this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Technology

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US Email Providers - Other then Google, MS, Apple, ... (beehaw.org)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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I need to change ISPs and need to find a new email provider. This time I want to move to my own domain which I purchased through Namecheap and I do not want to use another ISP's email system nor do I want to use Google, or Microsoft since I am Linux (and Android too) based. I would like this to be US based or at least have a strong US presence so obvious choices like Proton Mail, Mailfence, and Mailbox.org are out. I would prefer it interoperate well with FOSS software too, I use Thunderbird and K-9 Mail for example. Also so want them to be trustworthy, have good security, and have good OpSec with respect to their their servers and service.

After looking I find three I am considering and they are quite different:

  • Fastmail. Long history. No PGP support but they do have their own domains one can use also.
  • Namecheap Private Email. Uses Ox App Suite, may support PGP, and quite new. I think you have to have your own domain (not sure).
  • Forward Email (forwardemail.net). A forwarder with IMAP support. You supply the webmail if you want webmail, but otherwise it should work fine with IMAP and normal clients.

So questions:

  • Any thoughts and experience, pros and cons with the above 3.
  • Other better ideas.

So thoughts? Thanks.

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[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thanks. Great ideas. Had not considered the web issue. I actually have a VPS for other things at Linode. I could just add my new ".net" domain to that and setup something. Let rest is fine. We are transitioning over the next 6 months and hope to not change for a long time after that. So we have time to get this correct.

I also have mail setup in my VPS for other reasons so I do understand mail basics. Including SPF etc. Never really had any delivery issues but I do not use it generally. I think my old domain which I have had for 5 years has a fine reputation. Good point about the one I just purchased. Just do not want to move my general mail there or commit to setting it up and worse maintaining the multiple VPS systems needed to really do mail correctly. That is, I would want to have at least two incoming SMTP servers in two different data centers then maybe separate IMAP server too that they route to. Then there is the webmail client and locking it all down. Cost and worse yet effort and time mount up and it's not a one time deal. Not something my wife could do and not me 20 years from now.

[–] scsi@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

To your multiple IMAP concept, I have been using isync / mbsync (name change, package isync in Debian) for years running via cron script to pull email from one domain at one provider and push it to a subfolder of another domain at another provider. You have to be aware of one specific gotcha but it's otherwise been working all by itself forever without issues. Take note of the PipeLineDepth 1 for IMAP service providers which throttle your speed, I have to use it on the destination side provider config.

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks. Interesting.

Just FYI, I was talking multiple SMTP servers not IMAP servers. If I did it, I would have 2 public facing SMTP servers which would then route to an internal SMTP server probably with a single IMAP server. The routing would probably be over a private link not a public one and the final server would present only IMAP publically. Really reduces attack surface.