Email provider - recommendations???

robt_2

Dmoz wrote: »

Get a decent domain name (123-reg are the cheapest around) and set it up for mail forwarding to a Gmail account - this way you get brilliant spam filtering (Gmail lets through about 5 spam e-mails into my inbox of the 2400 I receive monthly) as well as easy searching.

Gmail have also just added IMAP which means that you can sync your account with all your different devices eg. mobile phone, outlook and the web interface (which is also top-notch).

Example: I read 3 messages out of 75 new on my mobile phone on the way into work. When I check my account from gmail.com, those 3 messages show up as read, and I only have 72 "unread" messages.

Set up Gmail to spoof the sent by: address to your original (forwarded) e-mail address. This is very easy to do from Gmail's settings section.

Example:

[EMAIL="dmoz@businessdomain.com"]dmoz@businessdomain.com[/EMAIL] forwards to [EMAIL="dmozgmail@gmail.com"]dmozgmail@gmail.com[/EMAIL], where spam is eliminated. If I then want to reply to e-mails, the recipients of the reply see the e-mail as coming from [EMAIL="dmoz@businessdomain.com"]dmoz@businessdomain.com[/EMAIL], even though I sent the e-mail through Gmail.

You can also configure Gmail to work through Outlook using IMAP, meaning you don't even see the adverts on gmail.com (though these can be disabled using Greasemonkey scripts anyway).

FYI I don't work for Gmail

Or you could just use gmail with the domain you buy like I said :rolleyes:

Dmoz

That costs money?

EDIT: Clearly not. Oh well.

digp

webmail.us
everyone.net
luxsci.com
fastmail.fm
tuffmail.com

quidsinquentin

Thanks all for the info. Lots to research now and will get on with it!

Cheers all!

unrich

robt wrote: »

You can use gmail on any pc too. If you prefer, you can use an email program with it instead.

Super, but can you have your own domain name?

robt_2

unrich wrote: »

Super, but can you have your own domain name?

Yes - have a look at http://www.google.com/a/org/

I use it for one of my domains

It isn't difficult to set up either.

markchadwick

It seems that what you want to do is exactly what I am currently doing.

Like most of the posts here, I recommend buying your own domain name (I got mine from 1-2-3 reg for less than £10 if I remember correctly) and using Gmail.

I think what the savvy users here are recommending (but not explicitly explaining) is google's new service called Google Apps For Your Domain (GAppsFYD) which can be used in conjunction with your domain (URL was given in a previous post). What this effectively means is that google handles the "back-end" of the email service for your domain so you get all the benefits of free email, great spam detection, huge storage but don't advertise "I'm using a free email provider" when communicating via email - as your email address is tied to your domain.

The "important" point is that, since google handles the back-end of the email, your gmail account is tied to your domain i.e., someone can email you at say, myname@mydomain.co.uk and gmail will deal with the email on your behalf. You can set this feature up with your domain registration site by changing the MX records and google will provide you with an account managing page to organise your email addresses. This basically hides the fact that your using gmail as your email provider as your email address has the details of your domain - but you get the best of both worlds and still maintain your professional look.

Sorry for the long post, I just thought I'd give my $0.02. If you're still not sure, try searching on https://www.lifehacker.com for GAppsFYD and you should get more details there explaining the whole process.

Hope this helps.

PS. If after some time you decide to move away from gmail (not that you should need to) it would simply be a change of MX records to your new provider and you're done.