2010-02-15

Wanted: unsyndicated web mail service - say Google Mail and you're dead

A few days ago, I woke up to the fact that Google has become yet another MSN. The stupid opt-out policy of their latest gadget, Google Buzz, means that I can no longer entrust Google with anything.

In case it wasn't obvious to the idiots at Google, no, I do not want every single person that ever sent me a random e-mail to suddenly get automated access to whatever on-line content I'm producing; I want to choose who will get access to what and be able to change my mind about what any particular individual will get access to at any given time. Most of all, I want this to be opt-in by default. That is, unless I explicitly enabled access to some specific content to a specific individual, the assumption shall be that nobody has access to anything that I produce. Alas, it seems too much to ask from Google.

So now I'm looking for a reliable no-frills webmail service that is too boring to ever get under the radar of any media content giant. First, it was Hotmail no more, now it's Google no more. I also have another simple request: that the selected e-mail address can include hyphens and periods. If anybody knows of any such simple and reliable on-line webmail service, please drop me a line via this blog article's comments. Thanks!

10 comments:

Anton Marchukov said...

A month ago I also decided that Google is no longer an option for me and migrated my mail to plain old style mail hosting that Gandi offers with each domen name registered with them.

They have webmail available, along with POP3/IMAP/SMTP. Like in old good times. It's not a free, just comes with the domain name that I pay for anyway.

Martin-Éric said...

A, as this wasn't obvious to your anonymous bastard self: Blogger did not start as a Google service.

Tom said...

Gmail :)

Anyways .. most of Buzz problems have been fixed (4 updates in 3 days or something). Bugs happen in Debian too, you know (I know)

SDiZ said...

In case if you are not aware, all google reader shared item and buzz are public. You don't have to "follow" sb to see his item. This is just like tweeter.

Emmanuel Kasper said...

I would advise you to buy a domain name at gandi and use the webmail from gandi, which also as pops/imap access ( as Anton said ) I moved to this setup two weeks ago

you don't get no free luch anymore these days

you can also look for companies providing zimbra hosting, the webmail is excellent

Thomas Koch said...

If I would have known them earlier, I'd probably have taken a mail account from them instead of setting up my own server:

http://immerda.ch/index.php/Portal:immerda

There may be more of that sort in this list:
* so36.net
* aktivix.org
* all2all.be
* alterezo.be
* autistici.org
* blacksec.org
* blogxpopuli.org
* boum.org
* cassiopea.org
* crackedwillow.net
* domainepublic.net
* effraie.org
* espace4you.org
* free.de
* geeknode.org
* globenet.org
* hacklab.dk
* herbesfolles.org
* koumbit.org
* lautre.net
* linefeed.org
* marsupi.mine.nu
* mayfirst.org
* moviments.net
* mutins.net
* nadir.org
* no-log.org
* nodo50.org
* open-web.fr
* poivron.org
* puscii.nl
* rezo.net
* riseup.net
* samizdat.net
* sindominio.net
* squat.net
* systemausfall.org
* systemli.org
* tachanka.org
* toile-libre.org

Unknown said...

I can only recommend http://fastmail.fm/ It is not a free service, but they have a nice feature set and a great web interface.

Unknown said...

I've been using fastmail.fm for a long time and there has never been any problems with them. I truly recommend that you check them out.

Jaanus said...

http://mail.zoho.com/ haven't tried it myself so can't speak about quality or whether it fits your restrictions, but company has got good press.

Unknown said...

Hey - I use Silvermail: http://silvermail.com.au

It's a reliable and fast POP3 webmail client that has been developed entirely in Silverlight. It's really quite light-weight and simple to use - I have my own domain / email address, but it also works as a great alternative to gmail, hotmail and yahoo.

Good luck!