-mail is arguably the most critical of services. you can't afford to miss a critical e-mail, so its imperative it be incredibly robust and fault tolerant.
first you have to set up redundant hosts. preferably on different backbones in different colos, unless a majority of your gear is in one place. next you set up the software as secure as you can so there is a minimum window for 0-days and patching can be done in scheduled maintenance windows. then you set up your monitoring to notify you when something goes south, on both hosts. things like queue size checkers and threshold-based statistic alerts are handy.
next you set up your spam filtering. THIS IS HARD. i don't care what any old salty dog mail admin tells you, it is an arduous process to properly manage the filtering and blocking and unblocking etc of mail. for a small site, getting aol or yahoo to unblock your ip range may be a great feat. for a large site, 90% of your traffic will be spam and getting every legitimate mail is nearly impossible without subjecting your users to tons of crap.
the cost in money and time just to host some free webmail yourself is astronomical in comparison to putting up with an ad and a possible privacy violation from a free provider like yahoo or gmail. if you want your mail handled properly, pay a big e-mail provider to host it for you, or spend a lot moree time and money to do the same thing yourself.
One big downside is that spam filters are very agressive these days. It can be a huge PITA getting your mail through, even when you've gone through the trouble of setting up domain keys and spf records and submitting the appropriate forms. Some providers, like hotmail, will silently drop emails, too.
There are also plenty of open source desktop IMAP clients; I personally strongly prefer clients like mutt or sylpheed over webmail interfaces. with ssh, I can even look at my mail from anywhere.
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.)
I've only been a customer of FastMail since August, but I strongly echo alaithea's recommendation.
I use the web interface for preview and POP to Eudora for the real thing. Pretty much total satisfaction. You also get space for a static web site and file sharing. Pay enough (but not much) and you can use your own domains.
I'm using Fastmail to host email on my own domain (you can redirect MX records to them or just use their DNS servers).
I read email mostly in Thunderbird via IMAP.
At the end of the day your own domain is what you really want - you can host it on Fastmail or Google, and if any of them screw up you can move on to other hosting provider or to your own server.
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.
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).
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).
...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.
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.
Do you have any impressions or, perhaps better, specific experiences with their approach to / respect for security and privacy? (Or, does anyone who happens to read this?)
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.
Google has announced their intention to bring Buzz to Google Apps. The nice thing is that as a Google Apps administrator, you can pick and choose which features/products are available to your users (ie, you). So even if they do make Buzz available to Google Apps Gmail, you don't have to enable it.
Of course, you can just turn it off in regular ol' Gmail as well.
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.
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.
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!!
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.
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
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?
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...
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.
[+] [-] jdietrich|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rufugee|16 years ago|reply
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 ;-)
[+] [-] mbreese|16 years ago|reply
Setting up your own mailserver is easy. But getting a gmail-like experience is pretty hard. For example, I tried Roundcube a while back with my full Gmail mail dump. It tried to keep up, but there was just no way it was going to handle 2gb of mail going back years.
I'd love to see something that either ran off of a standard imap server or that was a mail-delivery agent (MDA) that had a gmail-like web interface, complete with full text search.
I haven't found anything like that yet.
[+] [-] Maro|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterwwillis|16 years ago|reply
first you have to set up redundant hosts. preferably on different backbones in different colos, unless a majority of your gear is in one place. next you set up the software as secure as you can so there is a minimum window for 0-days and patching can be done in scheduled maintenance windows. then you set up your monitoring to notify you when something goes south, on both hosts. things like queue size checkers and threshold-based statistic alerts are handy.
next you set up your spam filtering. THIS IS HARD. i don't care what any old salty dog mail admin tells you, it is an arduous process to properly manage the filtering and blocking and unblocking etc of mail. for a small site, getting aol or yahoo to unblock your ip range may be a great feat. for a large site, 90% of your traffic will be spam and getting every legitimate mail is nearly impossible without subjecting your users to tons of crap.
the cost in money and time just to host some free webmail yourself is astronomical in comparison to putting up with an ad and a possible privacy violation from a free provider like yahoo or gmail. if you want your mail handled properly, pay a big e-mail provider to host it for you, or spend a lot moree time and money to do the same thing yourself.
[+] [-] carbon8|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrduncan|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ori_b|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] est|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grumpyfart|16 years ago|reply
Do you have time to manage and keep your server secure? Can you patch a new 0day in an hour, possibly not.
On the other hand when men-in-black asks to Google yes they might give it away, which is another story.
[+] [-] alaithea|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hga|16 years ago|reply
I use the web interface for preview and POP to Eudora for the real thing. Pretty much total satisfaction. You also get space for a static web site and file sharing. Pay enough (but not much) and you can use your own domains.
[+] [-] DenisM|16 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] vl|16 years ago|reply
At the end of the day your own domain is what you really want - you can host it on Fastmail or Google, and if any of them screw up you can move on to other hosting provider or to your own server.
[+] [-] kmt|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] euroclydon|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Maro|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcantor|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Maro|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vimalg2|16 years ago|reply
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|16 years ago|reply
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|16 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] andrewtj|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmkg|16 years ago|reply
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|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falsestprophet|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pasbesoin|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CoryMathews|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaksel|16 years ago|reply
+ I doubt they'd be stupid enough to bring buzz to their business users.
[+] [-] simonk|16 years ago|reply
Edit: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-buzz-com...
[+] [-] al3x|16 years ago|reply
Of course, you can just turn it off in regular ol' Gmail as well.
[+] [-] jonknee|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uptown|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rapind|16 years ago|reply
I love 90% of googles products so don't assume this is flame / bashing.
[+] [-] nfnaaron|16 years ago|reply
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|16 years ago|reply
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|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superjared|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datums|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrmxyzptlk|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intranation|16 years ago|reply
Their web interface isn't anything special, but at least it's proper IMAP so you can use whichever desktop client you like.
[+] [-] blender|16 years ago|reply
Cheers
[+] [-] davidedicillo|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaporstun|16 years ago|reply
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|16 years ago|reply
I have about 50 google accounts and use my regular gmail this way...
[+] [-] cnouri|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tybris|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sahaj|16 years ago|reply