E-Mail Host

One of the things that I take into account before changing ISPs is the 'pain' associated with changing my e-mail address. I am considering paying for an e-mail host ( rather than using Yahoo, Googlemail etc). Online reviews of e-mail hosting providers are are very hard to find. Personal recommendations would therefore be greatly appreciated. I should add that this is for personal use only and I would prefer a provider that offers both POP and IMAP at a reasonable cost. My present ISP only offers POP and very long e-mail addresses!

I use http://www.verygoodemail.com/

Are you thinking about registering and using your own domain name?

And what do you consider "reasonable cost"?

I use this mob (with my own domain also bought through them), had a few issues with reliability when I first started several years ago but no problems since.

If you click the "More details" link in the Instant Mail box you'll see they offer IMAP and POP3, but I don't use IMAP so don't know if it's either or both.

Edited by billford (Fri 16-Aug-13 08:55:36)

If you use POP3 then it would be pointless to use IMAP as well. POP3 (normally) downloads and removes the mail from the provider's systems - so if you then logged in with IMAP there would be nothing to see.

Personally I prefer to use IMAP with my mail clients set to store a copy locally. That way I've got offline access to my mailboxes on each client, can use the provider's webmail to see the entire mailbox when required and if something were to go catastrophically wrong resulting in all my client machines being destroyed there is still a copy of the mailbox contents with the provider. That's not suggesting it as a substitute for keeping good backups, just a useful addition to them.

Edited by deleted (Fri 16-Aug-13 09:09:49)

In reply to a post by GeeTee:

If you use POP3 then it would be pointless to use IMAP as well.

Yes I know, that's why I don't use it.

But, if he should so desire, there's nothing I can see that would would prevent the OP from using POP3 with one email address and IMAP with another, hence my comment.

Ahhh... quite so - I should really get beyond my first cup of tea in the morning before posting

Out of interest, why do you prefer POP3?

In reply to a post by GeeTee:

Ahhh... quite so - I should really get beyond my first cup of tea in the morning before posting

I know the feeling well

Out of interest, why do you prefer POP3?

I'm not entirely sure... partly I suspect it's my reluctance to trust my data to others (eg anything I've got in the cloud is also on either my "live" or backup HDD ) but probably mostly because I just don't really get on with it for some reason

In reply to a post by billford:

I'm not entirely sure... partly I suspect it's my reluctance to trust my data to others (eg anything I've got in the cloud is also on either my "live" or backup HDD ) but probably mostly because I just don't really get on with it for some reason

Fair enough, I also wouldn't trust anything to a "cloud" service if that were the only copy. Anything of any real importance I have stored in at least 3 places locally and additionally regular encrypted backup copies pushed out to a couple of dropbox like services. Probably overkill, but it's mostly automated so all gain no pain (other than getting the automation working in the first place).

Let me sweep up a couple of issues. My current ISP offers POP3 only whereas my previous ISP offered both POP3 and IMAP. Sadly, e-mail was down fair too often for my liking. Currently, we have 4 Apple devices in the house. They are all set to POP3. Previously, I had my IPhone, IPad and Macbook set to IMAP and my main desktop set to POP3 with the same e-mail address. This meant that I could clear all the rubbish off my portable devices at one go but I still had all my e-mails on my main computer.

I note that most e-mail hosts come with a domain. An email address of [email protected] has to be better than my current e-mail address which is @domain.myisp.co.uk.

Thanks for all the inputs.

Not too dissimilar to me- I've got 4 Macs of various descriptions and a couple of old (and rarely used) Windows machines. All of them have more or less identical email setups except that the "secondary" machines are set to leave the mail on the server after reading, the "primary" machine deletes it after a week. The secondary ones also bcc any sent email to one of my other addresses.

So the primary machine has a complete copy of all my mail, but the secondaries don't download everything received since I last used them. It suits me, others may differ

I swear by Tsohost that I've been with for a few years now. Many domains and email for them.

I have used mixed POP3 and IMAP on the same domain there.

Most reputable hosts need you to buy or already have a domain. The only places that offer domains free with mail hosting always look either dodgy or expensive to me. Tsohost domain purchase for .uk domains is very simple, and normally available to use within minutes. Prices reasonable, and you can officially host a minimum of two domains/emails on the cheapest package. (I fiddle more than two, but that's another story).

I'll second this Tsohost suggestion. I moved my domains to them a few months ago and they've been great in every way.

I've also have more than two domains serving email on the cheapest package. As far as I have seen you can serve 2 domains' web content and then add as many additional domains as aliases as you like. An alias domain will only serve the web content of the domain it is aliased to, but you can setup mailboxes upto the limit of the package or mail forwarders and aliases as much as you like. Really handy for just keeping a domain around because of some legacy mail addresses. It was Tso who suggested I do it this way so it's not really a "fiddle" unless you are doing it some other way RobertoS?

Out of interest, do Tsohost's mail servers support SSL encrypted connections?

TsoHosts again, I have 2 domains I only use for email on their lowest cost package.
getting your own domain for email is the first step to being independent of your ISP and having email addresses which never change.

Yes they do on IMAP and SMTP. I don't know about POP as I don't use it.

Why not use a mail forwarding service
I have 2 Macs - a desktop and Laptop and I use Bigfoot.com which is a free a mail forwarding service.
When I change my ISP allI have to to do is log in to my Bigfoot account and change my forwarding address to my new ISP mail account
The big advantage is that no one knows my true email address and I do not have to notify anyone of any changes to my ISP and new email.

Thanks to all for their recommendation to look at TSOHost. So I need a domain - that seems simple enough. What I cannot find is any guidance on how to set up 3 email accounts on Mac OSX/IOS devices. Would the Lite package support this or do I need Standard? If anyone could point me in the right direction for more information then I would be grateful. This is a new adventure for me.

In reply to a post by GeeTee:

Yes they do on IMAP and SMTP.

That's good. Unfortunately a lot of email providers seem not to offer SSL so customers can use "smtp.theirdomain.co.uk" and "pop3.theirdomain.co.uk" without having to purchase a certificate.

SSL also available on POP3.

In reply to a post by lexden16:

Thanks to all for their recommendation to look at TSOHost. So I need a domain - that seems simple enough. What I cannot find is any guidance on how to set up 3 email accounts on Mac OSX/IOS devices. Would the Lite package support this or do I need Standard? If anyone could point me in the right direction for more information then I would be grateful. This is a new adventure for me.

It's there on Lite. Once you have the hosting package and the domain, which you can do in one step, you set up your email accounts. There's a popup, usually at the side of each address, that then gives you the setup details for your email client, including the different settings for SSL or not.

Don't be afraid to email or ring support at any time. The response is normally very quick and very helpful.

Bigfoot.com?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Bigfoot.com?

http://www.bigfoot.net/

LOL
He recommends a host, and gives an incorrect name. Lurvly!

I've been using gmx.com for some time now and am very happy with it. You can use it to poll other email accounts and collect their mail in one place. Uses both pop and imap.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

He recommends a host, and gives an incorrect name. Lurvly!

Bigfoot.net provides Bigfoot.com email addresses - so confusion is easy since Bigfoot.com makes no mention of the email service. Since the logo is the same I assume they are the same company with two very different "products".

I used to use a Bigfoot.com address way back in the day, at which time Bigfoot.com did advertise the email service!

Ah!

Edit - maybe it's run by the CIA.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 16-Aug-13 23:32:45)

I use 123-reg.co.uk for my own domain and email forwarding. I can forward to my Plusnet email address, a gmail a/c and a BTinternet,com address. I pay a few pounds each year for this facility.

123-reg also offer an email service, I don't use it as the above a/cs are foc.

Ahhh - yes that is always a problem with shared hosting of any kind due to shared IP addresses.

To be clear on the Tsohosting cloud and cpanel shared hosting SSL is available for mail but either:
a. You configure your email client to use their hostnames (mail.tsohost.co.uk or somesuch)
b. You configure your mail client to use mail.yourdomain.co.uk / smtp.yourdomain.co.uk and the first time you send or receive you get a warning about the certificate being for another host (TSO's servers). Most sensible mail clients allow you to review and permanently accept the so called "security exception". Thereafter, no more warnings.

This is unavoidable with shared hosting. It is simply due to how the SSL protocol and cetification works. Let's take a worked example:
1. You configure your email client to send via smtp.yourdomain.co.uk with SSL on port 465 and send a mail
2. Your email client requests a DNS lookup for smtp.yourdomain.co.uk that resolves back to the IP address of TSOhost's mail cluster
3. Your email client connects to that IP on port 465 and asks "Hey, I need an SSL connection. Send me your public key, your preferred encryption method and any certification details."
4. At this point the mail server only knows that a client needs to connect using SSL (in fact at this point the mail processes on the server are not involed, it is just the SSL process) - it has no way of knowing what domain will need to be accessed so can only be configured to return the certification for mail.tsohost...
5. Your mail client throws a warning
6a. You accept the warning and store the exception then carry on
6b. You think GCHQ / NSA / Other nefarious actor is trying to intercept your mail, don a tinfoil hat and become a recluse

Quite simply, email is not secure. Even if you SSL between yourself and your provider there is no guarantee that any further hops toward delivery are under SSL (most MTA to MTA connections are not), even if they are any intermediary hop and the mail servers at each end have the mail in clear text whilst it is being transited and possibly for some time in logs.

If you want to secure the content of your mail use GPG or PGP, but that still won't hide what mail addresses email is passing to and from (commonly known as Signals Intelligence SIGINT).

With PRISM, ECHELON, TEMPORA etc. in place it's pretty much a given that mail contents are being analysed en masse.


Hmmm... how did I get here, went off on a ramble, I blame the beer. SSL for mail will protect your password from being sniffed between you and your provider which is probably what 99.999% of people bother to think about it for. For anything else beyond that...

edit to say - sorry I meant to addendum that ramble with something about how once you look into all that capitalised stuff above you come to the conclusion that email as it is cannot be secured, it was never designed from the outset to be secure and all the sticky plasters of SSL/TLS, ESMTP, S/MIME etc. that have come and gone can't address that - they're like the fool trying to build a castle on sand. Certificated SSL via the likes of Verisign, Thawte, RapidSSL et al. (for web or email) can be easily compromised with the right court order and a MITM (man in the middle) box. We simply have to accept that sending email is like sending a postcard, anyone can read it including the postman and anyone who slips the postman a fiver.

eek - even the edit went off on a ramble, sorry about that. Anyway, if you are at all concerned beyond protecting your password get reading and educate yourself on the decades old question of how to form trust relationships on the internet - many books mave been written on this but still we don't really have a workable solution.

Sleep well citizen.

Edited by deleted (Sat 17-Aug-13 01:56:47)

That actually is interesting.

One thing though - I have several domains with several email addresses on SSL/TLS, hosted by Tsohost, but have never had a certificate warning.

What email client do you use?

And what server details did you configure the accounts with in your client? / Are they configured with if you used the auto-configure utility? (I would guess you used the auto-configure and they are set to use mailX.gridhost.co.uk) - where X is a number.

I'm not trying to start a rush on tinfoil hats, this is just how SSL works on shared hosting.

GeeTee - fascinating stuff. Thank you for such a comprehensive and helpful response. I shall look carefully at TSOHost.

Thunderbird. The auto-config can be a nuisance, but it is possible to use it then make strategic alterations if necessary before saving the configuration.

Depending which of their hosting servers you are on, it can default to non-SSL. Unless they've now corrected that server. The non-SSL system allows mail.mydomain, the SSL ones uses their full server name, of the form username@jupiter.servers.rbl-mer.misp.co.uk.