[bickfordb]

I think the larger question is why are we all (or most of us?) still using Gmail? Why can't an average person host their own email server with open source software with straightforward security upgrades instead of trusting BigCo or the latest SmallCo?

[gruez]

>Why can't an average person host their own email server with open source software with straightforward security upgrades instead of trusting BigCo or the latest SmallCo?

The average person isn't qualified to administer a server and would rather pay $1/month or whatever for a hosted solution.

[politelemon]

The average person would prefer not to pay at all. Hence free email providers will always exist in some form.

[pa7ch]

I think its fundamentally more difficult to host communications services where spam is possible and there is no auth/contact system in place before first communication can happen.

[bickfordb]

I'm not an expert in this area but from what I understand what was once novel content spam filtering is not at all novel now, there are easily trainable model strategies (BERT?) that get you to 99%.

A whitelist, auth/contact is ideal for messaging without spam and is more workable with a large federated group that can adopt an evolving open source protocol.

[jbaber]

I'm an average person who uses fastmail with a custom domain with a separate registrar. Fastmail does all the right DKIM, DMARC, etc. magic.

And still my mail sometimes goes to spam essentially because it's not "@gmail.com" This is a really real problem that will never go away because everyone in a position to do something about it being so monopolistic cannot understand it.

[doubled112]

Do you mean average person around here? Or average person in general?

Too many unknowns and moving parts.

Have you ever worked with the general public and computers?

The average person was wondering why their wireless router needed cables. They did not update their computers for the entire time they owned them. Somebody else ignores big red text saying this will delete everything and hits next anyway, then wonders where their photo collection has gone.

I cannot believe the average person would be capable of registering a domain and configuring their DNS to point at this simple mail server they’re running.

If somebody else is taking care of all of these parts, I am not sure they’re really hosting it themselves.

Maybe we need a new protocol and we can replace all of this? How do we get everybody on board?

[rolandog]

Especially with all the codified footguns (or the "Tyranny of the Default" — as Steve Gibson would put it) where a lot of critical apps ship with very insecure defaults, and even a seasoned Dev that's an expert on one domain doesn't have time to muddle through the whole of man pages + mail archives + stack overflow threads for every option.

[sys_64738]

Most folk don't know how or don't want to. A mail server is mundane to admin and most folk probably have higher priority things in their lives going on.

[Larrikin]

Is there a self hosted solution that will allow me to back up all my Gmail emails including attachments? Something like paperless but for my old emails.

The constant pestering by Google to buy storage space has started pushing me to deleting everything more then a few years old as a stepping stone to leaving Gmail completely.

[tguvot]

whatever tools that can do imap sync/download and support whatever authentication that google fancies now

[gmerc]

Synology can